Again with the nonsense.
Is DJM simply incapable of honestly looking at the data and understanding what it means? There is no crisis in law. We're doing better than most fields in a recession, just not as well as we were back in 2007.
The *unemployment rate* for lawyers and law grads is much lower than the unemployment rate for workers with only a bachelor's degree and for recent college graduates in liberal arts fields. And the median and mean income for lawyers are much higher.
Because unemployment rates for those who have attended law school are lower than unemployment rates for comparable individuals who have not, the data suggest that attending law school reduces the risk of unemployment. The argument that attending law school causes unemployment or increases the risk of unemployment is implausible.
Default rates for law grads are lower than overall student loan default rats. The same debt repayment options that apply to law grads apply to other educational programs, so the default rate data should be comparable. IBR and extended repayment can't explain the low student loan default rates of law grads *relative* to those of students in other programs. If anything, the default rates for law students should be higher, because they are less likely than undergraduates to enter deferment by continuing their education.
DJM has yet to respond to this in any intelligible way. Same for Tamanaha. To his credit, Campos has actually acknowledged that law school is many people's best option because the economy is even worse elsewhere.
Census Bureau data on unemployment rates for those with professional degrees--not just those working as professionals--shows that the unemployment rates are much lower than for bachelors degrees and labor force participation rates are higher.
There is no crisis, but if we really want to give our students an advantage, we can increase the value of a law degree further by replacing the DJMs of the world with tax or other business law faculty--people who can teach things that high paying employers value.
Here's what I think may be happening.
DJM may genuinely feel guilty because *her* students--the ones who study poverty law--go on to make next to nothing, while she earns $200K+ per year.
However, business law faculty routinely see their former students go on to make more money than the business law professors. Almost all of us know we are paid less than people who do similar work outside academe, while the DJM's are paid far more than they would make anywhere else.
Same for Tamanaha and Campos. They know *their* students are struggling. They know that *they* are not capable of helping them. The only solution they can see is to cut the price.
The rest of us see our students succeed, make plenty of money, think there is no crisis, and think we're in fact underpaid. The data is on our side, but the scam bloggers are no doubt overwhelmed by their own personal experiences.
So lets make everyone happy. DJM & Co. can take pay cuts. We can use the money to increase resources for business law faculty and career placement.
The value of the law degree goes up, student employment prospects improve, costs stay the same, and everyone can get paid around what they think they are worth.
DJM can stop compulsively blogging out of a sense of guilt or a pathological desire for attention. She can spend some time educating those students she claims to care so much about and finding them jobs in poverty law, while explaining IBR to them.
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