Why is AU building such a large law school, given the job market?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps the new law school size is not unreasonable. People do lots of different things with law degrees, and AU-WCL is in the Nation's Capital, which is a draw for students.

All the lawyers from the Rest of the Country move here too, though. Everyone in DC is already a lawyer. There aren't jobs for all these poor third-tier grads.

+1. Good article on this: http://abovethelaw.com/2015/05/we-would-be-better-off-if-30-law-schools-closed/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to WCL, and I enjoyed it and think it prepared me well.
But this shit is just stupid. Moving to tenleytown was a good idea because student and faculty retention was affected by the distance from the metro. But law students need classrooms with lights and outlets, and that is about it. I will never give them any money because they clearly can't spend it wisely.

Agree 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to WCL, and I enjoyed it and think it prepared me well.
But this shit is just stupid. Moving to tenleytown was a good idea because student and faculty retention was affected by the distance from the metro. But law students need classrooms with lights and outlets, and that is about it. I will never give them any money because they clearly can't spend it wisely.

Agree 100%

Yes +1. My WCL friends tend to live in other parts of NW so the trek from Dupont or Columbia Heights is a royal pain, especially with crappy bus and Metro service to an isolated campus on the Maryland state line.

However, PP nailed it with "edifice complex". My European colleagues are stunned at the luxuries and extravagance that have become status quo on American campuses both at the undergrad and graduate levels. State of the art buildings, flat screen TVs in dorm lounges, rock climbing walls, luxury gyms and over the top, round the clock gourmet meal options in dining halls, to name a few. Add in a small army of diversity deans, administrators extracurricular advisers and other busybodies making $60k+ a year and yet people wonder why college costs are off the charts. A recent study said that the number of these support staff at the undergrad level nationwide has just about doubled since the early 90s. I wonder if the same is true for law schools and other graduate programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even a Georgetown Law the bottom half of the class often struggles to find good jobs. I know many recent graduates who were out of work for 6 months or even more after passing the bar. Some of them do an LLM program or temp legal work. Why anyone would want to waste 3 years and 150k to do document review is just beyond me. I'd rather be a Barista at Starbucks.

Well, some JDs with debt do work as Baristas at Starbucks...

The cream rises to the top and quality sells. If someone is an editor on law review, they should have no trouble getting a good law job.

How very elitist of you, sir or ma'am. Of course the top students do well. But don't you think that if a law school admits a student they owe them some realistic shot a good employment, even if they aren't on law review or Order of the Coif?

As long as the students are realistic about their expectations, yes. Not everyone can go to big law, but unless they have a burning desire to be a prosecutor, public defender, or some other public interest work, all 1Ls expect to be the special snowflake that succeeds academically, interviews well, and performs well on the job that makes them $160K a year, even with all of the ABA required disclosures about employment statistics on the school website. The students also don't really understand how law school's grade and how painful a curve can be (even if it's an inflated one.)

--former lawyer who detoured to career services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This subject could easily be in the real estate and education/college forums, but I'll ask it here. AU is building an enormous law school campus on the equivalent of several city blocks in Tenleytown. The current enrollment of Washington College of Law is about 1650 students, and the new campus is being built to educate 2000 students. The expanded enrollment is larger than the entire population of some selective liberal arts colleges. Why is AU/WCL expanding to this extent, when the current job market for new law graduates, including AU grads, is not great? And the long term prospects are even bleaker, with anticipated structural shifts in the legal services industry.

Because the concrete's already been poured, contracts signed. What should they do, abandon it? the industry will turn around, like it always does.