NYT on Law School Economics

By J. DeVoy

Just weeks before the bar exam, the New York Times craps all over the nonsensical economics of legal education.  Based on the Times’ research, US News rankings play a surprisingly large role – and one much larger than the relevance such rankings actually have in practice. (“Oh, you went to Vanderbilt instead of Boalt? I’m not even going to bother replying to your opposition. Guffaw!” /sarcasm.)

While the anti-law school undercurrent has been building for years (see Randazza’s post from 2009), this represents one of its deeper treatments.  Moreover, it’s one of the few inquiries into the law school market failure made by a news outlet of national predominance.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 4:11 am and is filed under economy, legal education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to NYT on Law School Economics

  1. Sahri says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    Carl and I had a hearty laugh over that article on Sunday. I think my favorite part is the discussion of money spent on “education”. One of the interviewees joked that they could burn a pile of cash in the middle of the campus and their ranking would spike.

    Carl’s feelings about law school and its economic prospects: ” I would pay my son to play video games in the basement before I would pay for law school.” and that was before this article came out.