The Red Velvet Lawyer

Drop in Applicants to Law School Generating Another Kind of Equilibrium In December 2013,  I reported on the law schools cutting tuition, especially in highly competitive markets, like Pennsylvania.    Another blogger has updated the list and suggested law schools use Groupon to offer tuition discounts.   As I noted in my earlier posting, ASL has been and continues to be one of the most affordable private law schools east of the Mississippi River.  And, we held tuition stable this last year.  With scholarships, ASL can be as good a value as adjacent state-sponsored law schools, like University of Kentucky. Yes, unmitigated plug.  Feb. 11, 2014 Update:   More law schools drop tuition.     Feb. 27, 2014 Update: Tulsa , on scholarships and tuition.

Tuition Costs &  Scholarship Retention Over the past several months, I have tried to track changes in the cost of law school. Before providing some additional information, I want to highlight that ASL is one of the most affordable private law schools east of the Mississippi River.  And, we froze tuition costs for the coming year.   Not only that, but our historical scholarship retention rate has been one of the highest across the nation -- above 90 percent. Thus, unlike several of the law schools who also serve our Appalachian region, ASL does not engage in a "bait-and-switch" scholarship strategy.  Once we invite you into our community, we want you to stay.  We do not want you worrying unnecessarily about whether you will retain a scholarship. So, here is some tuition cost information for the highly competitive Pennsylvania market. Dec. 15, 2013 Update:  Thirty law schools have cut tuition costs over the last three years...

" Toxic" Press Environment  for Law Schools? At the October 2013 conference of the Midwest Association of Prelaw Advisors, Washington University School of Law Dean, Kent Syverud, gave a speech on the Future of Legal Education .  I have discussed different aspects of the speech in several postings . At one point, he identified the current press environment surrounding law schools as "toxic."  I recently had my own experience with this press environment. Yesterday, Brian Leiter discussed this toxic environment in his own blog , which I highly recommend. A Complex Set of Factors This week-end, I finished reading Brian Tamanaha's 2012 book,  Failing Law Schools . I found his discussion of the ABA regulatory environment of law schools especially interesting.  While it created high quality law schools, it also drove up the price of a legal education by requiring additional "inputs," including higher salaries for faculty members; more tim...

As you know, I have followed the debate between the authors of the report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree -- and the author of a book -- Failing Law Schools (FLS) . I thought we were about done with the back and forth, but now it seems the author of FLS , the Law Professor at Washington University School of Law, Brian Tamanaha, has gotten help from a member of his faculty.  The story appears  here . Tamanaha has targeted a group of expensive ($40,000+/per year), mostly California law schools, that also have low employment stats when you look only at the category of  full-time jobs requiring bar passage.  I've discussed how to understand the reported employment numbers  here . In the end, I agree that prospective students should carefully consider the decision to go to law school.  They should carefully adopt a strategy that gets them the best education possible at a reasonable cost.  I discuss one possible strategy here .  And yes...

Michael Simkovic, one of the authors of the new report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree , is debating the author, Brian Tamanaha, of the 2012 book --  Failing Law Schools .  The debate began earlier this week and appears at Brian Leiter's Law School Reports .  It should be an interesting exchange that will go on for a while. Both authors are law school academics. Simkovic serves as an Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law.  Brian Tamanaha, serves as the Dean of Washington University School of Law (my alma mater ). I summarized Simikovic's paper  here .  Tamanaha's book is available  here  (yes, I am encouraging you to use Barnes & Noble, and not Amazon). One of the factors affecting both authors' projections is the cost of law school tuition. Given the drop off in applicants to law school -- from about 100,000 in 2004 to about 50,000 this past recruiting season -- lower-tiered law schools have substant...