Shilling me softly

Unemployment, debt, and rock 'n' roll: The lies law schools tell

Legal eagle hopefuls, it's about time everyone stopped lying to you about law school.

Have you ever dreamt of spending long days and nights slaving over the interpretation of near-indecipherable books, only to emerge three years later with an 800-pound gorilla of debt on your back, and absolutely no feasible method in sight to pay it back?

That, my friends, is what graduating with a Juris Doctor (read: law degree) is like in this day and age.

After all, I should know — I have one of those useless pieces of rolled parchment paper, still residing in its place in a trunk at my parents' house, granting me the lofty privilege of practicing law.

As do a staggering number of bushy-tailed fans of American jurisprudence, by the way. And finally, the New York Times had the moxie to call law schools out on their money-swindling ways.

Dubbing the esteemed law degree "a catastrophic investment," the Times dispels the long-held myth of the $160,000 starting salary for any and every law graduate. It also squarely points the finger of blame at higher education oracle U.S. News and World Report, in addition to the American Bar Association (ABA) and the National Association for Law Placement (NALP).

Often viewed as the biblical final word of academic rankings, U.S. News inflates the hopes of jurisprudence scholars with falsely rosy statistics. But U.S. News couldn't lead future lawyers astray without the "trimming" and "finessing" of institution ranking criteria, thanks to the ABA and NALP.

"Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm,” William Henderson of Indiana University, one of many exasperated law professors who are asking the American Bar Association to overhaul the way law schools assess themselves, told the New York Times. “Every time I look at this data, I feel dirty.”

A lawyer who actually feels soiled by lying? Now you know it must be bad.

What do a few fudged rankings here and there matter, anyway? When legal jobs were a dime a dozen, the truth was an inside joke that incensed nary a legal mind.

But with the country's head barely gasping for air above the recession current, the New York Times wrote, "the glut of diplomas, the dearth of jobs and those candy-coated employment statistics have now yielded a crop of furious young lawyers who say they mortgaged their future under false pretenses."

We lawyers and lawyers-to-be could argue all day (which we'd probably find disgustingly enjoyable) about whether or not we were misled in our decision to pursue a legal education. But with student loans valued more than a modest house that can't be dismissed even in bankruptcy, and average salaries falling well below the six-figure mark, there's certainly a lot of beef to debate.

Law school graduates (practicing attorneys or jilted law school expats alike) and lawyer hopefuls, we want to hear from you. Is the legal profession everything you envisioned back when you signed up for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT)? Or has life in law law land been one failed bar exam after another?

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”