Application Stagnation: Skimming off the top of the 0L pool

Usually underdog/protest/scam blogs have bad news to report, as that is (regretfully) the nature of our situation. After all, if things were good, there would be no need to write about them very much, and little impetus to read of them either. The sorrow caused by the ScamDeans and the Professors like Prof. Tammy Piety/Privity/Charity—whatever the Sillygoose's name is—normally provides enough material (i.e. injustice) for us to address and leaves little time for other things. Sometimes, however, good news happens. 

For several years now we have seen declining enrollments by 0L's. Law School Tuition Bubble has more graphs and numbers for your perusal, but the short answer is that the number of LSAT takers in the year 2013 have declined down to the number of takers in the year 2001. That is important, and unlike the Skool's contempt of criticism, it cannot be ignored. After twelve years, the legal education complex has now not got a single more LSAT taker. Stagnation, dude! It sux. This is bigger news than one might realize, because in the last twelve years nineteen (19) lovely new law schools have opened—but not a single additional applicant in the pool. It is not just applicants, but actual enrolled stupents (I mean, students) are also in decline, as reflected in the lower LSAT takers. After all, the fewer LSAT takers, the fewer 1L's. What strikes the observer as the most interesting two points to take from this is that:

1) the better qualified students are the ones who are no longer enrolling in law school (schools are forced to reduce 1L seats in order to maintain LSAT & grade point averages), and 

2) the scambloggers are the ones significantly responsible (i.e., deserve credit) for this diminution of number and quality.

These two things are not breaking news and have been discussed already but they deserve a mention here. True, the economy is a factor, but not as much as one might think; normally, when the economy tanks, enrollments go up, because going to school is a refuge from the free market. After all, a lecture from any Professor Dumbledumb is the same regardless of the weather outside or the stock market or corporate earnings reports.

This is good news, but not yet a completely victory, of course. It is extremely difficult to stop a system as large and well-funded as the Legal Education business. More than even money, the social cred that law schools have—had—was immense, they were respected as routes for intelligent people to get good jobs as attorneys, judges, and politicians. The only bad rep was that lawyers were considered untrustworthy, and law school was a sort of 'liar school', but still, it got money and jobs to those who wanted them, so it had street cred enough. Money talks. But that was then, O scamdeans! Now, the veil is off the ugly face of law school. The cred, the source of their main power—public opinion—is being eaten away, year by year, a couple fewer LSAT takers every day. Power is a more delicate thing than many realize; it can be lost much, much more quickly than it can be gained. The bigger they are . . . 

I talk of Law Schools being a system, because that is what they really are. The legal educational system is more than a group of individuals, for if one ScamDean resigned, another ScamAssistantDean would take his place almost immediately. We can't directly stop the Department of Education from giving out student loans without any oversight, or shut the schools down, or even convince most 0L's from attending. Not yet, at least. But what can be done is already being done, and has been done to a good extent: scare away the best. The total dum-dums, or their inverse equivalent, the high-IQ-high-self-esteem idiots, (a.k.a., "special snowflakes") may be unstoppable as far as telling the truth to them goes. They will enroll anyway. But we can hit the marginals, the ones who think twice before signing on the "I will pay back all my loans even though I am not even receiving most of the money directly and I have no question to ask about this arrangement because I do not think about things that matter, making my own effective IQ about zero, despite any good grades or test scores I might have had in the past to prove that I am very very smart in theory" dotted line. 

Notice how heavy cream in the store costs more than regular; and regular costs more than half-and-half; and whole milk costs more than skim. The early scambloggers have skimmed right off the top of the fresh milk, taking much of the valuable cream with them, and leaving the watery curds for the Scam Deans. It remains to be seen whether this skimming will continue as the system tries to lower its standards, at the risk of losing ranking (in the short term at least: and the ScamDeans are indeed vulnerable in the short term since rankings come out every year. Lolz!), or having a declining bar passage rate. Several anti-system people are anticipating the closure of the weaker law schools, although it remains to be seen whether this will hurt the system or not. The closure of a few law schools will ease up on the pressure of the remainder; at the same time, however, it will break much of the still-substantial social cred that the schools have left. People will see the schools close, and that will skim even more cream than even one-hundred blogs being typed-up by a hundred roid-rage-filled scambloggers could. Who wants to bet on a declining proposition? 

Even just a few school closures will break the back of the law school-gives-you-lots-of-money-after-graduate-and-my-friends-told-me-I-am-good-at-arguing-so-that-means-Supreme-Court-for-me mythology. Also, any fraud conviction in the pending law suits is also a big threat to the System; although they will be able to claim it was just one or two fourth tier skoolls that did the scam, and the big boys will wash their hands of it faster than Herod does in a Mel Gibson movie; the mere association of FRAUD—law schools being sued by their own students—will smash the system's social cred further. Being cannabilized by your own alums in the courthouse down the road from your own school: It's bad for business, dude. In all, the law school system and its ScamDeans and Professor Dumbledums will find themselves is as comfortable a social position as Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

So odds are that the "scam blogs" do work, and are working, and will probably continue to work, as we continue to steal the butter out of the Valvoline Dean's fridge. We should almost feel sorry for them: we will take so much cream, even Poor Professor Plurality will have to take her coffee black. And she worked hard for that cup; why, she even paid her dues.
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Read my book-length satire/exposé of law school, Smarter Than Socrates: The End of the Law School Era.