Activism

I want to support the idea of activism mentioned in prior posts and comments.  Prof. Campos, Tamanaha, and the wider media coverage have helped to draw attention to the law school scam.  However, the only way to avoid these revelations fading into the anonymity of the endless news-cycle-loop and blogosphere junkyard is through a coordinated and sustained effort.  Our effort to write posts about various current events within the scam, including reporting on the opposition, helps to keep us informed. 

Here are some other thoughts:

1) The idea of well-placed information and fliers in law schools and undergraduate libraries is excellent -- provided that it becomes a consistent project.  It makes the scam message impossible to ignore.  By bringing it to the youngest students before they apply to law school, it helps to counteract the empty slogans that those kids have heard throughout their lives about educational debt being "good debt" and more education/degrees/credentials always being a good thing.  It also may draw them to Inside the Law School Scam and to this blog.  In the law schools themselves, it may help to encourage disillusioned 1Ls to get out early before they build up substantially more debt.

2) A coordinated campaign to educate pre-law counselors would help to spread the message as well.  A concise cover letter and fliers may help.  As previously mentioned, alumni will have the most credibility with delivering the message.  My prelaw counselor loved me, and she would at least take my concerns seriously.  I am sure many of you will have credibility with your own counselors.

3) Do we have any artists that could help create a catchy logo for fliers?  I think Outside the Law School Scam should become more than just a perceptive blog: it should become a movement.  Creative visual artists, if you feel inspired, please show us what you’ve got!  Perhaps someone could design a logo with a carnival barker dressed in judicial robes leading a line of 1L lemmings into a circus tent with a "Law School" sign and a caption saying, "There's a sucker born every minute."  (I am sure that other people could come up with much better ideas).

4) We could start to reveal truths only discussed in rumors.  For example, everyone talks about scholarship sections, where the law schools offer a large amount of scholarships to a large percentage of students but make the scholarships contingent on maintaining a minimum law school GPA.  These scholarships are supposed to entice students with the highest LSAT scores into attending.  Then, the law school places the majority of these students into one section and waits for the curve to weed out a large portion of the scholarships.

It would not be difficult to prove these trends.  If we could get 1Ls at schools to pass out a two-question survey to fellow students, we could get solid numbers.  Question 1: Did the law school offer you a scholarship contingent on maintaining a minimum GPA? Question 2: What section are you in?

If we could reveal a trend amongst law schools, or even just bust one law school at a time, we could blow the lid off of this story.

5) The First Department in New York, when affirming the dismissal of the New York Law School case, mentioned that they found the manipulation of employment and salary data troublesome but that such complaints were best left to ethics committees.  Similarly, a few voices, including a recent law review article by Ben Trachtenberg, discuss the specific ethical violations perpetrated by the administrators of 99% of law schools.

Is anyone up for signing onto ethics complaints against dishonest law school administrators who still perpetuate fake employment data despite the reform efforts?  These efforts will keep the law school scam in the news, regardless of whether the administrators actually end up receiving sanctions.

These are just my thoughts.  Other people will have much better ideas, so let’s hear them!  We are interested!