JD Graduates Saddled with Massive Debt and No Jobs
Professor William Henderson of Indiana University has used the term “Enron-type” accounting standards to describe the recruitment tactics used to lure optimistic young people into the nations law schools. In a seven page feature in today’s New York Times, Professor Henderson and others discuss how law schools game the data in order to present misleading data about the current employment status of recent graduates. For example did you know that a person with a new JD who is working at Applebee’s or has a temporary job doing tasks completely unrelated to their legal education is considered “employed” for reporting purposes? Technically they are employed, but to use that kind of data to recruit a young person into a program that ends three years later with six figures of debt is certainly closer to gambling than investing. The article goes on to state that what freshmen are taught against doing in their “Disclosures and Ethics” class is quite close to the practices of the institutions that are teaching them not to do.
For those who are in or are considering law school this article would make a good lesson in caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). It is also refreshing to see a fellow Hoosier is one of the few insiders who are willing to blow the whistle on a practice he says makes him feel dirty. Here is a link to the article for those with a deep interest in this topic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?pagewanted=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB
