Can you mock something and approve of it at the same time? This photo depicts Neils Schaumann, President and Dean of the California Western School of Law, petting a dog. The photo appears on the "events calendar" of the California Western School of Law site and is meant to promote the school's Student and Diversity Services' "Law Dogs on Campus" event on April 15th. The California Western site urges law students to "[t]ake a finals study break and spend some quality time with trained therapy dogs."
I think this is a good idea. Therapy dogs have proven their value in providing comfort to persons suffering from anxiety or post-traumatic stress. The dogs selected to be trained as therapy dogs have particularly patient and affectionate dispositions, as the picture illustrates. Though, given that the animal depicted on the left is a fourth-tier law school dean, it is to be hoped that the animal on the right has recently gorged on beef liver and suffers from a temporarily inflamed bowel.
I expect that the California Western law students will get stress relief from petting these dogs, just as promised. So congratulations, without irony, to California Western Law School Student and Diversity Services for hosting a worthwhile event.
The dogs don't care that California Western School of Law is a bottom-of-the-barrel law school, one of the 57 out of 201 ABA accredited schools that US News & World Report did not bother to rank.
The dogs don't care that the average graduate of the California Western School of Law is carrying an incredible law school related debt of $167,867, which is the second highest debt level among the 201 ABA accredited schools-- a debt level calculation, incidentally, that excludes undergraduate educational debt, and interest accrued thereon. [1]
The dogs don't care that the employment prospects of California Western law grads are dismal. Only 40.3% of the graduating class of 2012 obtained bar-required, full-time, long-term, non-solo jobs within nine months of graduation, and only 36.5% obtained such jobs in 2011. For both years, California Western's placement record was among the 40 worst of the 201 accredited law schools. [2]
The dogs don't care that California has had a severe and recurring budget crisis for several years, so that the chances of a recent law grad obtaining a state public sector job remain worse there than elsewhere, which is saying a lot. Indeed, out of the 568 total members of California Western's graduating classes of 2011 and 2012, a mere 33 obtained a full-time judicial clerkship (at any level) or a full-time government job within nine months of graduation. [3]
The dogs don't care that California has an unusually difficult bar exam.
The dogs don't care, but these points combined are likely to have a catastrophic impact on a graduating California Western law student's prospects in the human world.
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notes and links.
1. Edged out only by Thomas Jefferson School of Law, whose students graduate to a law school debt load of $168,800, and even worse job prospects than California Western's. Oh, San Diego, where is thy shame!
2. http://www.lstscorereports.com/?r=other# (2012)
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