https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam ... eckdam.pdfThere are many and better ways other than a standardized test to determine whether a law school believes an applicant can succeed in law school and pass the bar. That is why most law schools consider a range of factors, including academic ability (undergraduate grades, rigor of the undergraduate program,graduate studies), work experience, volunteer or public service, life experience,leadership, challenges overcome, career goals,writing skills,personal motivation, and letters of recommendation.
I do however agree with this but how will you find out if this is true before you admit the student ? Unless it is called experimenting with students' lives.
The easiest way to enforce Standard 501’s requirement that we only admit capable students is to measure how those students we admit perform in the program and on the bar exam.
Harming Diversity, Skewing AdmissionsNeither the current or proposed Standard 503 protects or assists prospective law students. The current and proposed Standard 503 place sharp limits on the development of wise and innovative JD admissions policies. The proposal takes the Council and legal education even further out of line with the norms of other professions and with the broader practice of higher education admissions.It is inconsistent with the Council’s own increasing focus in the Standards on content and outcome measures rather than inputs.“Experimentation Benefits Us All”
http://northwestern.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1617The requirement of a standardized admissions test negatively impacts efforts to diversify the profession.The many law schools attentive to rankings by U.S.News routinely wait list or deny admission to students who the school believes can succeed in the educational program and pass the bar exam. In fact, many of these students’ admission test scores are–in predictive terms–indistinguishable from applicants who are admitted.
You just received your answer, Rank is what they care for the most.
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Lets summarize this topic conversations:
1. Dean Rodriguez speaks about the importance of diversity. However action speaks louder than words.
2. Dean Rodriguez seeks top applicants just like Yale, Stanford, and Harvard and wonders why they aren't applying to law schools.
3. Dean Rodriguez receives his answer but stopped quite short of answering it
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing ... -rodriguez
If I read this correctly, Dean Rodriguez is proposing alternative curriculum offerings and degrees. Certainly that will help some law professors and deans keep their jobs. However, nothing in this article addresses the underlying issues that have resulted in fewer qualified applicants for JD programs and an ever-decreasing number of "JD required" positions available for those that do graduate that offer a reasonable ROI for an ever-increasing cost of the degree.
Over the past two decades, law schools, like much of academia, turned into expensive degree mills funded by a student loan bubble that should have exploded years ago but for the artificial protections granted to educational institutions under the bankruptcy laws. Salaries of law professors, along with tuition, have increased substantially beyond the CPI or any other reasonable baseline measure. Meanwhile, the traditional role of the "junior associate" in law firms has been made nearly obsolete by advances in legal technology and business processes. While there has, for many decades, been a double hump of average salary ranges of new lawyers (i.e., a large group ranging in the current equivalent of $35k - $70k working at small law firms and for the government, and a smaller second group ranging from $120k-$160k working for large firms), following the recession the bottom of the tier rapidly expanded with the increasing ranks of professional document review attorneys paid at the same hourly rates paid to "contract attorneys" 20 years ago. At the same time, the cost of law school has increased something like 300-400%. And let's not forget the role of the ABA in this: requiring x% of the faculty to be full-time on tenure track, maintaining library square footage and hard copy book requirements, and other "status quo" demands that ignore the digital world. This is NOT sustainable!!!
Just over 20 years ago, law schools started using email. In August 2007, a handful of law students came to class with the first version of the iPhone. We can now transfer vast amounts information instantaneously to anyone, anywhere on this planet. While are drowning in data, we have software that can allow one attorney do the job of 100 in a fraction of the time and expense. Providing alternative degrees and non-JD courses to keep deans and tenured law professors employed will not change this path.
We need to have law schools that can affordably educate intelligent, qualified men and women in the law, and train them to become functioning, licensed attorneys who can provide the legal services that we need in the real world. I urge you to focus on coming up with some realistic solutions for that problem.
4. Northwestern law school feels confidence in continue to raise tuition despite low employment rate. Expect a JD to go as up as 70k to 80k per year in the future. You will see bottom tier law schools following top tier law schools in term of tuition increase because guess what ? They setup a great example in the legal academia.Mr. Mandel simply misses the point, and by a mile.
The following tuition rates apply to the 2017-18 academic year and are expected to increase in subsequent years. The Law School prices tuition based on the degree pursued rather than the length of enrollment. Students who graduate early are still responsible for the full tuition amount. Generally, tuition is billed on a semester or quarterly basis.
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/admissi ... d/tuition/
http://www.newsweek.com/pritzker-donati ... ool-386276
As long as we have DOE offering endless loans to help students access to higher education without accountability, there will be higher education institutions that abuse the system. It is called free money. A JD should not cost a quarter of a million. Everyone takes the same bar exam, the only difference is prestige and employment rate from top tier law schools. That shouldn't be the free ticket to rising tuition.According to NU's website JD tuition for 2017-2018 is going to be $61,784. Seems like a steep increase, especially with Pritzker gift and the commitment to make law school more affordable
Thanks To The Recession, Even T14 Law Schools Had To Beg Firms To Hire Their Graduates
http://abovethelaw.com/2017/06/thanks-t ... graduates/