Last week, I challenged Jay Conison to provide some data to substantiate his claims that a.) Charlotte School of Law/InfiLaw has some magic formula for identifying students with very low LSATs and poor grades who nevertheless have a reasonable aptitude for the study of law, and, b.) that Charlotte School of Law/InfiLaw has better educational outcomes than other peer law schools with similarly qualified students.
One of the commenters to my post, posting under the name Barry, offered this comment:
“I think that we'll wait a loooong time before he tries to answer this (a much shorter time for him to attempt to BS his way out of this, of course).”
Today, Jay Conison proved Barry right with an incredible post entitled “Black Boxes and Halos.”
Dean Conison really loves this black box metaphor. Last week, he said that “Mr. Frakt’s view rests on model of a law school as just a black box, into which one inputs LSAT scores and outputs bar passage.” After I rebutted this assertion by explaining that my views are much more nuanced, he is now accusing all those who think that entrance credentials of admitted students, attrition rates, bar passage data, employment outcomes, or any other statistical measurement of “inputs or outputs,” have some bearing on the quality of a law school of engaging in over-simplified “black box thinking.”
In this post, Dean Conison once again suggests that Charlotte’s entering class profile (with the lowest LSAT scores of any ABA-accredited school in history) are not “good measures of something important” and “do not necessarily have an unambiguous meaning.” He implies that Charlotte’s low numbers relate to “incoming student diversity” and suggests that LSATs and grades have different predictive values at different schools, implying without stating that Charlotte gets better results from its students with low predictors than other schools. Once again, no data is provided. He also makes an irrelevant reference to the fact that students can take LSAT prep courses and raise their scores, and that we don’t know if this means that the student who achieves a higher score after taking a prep course will actually be a better law student. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Charlotte, like many schools, from counting only the highest LSAT score of an applicant.
Dean Conison also discounts the importance of bar passage and job placement data, which I suppose makes sense when your school is performing so poorly by both measures. He informs us that our black box thinking is causing us to miss “most of what law school is about.” According to Dean Conison, “[l]aw school is all about educating students and transforming them into professionals” which is apparently different in his mind from educating students so they can pass the bar exam and enter the legal profession, preferably with a job.
Dean Conison is right about one thing; he notes that “[a]s lawyers and educators, we are trained to ask questions.” Well, I am a lawyer and educator, and I asked Dean Conison several questions; not surprisingly, he has failed to even attempt to answer any of them. Instead he trots out tired platitudes such as “there are few simple answers to hard questions.” That may be true, but the questions that I asked aren’t hard to answer, it’s just that the answers will be hard to explain away, so Dean Conison has decided that obfuscation and double-speak are the better course of action. In the end, Dean Conison is guilty of precisely what he accuses his critics of: “wishing away so much of what we very much need to know.” Judging from the comments to his post, he is not fooling anyone.
Dean Conison’s black box analogy brings to mind another kind of black box — the flight data recorders that are recovered after an aircraft accident. When Charlotte School of Law and its sister schools finally crash and burn, and InfiLaw is forced to reveal its internal data in response to the subsequent class action lawsuit, what will the data inside the black box say about the cause of InfiLaw’s downfall? Based on Dean Conison’s posts on The Faculty Lounge, one factor that will be difficult to rule out is “pilot error.”
I think Dean Conison's biggest problem is that even taking a "nuanced," qualitative approach and ignoring LSAT scores and bar passage rates altogether, he still offers no evidence other than bare assertion that Charlotte is "transforming [their students] into professionals." He doesn't even offer anecdotal evidence. I found 30yearcharlottelawyer's comment pretty interesting, offering that more nuanced view that Dean Conison calls for, but concluding that the CSL law graduates he or she encounters are overwhelmingly not competent to practice law. I was really hoping Dean Conison would respond to that one.
Dear David,
Why do you bother posting rebuttals to Conison's nonsense? $20 says the only reason he's posting here is because Infilaw wants to try to cancel out as much anti-Infilaw commentary as it can.
Conison has shown no desire to engage (via comments) nor that has he shown any desire to even attempt to answer any questions you posed to him.
Just let it go. The black box bit was filled with so much fail that I doubt anyone with an IQ over 70 bought it.
"Just let it go. The black box bit was filled with so much fail that I doubt anyone with an IQ over 70 bought it."
Sadly, many Charlotte Law students have IQs below 70.
Conison is a coward for not responding to the data challenge.
I agree with Nathan A. These are not exactly the Lincoln-Douglass debates. Conison advocates for no standards, while Frankt advocates for pathetically low standards (145 LSAT). I'd rather Conison run this operation into the ground than Frankt keep it on life support.
At first I came to this site and I was all like:
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/016/978/UiXAker.gif
I read Dean Conison’s 1400 word post. He was all like:
http://memecrunch.com/meme/LAA1/it-s-complicated/image.jpg
Then I saw lots of comments and I was all like:
http://gph.is/19yQDcd
Then I saw that professors who scam students were slamming Conison and I was all like:
http://imgur.com/IByojWq
But those professors were all like:
http://gph.is/1mv3ozy
Then I saw that Frakt had replied and I was all like:
http://gph.is/QEHGwp
Then I realized that Conison was not going to answer the questions posted to him and I was all like:
http://gph.is/1a5JbM4
So now I’m sitting in class all like:
http://giphy.com/gifs/school-simpsons-boring-6eCIoEl1bNJRK
But soon I will be all like:
http://gph.is/1vJg9Ko
So let me leave this for you:
http://gph.is/18GODnL
This is perhaps a bit unfair, but while reading Dean Conison's essay I was strongly reminded of something I had read perhaps 30 years ago and spent a few minutes fiddling on Google to find what it was.
In Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series there is a time when a distant planet aptly named Terminus is seeking the central Empire's assurances that the Empire will step in to protect Terminus upon need from its less civilized bumpkin neighboring planets. The Empire sends one Lord Dorwin to meet with and reassure the government on Terminus. He spend several days doing so and then departs, and the following discussion ensues when the Mayor (Hardin) continues to express doubts about the Empire's willingness to help.
“But then,” interposed Sutt, “how would Mayor Hardin account for Lord Dorwin's assurances of Empire support? They seemed” he shrugged “Well, they seemed satisfactory.”
Hardin threw himself back in the chair. “You know, that's the most interesting part of the whole business. I admit that I thought his Lordship a most consummate donkey when I first met him – but it turned out that he is an accomplished diplomat and a most clever man. I took the liberty of recording all his statements.”
There was a flurry, and Pirenne opened his mouth in horror.
“What of it?” demanded Hardin. “I realize it was a gross breach of hospitality and a thing no so-called gentleman would ever do. Also that if his Lordship had caught on things might have been unpleasant; but he didn't and I have the record and that's that. I took that record, had it copied out, and sent that to Houk for analysis, also.”
Lundin Crast asked, “And where is the analysis?”
“That,” replied Hardin, “is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Houk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications — in short all the goo and dribble — he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out. Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so that you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire.”
Florida Coastal School of Law students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida. If what David Frakt says is true, the school must have some really good teachers.
I know a number of Florida Coastal School of Law students who transferred after their first year to tier one schools in Florida and elsewhere. Based on that, it would be reasonably to infer the school also has some very capable students.
Florida Coastal also has one of the most diverse student bodies of any law school in the country. Readers of this blog are probably aware the school has a #1 ranked moot court team, and I know it shines in other areas as well.
As the Infilaw bashing continues, let's try to keep things in perspective, and give credit where credit is due. I work hard to teach the students who take my classes, and I don't want them thinking they can't succeed because David Frakt says they'll never pass the bar.
Lawman,
What is your statement that "Florida Coastal Law Students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida" based on? Florida Coastal's ABA 509 reports indicate below average first time taker pass rates for 2013, 2012, and 2011.
Are you suggesting that in evaluating Infilaw's post-application decline recruitment policies we should focus on pre-application decline bar pass results?
Former Editor: Note FCLS's 2014 bar results were worse… at a 58% pass rate, it came in 10th of 11 schools with only Ave Maria doing more poorly (56.6%).
Absent these two schools, the average is 76% (including them, 72.7).
Also I'm unsure of the factual basis for (and/or worth of) "one of the most diverse student bodies… in the country", given so many other java joints also claim that THEY have The Best Coffee In The World.
Lawman,
It looks like you are a professor at Florida Coastal.
Whenever everyone sees things differently than you and those in your bubble, you might want to reconsider.
Virtually everyone in the law school world knows that most top schools do not care about moot court. Low ranked schools like Florida Coastal, and more consistently South Texas, do well in moot court because they usually have entire classes devoted to the competition, while higher ranked schools often just throw together a few students a couple weeks before the competition.
Bar passage, while important, is also not the best measure. Some low-ranked schools like Campbell dominate their state in bar passage, even though their students are not the brightest.
More important to students is employment outcomes. While InfiLaw might have a few positive anecdotes to share, the overwhelming majority of InfiLaw students get really poor employment outcomes, a miserable return on their investment.
Can it be true that Lawman does not know the bar pass rate at his own law school? Worse, can it be credibly stated that Lawman posted a false statement about these rates, right here, for all to see?
What I would ask the reactionaries in legal academia to consider is whether spitting at "scam bloggers" when they point out such, shall we say "inconsistencies" with truth, is appropriate. Or, whether every one in legal academia should join in a call for honesty.
At minimum, folks, honesty. At some point, one is tempted to say, "At long last, have you no shame?"
Giffy –
I love it. Especially this one. http://gph.is/QEHGwp Thanks!
Lawman –
I have never criticized the faculty at the InfiLaw schools. Quite to the contrary. And I certainly hope that your students will not be discouraged by anything that I wrote about the general correlation between low LSATs and poor bar passage rates. If they are, there is a simple solution. Ask the FCSL administration to provide some data that would disprove my assertions. Tell President Stone that you need to be able to reassure your sub-145 LSAT students that they really have a decent chance at passing the bar and you need the data to substantiate that. (And that data has to include the number of students who dropped out, flunked out or didn't even bother taking the bar, not just the ones who graduated and took the bar.) Then, when you get the data, pass it on to the rest of us. If I am wrong, I will be happy to admit it. While you are waiting, tell your students that the best thing they can do to enhance their chances of success is to work really, really hard and get good grades in law school.
@ anon, 1:17 pm
I don't think I'd go so far as "false statement", given Lawman qualified it with "historically". If you go back to 2009 (oldest main/July result I could find on FBE's website, which clearly makes it "historical"), FCLS had an 83% whereas the state average was 80.
That's the only one I could find that meets the definition of either "meet or exceed". But it's certainly possible pre-2009 data (which I would now have to categorize as "pre-historically", a specific sub-category of historically) show FCSL students to have exceeded state averages.
2010-2012 their students were hovering a bit below average with essentially 75% each year (state averages 79, 80, 80).
Then in 2013 their July takers dropped significantly to 67% (state average abt 77), then again tanked for 2014 with the above-mentioned 58%.
I also haven't bothered to dump the smaller winter numbers into the mix. Maybe they change things for the better for Lawman's case, too?
"Florida Coastal School of Law students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida."
True or false?
Does the term "historically" mean, to most readers, that we are excluding the past five years? Was that the clear meaning the statement was intended to convey?
Concerned, I appreciate the reluctance to disparage a colleague. (We must allow for the fact that the anonymous poster actually didn't know the bar pass rate, and thus take intent to mislead out of the discussion, but, the truth of an objective statement is something that is fair to assess objectively and the care that must be taken before making such statements is also a fair matter for consideration).
The statement was objectively false. The term "historically" is "used for saying that something has existed or happened for a long time." Let's not go all Conison here.
@ anon, " I appreciate the reluctance to disparage a colleague"
And I appreciate the appreciation, but he's not a colleague.
David Frakt, thank you for your clarification. I agree that we should provide our students with their predicted bar pass rate. Among other things, I think that would help them realize what they need to do to succeed. You are right; most of them need to work really, really hard.
I checked the Florida Bar website. Florida Coastal's bar pass rate was 83% for 2009, 78% for 2010, 74.6% for for 2011, 75.2% for 2012 and, as those providing comments are quick to point out, our rates have really dropped over the last two years. If they were being fair, they would also note that the bar pass rates of other Florida schools have also declined recently.
I still say Florida Coastal has really good teachers. And our students deserve more credit than you are giving them.
I also checked ILRG's website for older results. They report combined summer and winter bar passage results. According to the site, Florida Coastal's combined bar pass rate for 2009 was 73.7% (the average was 74%), for 2008 the school scored 80% (average was 72%), for 2007 the rate was 71.2 % (average was 73%), and for 2006 the rate was 77.3% (average was 76%).
I think the school has been around for about 20 years; I'll see if I can find some data that goes back even further.
Florida Coastal had an 81.9% pass rate on the July 2005 State Bar Examination. In July 2005 its pass rank was first in the State of Florida.
Lawman –
You are completely missing the point of my criticism of FCSL and Charlotte. I have said repeatedly that Florida Coastal and Charlotte at one point were admitting reasonably talented students (153/150/147)and achieving respectable results on the bar exam. But in 2010, the schools started weakening their admission standards. This accelerated dramatically in 2011 and has continued to decline precipitously in the last three entering classes. So the results achieved by students graduating in 2008-12 are essentially meaningless for the current students at these schools because those students who achieved these bar results had significantly higher aptitude for the study of law than the students currently being admitted. The decreases in performance on the bar the last two years is directly attributable to this decrease in student quality. No one is blaming the teaching. But if you are citing these historical statistics to your current students you are giving them false comfort. What you really should do is look at the most recent attrition rate and the most recent bar pass rate and assume that the attrition rate will go up (unless your school also dramatically drops its grading standards) and that bar pass rates will continue to go down. If you run the numbers, it is clear that less than half the students who entered last fall or this fall will complete law school and pass the bar on their first attempt. For the few who do, very few will be able to find a real job as an attorney with a salary sufficient to service their student loans. For students at the bottom of the entering class, the numbers are likely to be far worse. I am quite sure if there was any data at all to rebut this line of argument, InfiLaw would have released it by now.
Lawman
You are reaching, and it is obvious.
As a member of the Florida Coastal faculty (which you imply) do you simply state:
"Florida Coastal School of Law students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida."
without knowing the truth of the statement, and then scramble to find (weak and relatively dated) evidence to support the factual claim?
My goodness. Are you bestowing honor on Florida Coastal by highlighting the declining performance of its students, which was precisely the point of the post above?
Making false statements, and then making the case that Frakt is making for him, doesn't seem logical, practical or wise for you. Perhaps it would be best to concede the point, pony up the information Frakt has requested, or stop arguing this point on this thread.
2005?? Ancient history. We all know that the world in which law schools function has changed dramatically since then and no one can predict if the change is permanent.
No one, to my knowledge, has said that the Florida Coastal faculty or any Infilaw faculty, is unqualified or inferior to those at other low tiered schools. It is the students that is the issue.
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I hate to come to the (limited) defense of FCSL – and I am in near-total support of every point Frakt has made here on FL – but I think Lawman has sustained his burden.
Obviously, the recent bar passage numbers are appalling. And since it's unlikely FCSL is teaching significantly differently, I'm pretty sure this reflects deterioration in class quality. Overall, it's accurate to say that FCSL has historically done pretty well with bar passage, and one assumes they were able to do this with student bodies that were generally less qualified by LSAT and UGPA numbers than Florida's best schools. I think data going back ten years is relevant and indicative of a school's performance (it's just not conclusive, see below). So, I think it's a mistake – and one I would have made myself – to reject Lawman's claim. The real question is how far his claim can carry him.
The problem (and "just saying" alludes to this) is that this overall decent track record doesn't justify current admission practices that seem likely to continue the downward trends of late. Recalling a point Frakt made on an earlier thread, I suppose FCSL would argue that it's entitled to the benefit of the doubt, based on its record of preparing students for the bar, to have a little breathing room during this downturn. I understand that not everyone here agrees anyone should get breathing room, but I agree with Frakt in principle. But I'm not sure there's enough room for the Infilaw schools to reach as deeply into the applicant pool as their investors apparently demand.
Adam
"Anon," you are right, I was using historical data to support my statement about how the school has historically performed. In all forums but one as hostile as this one a bar passage rate of 71.2 %, for example, would be considered as meeting an average rate of was 73%. That's what I meant; we've been about average or above. And the data shows how well we have done. But you are right, 71.2 is 1.8 points lower than 73.
To anyone with a high school education, 81.9 to 77.3 to 71.2 to 80 to 73.7 to 83 to 78 to 74.6 to 75.2 would not be considered "declining performance." If the numbers consistently went down, that would be declining performance. When the numbers go up and down within a small range, the trend is more accurately identified as level, not declining.
"Just saying," you are wrong. Florida Coastal's faculty are as qualified as the faculty at any law school, not just "other lower tiered schools." Do you really think teachers at "lower tiered schools" are not as good as teachers everywhere else? I attended a tier one school and I also taught at one before joining Florida Coastal. The professors at the tier one school published more, but the professors at Florida Coastal are definitely better teachers.
And who are you to say I "can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" when talking about my students? I'll take a student who didn't do well on the LSAT but nonetheless makes it through law school, passes the bar, and makes a great attorney, over one of your students any day.
Do either of you even teach law school? Why don't you tell us where you teach and what the performance numbers are at your school?
"I'll take a student who didn't do well on the LSAT but nonetheless makes it through law school, passes the bar, and makes a great attorney, over one of your students any day."
Sort of a strange emotional appeal to wrap up with. Almost begging to be pummeled with the notion that, even if 60% of FCSL's students do pass the bar, when fewer than 1/3 of FCSL's students get lawyer jobs (2012 and 2013), the student fitting your description is unfortunately all too rare. Even rarer than that when you consider attrition; some ~ 250 students entering in 2010 failed to graduate in 2013; hopefully the majority of these were transfers…
In any event, I wish them the best of luck.
As for the FCSL faculty, it should be thoroughly reviewed and with pleasure by those who argue one of the problems with legal education is schools packed with professors wholly ignorant of the realities of the profession. I don't think I've quite seen such a depth and breadth of legal practice experience anywhere else.
Lawman
Ok. You are doubling down.
I based conclusions about the accuracy of your statement that "“Florida Coastal School of Law students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida" on YOUR COMMENT, to wit:
"I checked the Florida Bar website. Florida Coastal's bar pass rate was 83% for 2009, 78% for 2010, 74.6% for for 2011, 75.2% for 2012 and, as those providing comments are quick to point out, our rates have really dropped over the last two years."
As noted by another comment: “FCLS's 2014 bar results were worse… at a 58% pass rate, it came in 10th of 11 schools with only Ave Maria doing more poorly (56.6%). Absent these two schools, the average is 76% (including them, 72.7).”
These are declining results, which has been, as noted above, the point of this thread. To deny this, and to quibble at this point to defend your false statement does not bestow honor on Florida Coastal.
And, you have the temerity to insult the intelligence of the commentators on this site, and claim that this statement was accurate:
“Florida Coastal School of Law students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida."
Had you added, "but for the last five years …" perhaps no one would have notices or quibbled with your bravado. But, as is, you made a flat factual statement that was demonstrably false, and now you are contending that pointing that out indicates a low level of intelligence. "Hostility" to a misleading statement apparently made without knowledge of the truth? Well, yes. Quite so. In another context, one suspects you might feel the same way.
As is, one can only shudder at the thought that you consider yourself to be an expert in educating. Your posts here have been an embarrassment, not enlightening. It may be that your students would benefit more from a bit more humility and honesty, and a forthright admission of error when appropriate, it seems to this observer. Your arrogant response is sort of shame and does not indicate the temperament of a seeker of knowledge and truth.
A bit more facts, for the record, from the comments above:
"2010-2012 their students were hovering a bit below average with essentially 75% each year (state averages 79, 80, 80).
Then in 2013 their July takers dropped significantly to 67% (state average abt 77), then again tanked for 2014 with the above-mentioned 58%."
No way that it was accurate to state categorically and without qualification: "“Florida Coastal School of Law students have historically met or exceeded the average bar pass rate in Florida."
Given the obviously declining pass rates, coming in well below the state average, to claim otherwise is sort of inexplicable and, frankly, bizarre. Students (and those seeking the position of Dean) may need to accept brow beating from the Florida Coastal folks in their effort to obfuscate, but not here.
Lawman,
Thank you for explaining the years you are referring to when you indicated a historic rate "meeting or exceeding" Florida's rate and that what you mean by "meet" is "be within a few points of" rather than "equal", which is how I initially read your comment. I apologize if that initial reading seems "hostile" but the recent history of law school information disclosure has lead me to read most assertions with a skeptical eye. After all, that is what the courts indicated that prospective law students ought have been doing all along. For the record, I agree with Adam, and disagree with anon, that we should not read any duplicity into your statement.
Thank you also for, indirectly, answering my second question as to whether, in the context of the discussion surrounding Dean Conison and Prof. Frankt's posts, bar pass rates that are "historic" in the sense of representing the first half of the prior decade are relevant. It seems that you believe that they are. I also agree with Adam that, while not totally without some value, those indicators don't really inform the discussion, which has been about the recent practices of Infilaw schools, which you seem to admit have not gone well in terms of bar passage . I hope that we can renew this discussion two or three years from now, when Prof. Frankt's predictions about the most recently admitted classes are fully put to the test.
Also, for the record, I agree with you that criticism of the faculties of Infilaw schools in particular neither all that fair or that productive. My understanding of how things work in those schools is that shared faculty governance, to the extent that it exists, is minimal and probably plays little role in your admissions policies. I applaud your willingness to defend your students and your teaching ability. The fact that you are still in this discussion and that you went to find the data to support your position speaks very well of you as an educator.
This is in response to David Frakt's comment:
The points I was making were directed to some of the commenters on this blog, not you. I think their hostility to the faculty, and disparagement of the students at Florida Coastal, is unjustified and unproductive, and reflects poorly on the educational community.
"Anon" is proving to be a good example of what I am referring to. He or she didn't answer my questions or respond to the points I made. He is quibbling with my choice of words, in a particularly nasty way, for his own purposes.
I think it should be noted that anyone can post comments on this blog, not just legal educators. We are all familiar with the proliferation of blogs by bitter, entitled law students disparaging the institutions they attended.
I suspect some of those bloggers also post on this site.
"bitter, entitled law students disparaging the institutions they attended"
Entitled? Really?
Lawman
It is funny that, you post anonymously, and then complain that "anyone" can post on this site, claiming to be whomever they choose.
FE: I went out of the way to say that I did not attribute any duplicity to Lawman's misrepresentation. I pointed out that it was obvious that he only went to check the "facts" (he still doesn't accurately report those facts) after challenged, and thus, he made a false statement with disregard for the truth (just as bad, perhaps).
It was only after Lawman doubled down, after seeing the comments, and stuck to the bogus assertion that something more than just a mistake seemed clear. This, combined with conflating those comments that disparaged the students with those that called out yet another seeming effort to obfuscate negative results, seemed remarkable in this context, and deserving of some strong criticism.
Now, Lawman is flailing around and failing to convincingly defend this statement that Florida Coastal has met or exceeded the state bar pass rates "historically" (which meant, according to the dictionary, exactly what any reader would have reasonably believed it meant, and what Lawman obviously intended it to convey, as we now know). First, he lashes out in anger at anyone who points out the error, now he is condemning his former students, apparently believing that they must be angry because he is still suggesting that Florida Coastal's grads will meet or exceed state wide bar pass rates.
We need to put Lawman's conduct in context. It is indicative of the larger problem, to be sure. It is for the readers of his statements, and his defense of them, to decide whether he misrepresented the facts, then carried on almost hysterically when challenged, and whether he still just doesn't get the point of the Frakt post to which this entire discussion relates.
Strawman rhymes with Lawman.
Nobody is attacking students or teachers. The criticism of the Infilaw scam-schools is that they are knowingly taking money from prospective students ill equipped to handle law schoool work, pass the bar exam, or fine gainful employment in the profession.
Please respond to Frakt's point about declining test scores being directly related to declining academic standards over the past few years, rendering your old numbers meaningless.
"Just saying," you are wrong. Florida Coastal's faculty are as qualified as the faculty at any law school, not just "other lower tiered schools." Do you really think teachers at "lower tiered schools" are not as good as teachers everywhere else? I attended a tier one school and I also taught at one before joining Florida Coastal. The professors at the tier one school published more, but the professors at Florida Coastal are definitely better teachers.
LAWMAN: Let's be honest. If you and your colleagues could move to a tier one law school would you stay at Florida Coastal? I have no doubt that many profs are good teachers, in fact, I think that some of the mid to lower-tiered schools probably have more better teachers than elite schools, but as we know, scholarship, academic credentials, clerkships, prior employment, etc. all go into the mix in evaluating the quality of a faculty.
And who are you to say I "can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" when talking about my students? I'll take a student who didn't do well on the LSAT but nonetheless makes it through law school, passes the bar, and makes a great attorney, over one of your students any day.
LAWMAN: I am sure you heard that saying before and it was not aimed at you personally, but since you brought it up, how many students have you personally taught who have done what you state: graduated, passed the bar (on the first try) and become a great attorney? And since you do not know where I worked, how can you dismiss the students at my former schools in such a way? For the record, I worked at schools in the NYC area, none of them elite, but they provided a solid education, have always had bar pass rates above the state average and consistently placed students in good jobs, with some going on to top firms. If course, they have now had to lower standards and shrink class size to stay viable, but I dare say, they have not, and will never, sink to the levels of Infilaw schools when it comes to student credentials.
According to a Bloomberg Businessweek article dated yesterday and entitled "Getting Into Law School Is Easier Than It Used to Be, and That's Not Good,""A paper released last month by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the nonprofit that creates part of the bar exam, shows that since 2010, 95 percent of the 196 U.S. law schools at least partially accredited by the American Bar Association for which the NCBE had data lowered their standards for students near the bottom of the pack."
Is the information in that article relevant to the discussion here or is this just for Infilaw bashing?
Lawman, it is indeed relevant that many more schools than the bottom-bottom-bottom are in the last ~ 3 years dipping deeper into the applicant pool than they used to. Jerry Organ's got some good number crunching on qualification slippage from 2010-2014 across all ABA schools, although I wish he'd reformat some of the charts. I'll find a link to that and post it when I can (offhand, I suspect one of these recent articles here on TFL link to it also).
Still, scope and scale matter. The deepest dippers, if you will, those with the most preposterous, essentially open admissions policies, are the three Infilaw schools plus schools like Inter American, Ave Maria, Cooley, Valpo and Texas Southern. Schools having a large portion of their entering classes with LSAT scores under the 15th percentile of test takers.
Think about that. A quarter of your students failing to hit 15th percentile on the LSAT. Chances of graduating, passing the bar, and becoming an excellent, successful attorney?
Lawman:
I, for one, agree that bashing "for profit" law schools doesn't make sense, as the "not for profit" law schools pay about the same, and do just as the "not for profit" schools do, in many instances.
That doesn't make what you have said here correct, though, nor does it address Frakt's point.
You are once again arguing a straw man, Lawman. It is sort of the same as your argument that it was ok recently to be almost the lowest rank law school in Fl(in terms of bar pass rates), because other schools pass rates slipped too. or, your argument that Florida Coastal hasn't already seen declining pass rates, just as Frakt is predicting.
Please, Lawman, think about what you are doing here.
My point is you are scapegoating the Infilaw schools. They are not the only offenders and they are not the worst offenders. But your venom is directly exclusively at Infilaw.
I also think the hostility of many of the commenters on this site is in many cases misplaced. They not only blame Infilaw but they also seem to have contempt for anyone else associated with the schools.
Anon, my friend, you suggest I think about what I am doing. I suggest you listen more carefully to what I am saying and, more importantly, not saying.
I am not arguing that lower standards and lower bar pass rates are a good thing. They obviously aren't. And I am not arguing that there is no connection between the two. There obviously is.
Take a look at that article I cited (it's on line). The author found that "95 percent of the 196 U.S. law schools . . . lowered their standards for students near the bottom of the pack."
If that statistic is correct, then where is the search for "knowledge and truth" in these comments?
Lawman –
Actually, InfiLaw schools are the worst offenders, by far, representing three of the four schools in the country with the lowest LSAT profiles this year. And InfiLaw schools are very large, so they represent a huge percentage of the sub 144 students being admitted throughout the country. This is not InfiLaw bashing, this is just stating the facts. See my newest post http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/01/parsing-the-bloomberg-businessweek-article-and-the-ncbe-report.html
You will be pleased to see that I called out other offenders there as well.
I thought the BusinessWeek article said that Emory had the biggest drop; and then you pointed out that the drop at Suffolk was even bigger.
Where is the data supporting your statement that "InfiLaw schools are the worst offenders, by far, representing three of the four schools in the country with the lowest LSAT profiles this year"?
My understanding is that the schools with the lowest LSAT score range are Southern University, Florida A&M, Thomas Cooley, North Carolina Central, Texas Southern, University of Detroit, Ave Mara, Thomas Jefferson, Oklahoma City, Nova and Appalachian.
In any event, yes, I appreciate your calling out the many other offenders as well. Thank you!
"Is the information in that article relevant to the discussion here or is this just for Infilaw bashing?"
Not really. The bottom tier students at Emory and Georgetown still have scores well north of those at Infilaw schools.
The lowest ranked/least desirable law schools are the ones that have to worry about dipping too low in the LSAT pool simply because there's just not that much room below them. Yeah, life's unfair. Hopefully, that doesn't come as a shock.