Today's News: Brooklyn Law Unloading Six Buildings

"You have the right to sell: Brooklyn Law to Unload Six Heights Buildings," by Jaime Lutz (The Brooklyn Paper)

Money Quote: "Brooklyn Law School is selling six of its student housing buildings in Brooklyn Heights....[Brooklyn Law President Joan] Wexler, who will soon leave the presidents office to become dean and president emeritus, refused to say why the school is selling off so many residences. 'Thank you so much, and I really don't mean to be rude, but I haven't really got anything else to say,' she said."

*****

"Law Schools Face Facts: Dwindling Enrollment," by Dan Miner (Buffalo Business First)

Money Quote: "'With the cost of law education these days, even if these kids do get jobs, they're certainly not getting the wages they need to pay back the debt and the loans they incurred during law school, although [University of Buffalo] Law grads are luckier than most because tuition is a lot lower,' [Kimberly Georger, an associate at Rupp, Baase, Pfalzgraf, Cunningham & Coppola LLC] said. 'When we bring on summer associates, across the board they talk about how scary it is at school right now. Everybody's nervous. Forget about, 'I'm a lawyer and I'm going to have a great career and make a lot of money.' It's 'Can I pay my bills?' So there's a huge shift in what it means to be a lawyer from days past.'"

*****

"Loans: Kicking Student Borrowers While They are Down,"  by Karen Weise (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

Money Quote: "The U.S. government doesn't charge student borrowers anything to use a host of options to ease the burden of monthly payments. But some unscrupulous companies charge up to $1,600 for the very same help the borrowers could get for free. That's one of the findings of a new report by the National Consumer Law Center examining how debt relief firms prey on student borrowers."

*****

"Taxpayers Pay Millions for Fed Workers Student Loan Relief," by Abby Smith (Zolmax News)

Money Quote: "According to a review of congressional spending records by the non-profit Sunlight Foundation and USA Today, the House of Representatives spent nearly $15 million last year to pay for staffers' student loans. Senate spent around $6 million. Members of Congress are not qualified for the program. Federal agencies spent around $72 million in 2011 to pay down student loans for 10,134 federal workers. Officials have defended the program as a vital benefit that helps the government attract and retain workers. Participants of the program are not protected from increases of interest rate."

*****

"Buyer's Remorse on Student Loans?"  by John Sandman (Main Street)

Money Quote: "In a bad job market, borrowers have struggled across the board, from law school students to beauty school grads, as though these two disparate occupations were on an equal footing. But a May report by Fidelity Investments turned up another benchmark of disillusionment: 39% say they would have done things differently if they knew what it was going to be like to shoulder this financial burden, a 14% increase over findings in 2011."

Belmont Law School Scammers Triumphant.

 

 

(Jeff Kinsler: The man who persuaded the ABA to accredit Belmont, Elon, and Appalachian).

 

The ABA has just granted provisional accreditation to Belmont University School of Law in Nashville, Tennessee. The school did not admit its first class until 2011, and now, a mere two years later, it has joined the ABA's anointed. Here is a smattering of links, facts, and quotes from Belmont honchos. I guess what ties it all together is the following lesson for all would be scammers: It really helps to be, or to employ, a telegenic detail-oriented person with a flair for sounding sincere, confident, and idealistic while spouting baloney. In other words, a Jeff Kinsler.

I. Let Jeff Kinsler Quarterback Your Scam into the End Zone!
 

According to the Nashville Business Journal, Kinsler has been instrumental in obtaining accreditation for two other law school--Appalachian (where he served as Dean from 2005-2007) and Elon University (where he was a Professor of Law and Senior Scholar from 2007 to 2009, and where his salary was $221,800, h/t Third Tier Reality). And now Kinsler has completed an unprecedented trifecta of scam by obtaining accreditation for Belmont, which picked him as its charter Dean in 2009.

 

II. Belmont Honchos Say: There is Desperate Need for More Attorneys in Tennessee.

 

a.  Belmont University Provost Dr. Thomas Burns stated that "Whether the overall national picture has changed, the local picture hasn’t. . . There still is a substantial need as our research indicated for lawyers or legally trained professionals in Middle Tennessee or this region." Similarly, Kinsler asserted that "There’s a big gap in the market here; there’s no question." Kinsler added that the time for a new law school was not just right, it was "overright."

 

However, using data obtained from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a firm called Economic Modeling Specialists (EMS) projected 389 annual law job openings in Tennessee through 2015. (See "The Lawyer Surplus, State by State," NYT, 6/27/2011). Seemingly exceeding the demand for 389 jobs, the three (other) accredited law schools in Tennessee (two of which are in middle Tennessee) graduated 485 new JDs in 2012 (Vanderbilt: 196, University of Memphis: 134, University of Tennessee: 154). And a lot more JDs educated elsewhere, or at non-ABA but locally accredited schools, take the Tennessee bar. Indeed, 676 passed the Tennessee bar in 2012. Now, if 676 newly licensed attorneys were somehow insufficient to fill 389 in-state lawyer job openings, couldn’t the existing schools simply increase the size of their classes? 

b. Here is a good post from Above the Law from 2010, though ultimately misplaced in its optimism. The post is entitled "Someone at the ABA is Aware that New Law Schools Make No Sense," and it quotes a choice bit of scamming nonsense from Kinsler. Kinsler noted that the BLS projected a certain employment growth rate for lawyers from 2008-2018. He then blithely asserted, based on the fact that there was almost no growth in legal employment from 2008-2010, that "Statistics must be assuming that most of [the]...growth will occur between 2011-2018." Another possibility-- that no growth for the first two years of the 10 year projection meant that BLS had overestimated job growth --was confirmed by BLS's subsequent projection of lawyer job openings for 2010-2020, which reflected a significant downward revision from the projection it offered for 2008-2018. Kinsler was criticized for his remark in the ABA Journal, but it did not matter in the end.  

 

III. Belmont  Law is Serious About Ethics (Never Mind its Own Scamming Hype or the Torture-Enthusiast Teaching Constitutional Law).

a. Kinsler asserted that other law schools display "an inadequate concern for ethics, professionalism, and integrity,"  but that Belmont would "tackle. . . head on" these deficiencies by requiring students "to take an ethics or professionalism course each year." (video at 1:04-1:12, 1:43-1:47) In the same vein, Belmont University President Dr. Bob Fisher, stated that "Given the public role of many legal professionals, we believe a vital element of the Belmont Law education will be preparing our students for roles as community leaders and change agents."

b.  On the video linked below, Fisher (whose salary in fiscal 2010 was $862,686), yaps about how Belmont Law will facilitate nobility, justice, fairness, ethics, and self-criticism:

"You know I think law schools and people who become attorneys and judges are so critical to our democracy. We want to be a part of that, of the noble side of the law. We want to have justice and fairness and we think that our commitment as a place. . . that is a Christian University where ethical standards are a big part of what we examine ourselves on all the time, where we strive to do the right thing, and when we don’t we call ourselves on it and say...that’s not who we want to be. We think that kind of environment for attorneys to be. . . will be a wonderful thing."

          (video, 0:19-1:06)

My own view: I do not think even an academic's extraordinary ability to deceive him or herself extends this far. Fisher is not clueless at all about the likely fate of kids who attend Belmont Law or about the windfall that he anticipates that the law school will bring to himself and the rest of his crappy University. In Fisher's pious blather, I detect the smug and contemptuous cynicism of a Madoff becoming teary-eyed over orphans and sick kittens.

c. Belmont Law's big celebrity hire was Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel from 2001-2005 and Attorney General from 2005-2007. Gonzales made himself notorious by "redefining" torture and by deeming provisions in the Geneva Convention to be "quaint" and "obsolete," apparently over the objections of military lawyers. Gonzales also made himself an international laughingstock in April 2007, when he testified in the Senate about his mass firing of US Attorneys. Gonzales used phrases like "I don't recall," or "I don't recall remembering," no less than 64 times during the hearing, causing disgust even among conservative Republican allies of the Bush Administration. According to this post by Prof. Jonathan Turley, no law firm or ranking law school would hire Gonzales, such was his reputation. Even a number of Belmont (nonlaw) professors signed a letter of protest.

d.  On January 20, 2012, the National Lawyers Guild, Tennessee Chapter, staged a small protest against Gonzales in front of the main entrance to Belmont University. The student newspaper, the Belmont Vision, relates that: "During, the protest, the demonstrators were photographed by Dr. Jeff Kinsler, the dean of the Belmont College of Law. He declined to comment officially. . .but a Vision reporter overheard Kinsler later calling the group of "a bunch of aging hippies."" It surprises me that the Dean, no less, photographed and insulted the demonstrators, rather than leaving such unpleasantness to security. Is this smooth-talker so easily rattled by, uh, insolence? Or maybe, at heart, he is just an aging narc.

 

IV. Belmont v. Nashville School of Law: An Instructive Comparison.

Assuming arguendo, and against all evidence and logic, that Tennessee faces an incipient shortage of lawyers necessitating a new ABA-approved law school--why choose Belmont over Nashville School of Law? The latter, unlike Belmont Law, has actually has been around for 100 years. An article by David Segal in the New York Times, part of his great series on the scam, states that Nashville Law's graduates get high marks from local judges. ("For Law Schools, A Price to Play the A.B.A. Way," 12/17/2011).

 

Well, the thing is-- Nashville School of Law charges $5,000 per year and its professors are untenured and part-time. ("[T]uition costs $21,000 — in total, for all four years it takes to complete the degree. The reasons? Nobody has tenure. There are no full-time professors. The library costs $65,000 a year"). Thus, Nashville Law’s model not only defies ABA standards, it threatens the existing model of legal education with the awful specter of a realistic low-cost alternate model, one that does not involve law professors getting rich.

Oh, Belmont Law’s tuition? $34,800/yr. Yes, about double the resident tuition at the University of Tennessee School of Law. Belmont is also surprisingly stingy in awarding scholarships, perhaps on grounds that it cannot routinely discount the price of its educational wares and pay its fabulous President his $862,286 annual due.

V. All the Brain Dead Moguls, Where do They All Come From?

The law school is housed in a new building called the Randall and Sadie Baskin Center, named after the elderly retired insurance mogul (and his wife) who gave Belmont a seven million dollar donation to fund its construction. I am constantly amazed that aged philanthropists, seeking their legacies as well as big tax deductions, give money to law schools. It doesn't take much imagination to think of the good that seven million dollars could have done elsewhere; indeed, could have done in providing legal services to people in need who do not qualify for legal aid. 

And The News Continues

Please feel free to continue the prior post discussion. I'm not trying to squelch the conversation. However, there are some good articles to report so I wanted to get this post up.

*****

"NYU Gives Its Stars Loans for Summer Homes," by Ariel Kaminer and Alain Delaqueriere (New York Times)

Money Quote #1: "'That's getting to be a little too sexy even for me, and I have a good sense of humor about these things,' said Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, a former president of George Washington University who has publicly defended high salaries for professors and university executives. 'That is entertaining, actually. I don't think that's prudent. I don't mind paying someone a robust salary, but I think you have to be able to pass a red-face test.'"

Money Quote #2: "'Universities are tax-exempt to educate students, not help their executives purchase vacation homes," [Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa] said in a statement on Monday. 'It's hard to see how the student with a lifetime of debt benefits from his university leaders' weekend homes in the Hamptons.'"

*****

"Law school graduates have one more hurdle, the bar exam, and an expensive one it is,"  by Diane Knich (The Post & Courier)

Money Quote: "The [Barbir] test-preparation course isn't cheap. Law students, who have been battered in recent years by the crushing student-loan debt and dramatically declining job prospects, must come up with or borrow another $2,500 to $3,000 for the course....The review course is essential....The [bar examination] test covers a great deal of material and [students weren't] exposed to all of it in law school."

"While several law school graduates and representatives from the state's law schools said the Barbri course provides solid preparation for the bar exam, the company's business strategies have recently come under legal scrutiny. Last month, Barbri reached a $9.5 million class-action lawsuit settlement over allegations that it attempted to monopolize the market for bar-exam courses."

See also http://www.barbri-classaction.com/barbri/default.htm for more information.

*****

"Plans for Arlington [Va.] Law School Fall Through," by ARLNow.com 

Money Quote: "In April, the Arlington County Board quietly approved a site plan amendment for the vacant National Gateway building at 3500 and 3550 S. Clark Street, along Jefferson Davis Highway near Potomac Yard. The amendment was granted to allow the office building to be used for educational purposes. Specifically, the building was to be occupied by a new 1,300-student law school, complete with 22 classrooms, a law library, a bookstore, a moot courtroom and a cafe. Since April, however, no construction permits have been issued for the building. InfiLaw System, a Florida-based consortium of independent law schools that was planning to open the new school, now says that plans have fallen through, at least for now. 'The InfiLaw System was exploring opening a law school in Arlington, Virginia,' confirmed Kathy Heldman, the organization's vice president of marketing, via email last night. 'We have decided to put the initiative on hold."

Read the comments to this article if you don't think the message is getting through. Brutal.

*****

"Humanities Committee Sounds an Alarm," by Jennifer Schuessler (New York Times)

Money Quote: "A new national corps of 'master teachers' trained in the humanities and social sciences and increased support for research in 'endangered' liberal arts subjects are among the recommendations of a major report to be delivered on Capitol Hill on Wednesday....it is intended as a rallying cry against the entrenched idea that the humanities and social sciences are luxuries that employment-minded students can ill afford."

Because, after all, you can always go to law school with one of those undergrad degrees, right?

Administrative matters and a small favor needed

After this week's drama, I have a few administrative matters:

1.  New writers are still welcome. If you have a voice and you can commit to some kind of regular level of posting - perhaps twice a month, preferably more - then please email me at outsidethelawschoolscam@gmail.com.  Other bloggers here, please add your email addresses to your posts (if you want to) so that readers can contact you.

2.  If you just have a piece that you want published here, email it over and we'll get it out there for you.  Guest posts are more than welcome.  Same email address, or the email address of your favorite blogger here.

3.  Kind of linked to the above, although I think that TALP had a bit of a hissy fit and should probably have cooled off before quitting, she did make a fair point: we do need participation and help. Whether that's just posting comments, or emailing us leads, or helping out with individual bloggers' projects to get the word out, I'm not entirely sure that this can be an entirely "informational" or "passive" blog, nor was that my intention when getting it up and running.  ITLSS has already done that, and done it very well.  OTLSS was supposed to be the next step, not a copycat blog.  The word needs to be spread, and it's not going to spread itself.  The easy part has already been done by the scamblogs of old - developing the message.  Now it's the hard part, which is spreading the message.  Just relying on Google to pick this blog up doesn't cut it. I don't expect the activism that TALP had hoped for, but I think we can all agree that just reading and nodding our heads in somber agreement without doing more to spread the word outside this blog is far less than we're capable of.

Now the small favor:

I screwed around with the logo by accident, and lost the original while I was trying to add the email contact address to it.  The title now looks messy and off-color and fuzzy.  So put your graphic design skills to work and send us something new.

The image must be 600 pixels wide, must contain the blog name, and must contain the contact email address.  Other than that, go to town and give us something cool and new and fresh.  Anything goes.  I'll post submissions.  Like Google Doodles, we can rotate through them or change them at will.  If you have something seasonal, or weird, or whatever, send it in and we'll get it up.

The End?

Part 1.  Why I’m Quitting

I’m done with scamblogging. It’s not working. And I don’t think it’s the fault of the scambloggers, because some of us have worked hard. It’s everyone else.

Yes, I’m looking at you.

You are not putting any effort into this. Scamblogging will never work if the readers just sit there and have a “meh” reaction to everything we do. From the very start of this blog, all those months ago, there have been so many opportunities to contribute, so many good projects for activism suggested, yet so much utter lethargy and disinterest from everyone involved that it’s been embarrassing. We tried stickers on books, so easy but ignored. We tried getting together and organizing a presence at LSAT tests or law schools, and that was so easy but ignored.  We tried fliers, again so easy but ignored. We tried promoting Con Law, so easy and ignored. Someone had the bright idea of renting a billboard, funding the project via Kickstarter, which was hands down the best idea ever suggested here. But that too was ignored.

And we've tried asking you all time and time again what exactly you would do to help, and we get nothing. Because deep down, that's what you want to do - nothing.

I’m tired of preaching to an audience who doesn’t have the decency to bother lifting a finger to do anything to help. You’ve consistently demonstrated that you’re some of the laziest people ever encountered. You want everyone else to do the hard work for you, and you even want someone else to do the easy work for you.  You want solutions handed to you on a plate. You want reform without actually helping. Well, I’m not playing that shitty little game anymore. You want change? Get it yourself because I’m done wasting my time trying to get it for you.

If even some of the thousands of readers had even shown a little interest in doing something to help themselves, I’d be happy. But nobody gives a fuck to be honest. You all want me and Adam and Dybbuk and RAB to do the heavy lifting on your behalf, and when we suggest things for you to help with, you turn and walk away.

You are a lazy, entitled, foolish group. If this lethargy and feebleness is how you’ve been looking for work and trying to pay your loans off, no wonder you’re in the mess you’re in. You're making everyone look like losers.

And most of the writers here are no different. We have what, fourteen?  Adam works his ass off. Dybbuk works his ass off. RAB works his ass off. There’s a couple (including me) who do what we can, when we can, and then there’s the ten others who literally posted one thing and then disappeared.  Even the majority of the writers can’t be bothered!

So I quit. I’m not spending my time on this issue anymore. Fuck, it doesn’t even affect me. I don’t care how many new lawyers come into the market and fail because it's their loss, not mine. I don’t care how much law school costs because I’m not paying those bills. If people want to go to law school, who cares? Not me anymore, because almost without exception the victims - you - are people who are too lazy to even bother trying to resolve their own problems.

We are facilitators of change, not Messiahs or super heroes. We needed you to help and to be the worker ants who could assist with tiny pieces of the solution. You couldn’t even be bothered to do that.

So do your own work. I'm tired of doing it for such an ungrateful, unmotivated bunch of self-inflicted failures.


Part 2. Why We All Should Quit

I’m not done with activism or writing. I’m going to put my efforts now into something that directly affects me, which is student loan relief. Fuck law school. Nobody else gives a damn about it judging by your lack of interest, so neither do I. I’m going to be selfish and pick an issue that directly will help me instead.

Student loans. That’s where the change will come from. Trying to close law schools or fire professors or change the curriculum, that’s all window dressing. It’s pointless.  We all need to quit this retarded scamblogging and let the schools bloat and gorge and inflate, and then they will burst.

All we’re doing with scamblogging is putting law schools on a diet. They will plateau and continue to exist.  If you want to cause damage to the law schools, let them go wild. Let them have all the students they want and all the debt they want and flood the market, and let the legal profession churn these graduates up and treat them like animals and let the entire system collapse under the weight of its own greed. You'll have massive support from the public for that because people hate lawyers.

That’s the second reason I’m done with scamblogging. I think that at this point, the legal education complex and the legal profession just needs to be free to destroy itself. Scamblogging is slowing that. I want to see the entire disgusting system spectacularly collapse, not just be nipped at by scamblogging. And it will do that if we leave it alone and let it get so big and so disgusting and vile and obese that it just falls to pieces. I want to see hundreds of thousands of unemployed law grads lowering the hourly rates and fighting for business and backstabbing and failing. I want to see millions of lawyers’ practices destroyed by a few greedy lawyers who outsource jobs and work at Schpoonkle and set up automated doc review companies and internet sites where you can get a will written for $5 and a divorce for $10. I want to see biglaw firms collapse. I want to see courthouses full of scum unemployed lawyers clawing for scraps.

Because that is what will drive people away from law schools and make people sit up and listen. Not the bullshit on this blog where people can’t even be bothered to write comments half the time or lift a finger to help themselves.  This blog has warned nobody away from law school.

So that’s why I am done with scamblogging.  It is slowing the inevitable destruction of the profession (and most of the time it doesn't even do that because people ignore it).  And it’s not addressing the real issue, which is student loan reform.

My thanks go out to Adam, Dybbuk and RAB and OTLSS for the work that they are doing. Everyone else – you've had so many chances, and I'm not giving you another.

TASTES GREAT? OR LESS FILLING?

"Two-Year Law School? Don't Rush the Paper Chase," by Martha C. Nussbaum & Charles Wolf (Bloomberg)

An opinion piece arguing that the University of Chicago Law School curriculum model developed a century ago by political science professor Ernst Freund, where law students do not simply learn practical legal skills but also economics, sociology, political theory and philosophy, is a model that is relevant and should continued to be followed in the face of a push today for a two-year practical curriculum. Nussbaum/Wolf argue that students now arrive at law school shackled in undergraduate debt and law schools were slow to offer financial aid because they were sending students out to remunerative careers. Nussbaum/Wolf claim that law school deans are working hard to raise money for scholarship aid that will help them get ahead of the curve so no law school curriculum adjustment is necessary.

Not to surprisingly, Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund distinguished service professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago and Charles Wolf in a University of Chicago law-school graduate and a shareholder at Vedder Price PC in Chicago.

TASTES GREAT!

*****

"OU, Cooley plan helps students earn degree faster,"  By Diana Dillaber Murray (The Oakland Press)

Money Quote: "[Cooley's Auburn Hills campus Associate Dean John] Nussbaumer said no limit has been put on the number of students who will be accepted under the program [whereby a student spends three years at Oakland University plus three years at Cooley Law School and graduates from both in six years instead of the traditional seven years]."

LESS FILLING!

*****

"Will jobs be there for law school grads? Dean defends Indiana Tech's Plans to Open," by Rebecca S. Green (Journal-Gazette)

Money Quote: "Peter Alexander is tired of explaining it. But the question keeps coming up: Why does Indiana need another law school? Alexander is the dean of the newly created law school at Indiana Tech. And after a new set of statistics came out this month, showing again that there are, perhaps, more lawyers than needed, Alexander was again asked about it. He is adamant: It's not about the number of job openings versus the number of law school graduates. It's about the quality of the law school graduate. And Indiana Tech's new law school will turn out high-quality graduates, making them necessities in any market, he said."

At least this reporter put the Indiana Tech dean's feet to the fire, unlike the reporter in the Cooley piece who basically wrote a puffy ad for the school.

*****

"Student Loans are Big Business for Government," by David Jesse (Detroit Free Press)

Money Quote #1: "The U.S. government projects to make more money off student loans this fiscal year than ExxonMobil, Apple, J.P. Morgan Chase or Fannie Mae made on their respective businesses last year, a new analysis shows."

Money Quote #2: "Jonathon Whaley's loan payments suck out about $750 a month from his bank account. The 25-year-old Grand Rapids resident is paying off both federal and private loans. His private loans charge him 4% interest. His federal loans charge him 7%."

"'Because the government has almost ensured anyone who applies will get the loan they need, schools have been able to drive prices up with no concern as to where funding will come from,' Whaley said. 'With prices skyrocketing, students are taking on way more debt than they can handle but have no other option to compete in the modern economy.'"

"Whaley, a compliance manager/attorney at an investment firm in Grand Rapids, took out about $250,000 in loans to finance his education at the University of Dayton and Ave Maria School of Law."

"'I was lucky to fight through a terrible job market and scrape by enough money to make my loans a burden and not a killer. However, I have dozens of friends who are not so lucky.'"

"'The government needs to remove itself from the student loan industries or else it will continue to destroy my generation.'"

*****

"Faltering Economy in China Dims Job Prospects,"  by Keith Bradsher and Sue-Lin Wong (New York Times)

Money Quote: "A record seven million students will graduate from universities and colleges across China in the coming weeks, but their job prospects appear bleak -- the latest sign of a troubled Chinese economy....Graduating seniors at all but a few of China's top universities say that very few people they know are finding jobs -- and that those who did receive offers over the winter were seeing them rescinded as the economy has weakened in recent weeks."

How to be a Scamblogger

I rarely read OutsideTheLawSchoolScam, even though it is far better than anything that the now-defunct "professor" wrote on his blog (where is your beloved professor now that he wrote his book?).

Anyway, there was a fun little article on there called "How to Be a Scamblogger."  I just started reading, and when I got to this part, I could not really get myself to read any further:

or staggering off to a doc review gig in a windowless basement.  If you work at the diner, you will hide from all of your co-workers any details from the last four years of your life.  This is important, otherwise the mark of shame—your law degree—will cause everyone to question your place in the world.  You will become a suspect—Did you get disbarred? Did you even pass the bar?  Are you just dumb?—and you may get fired for being someone other than who they thought you were. 

If you head off to a doc review gig, stop by the Starbucks for your fuel.  You will point and click for eight or ten hours straight while a taskmaster monitors the speed of your progress.  At least the stomach-churning 24-ounce coffee will provide you with a good excuse for a bathroom run.  You will have to run.

First, I don't get the aversion to working in a basement.  Every person who complains about doc review whines about working in a dark basement.  What's so horrible about working in the dark to scambloggers?  First, many probably live in their parents basements.  Others spend so much time blogging and whining on the internet that you can rest assured that they are not outside.  The basement bit has to end.  Nobody feels sorry for a person because they work in the dark.  Plenty of people work in dark places.  I have traveled around the world and have seen some really awful working conditions -- believe me, there are MANY people who would LOVE the opportunity to make $10-30 an hour (whatever doc review pays, and most is well above $10), and be able to live the lifestyle that many scambloggers complain about.  Of course, I ask myself, "how many scambloggers have independently traveled outside of the US?" (Western Europe barely counts, neither does Canada or an all-inclusive in Cancun/Puerto Villarta).  I imagine the number is quite low (especially for those who live on Long Island).

But, I did read further.  A little bit further:

Debt collectors will call.  Let the programmed message go to your voice mail.  Fill out your deferment forms, as you do every six months, and watch your debt continue to increase like one of those national debt counters you see in Times Square. 

Debt collectors should not be calling if you signed up for IBR and stayed current with your payments.  It is when you let your loans go into default that debt collectors will call.

Think.  You know that a ten-dollar-an-hour job 40-hours a week will do nothing but trigger your full student loan payments, and it will cause the state to drop you from Medicaid.

This is ludicrous.  This is why scambloggers do not get much respect from me.  Gross exaggerations.  Below is the IBR chart that states how much you can make and what you need to pay.



Even with a family of 1, you can make $30,000 a year and pay $171 a month.  How is that not manageable?  If you are married, the amounts are more generous.  And if you have children, you are golden.  Of course the "professor" or the anti-law-school kiddos don't mention this tidbit.  Instead, IBR is toted as something devious.  And, if you are single and make $70,000 a year, which is FAR more than $10 an hour, you can STILL pay a cap of $671.

Also, if the writer is so concerned about finances, he/she should not be stopping at Starbucks every morning before work.  This is an obvious mistake when one is living frugally.

If you head off to a doc review gig, stop by the Starbucks for your fuel. 

Everyone knows by now that Starbucks overcharges for coffee.  If this is how you spent your student loans in college/law school you should really consider spending your adult money in a better way.  I used to know law students who would stop at these places every day before school.  If they had just made it at home and brought it with them they would have saved $100's of dollars.  Had they invested or saved that money, or not taken out loans for it in the first place, well, you get the idea.

Mr. Infinity, J.D. is a graduate of a law school in the New York area and is traveling in Egypt, Israel, and The Netherlands before taking the New York Bar exam and moving to the west coast.