Editor's note: Your ProbateShark would never recommend any of the lawyers in the Probate Court of Cook County competent enough to trim nails...even their own!  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

24 Jan 2014 at 12:01 PM

Job Searches, Rankings, U.S. News

The 2014 U.S. News Job Rankings: Being A Lawyer Is Worse Than Being A Nail Technician

By Staci Zaretsky

Each year, U.S. News and World Report comes out with a ranking of the 100 best jobs in the nation, based on important factors like the number of expected openings, advancement opportunities, career fulfillment, and salary expectations. With criteria like that, it makes sense that each year, the job of “Lawyer” sinks lower and lower in the rankings.
For example, in 2013, U.S. News ranked Lawyer as No. 35 on its 100 Best Jobs ranking, and as No. 4 on its ranking of the “5 Dream Jobs That Aren’t So Dreamy.” Just one year later, in 2014, Lawyer isn’t even ranked in the top 50 of the U.S. News list. Being a lawyer is now a second-tier career. How embarrassing.
What’s even more embarrassing? The list of jobs that are supposedly better than being a lawyer. Why did you spend all of that money on a law degree when you could’ve just gone to beauty school?

We’ve taken the liberty of compiling a list of some of the jobs you should’ve considered taking before embarking upon your miserable career as a lawyer, one that is best described by this U.S. News graphic:

Lovely. But don’t you worry, U.S. News claims that “[t]he job market for lawyers has improved in recent years,” and “an additional 74,800 jobs will need to be filled” by 2022. Upward mobility issues solved, right? Wrong. It’s a pity the editors forgot that more than 40,000 people graduate from law school each year.
Here’s what you should’ve done with your life instead of being a lawyer:

• #49 Nail Technician: Because when clients give you the finger, they’re not being mean.
• #34 Maintenance/Repair Worker: Because there’s no such thing as an unemployed handyman.
• #29 Esthetician: Because popping pimples is more pleasurable than planning plaintiffs’ pleadings.
• #27 Massage Therapist: Because this is a career where happy endings are possible.

Of course lawyers have the unhappiest jobs in America. They could’ve had it all with a career in beauty or jobs of the odd variety. Drop the suit and pick up a nail file or a hammer. You can thank us later.
Earlier: You’ve Been Having Bad Dreams If Being A Lawyer Is Your ‘Dream Job’
Unhappiest Job in America? Take a Guess

Editor's note: This Shark in his youth considered U.S. News as a premier business magazine.  U.S. News had a section of weekly manufacturing production index that was a bible of business activity.  Based on reports of  valid activity such as electric generation and freight car loadings, a daily pulse of business was revealed.  Now, U.S. News is just another blathering rag.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster,  ProbateSharks.com

3 Jul 2013 at 12:57 PM

Law Schools, Rankings, U.S. News

U.S. News Adding Employer Survey

By Joe Patrice

It’s tough times over at U.S. News. After shedding nearly all pretense of being a news outlet, U.S. News threw all its eggs in the “telling people where to go to school” basket.
U.S. News enjoyed a virtual monopoly for years before someone came along and created a better law school ranking system. The crux of the ATL Top 50 ranking is focusing on post-graduation results rather than LSAT/GPA inputs.
Now U.S. News seems to be considering a new post-graduation component, but it doesn’t seem all that scientific…

A tipster tells us that U.S. News is sending the following email to every law school head of admissions:

On the recommendation of law school deans, we are asking you, and each of the 194 law schools that were ranked by U.S. News last year, to submit contact information for a maximum of ten persons who have significant contact in the workplace with your recent graduates.
These persons should be able to make judgments about the competence of your graduates in their discipline relative to the general field of graduates in that discipline and hence, by extension, to rate the effective quality of your program. You may submit names and contact information of law hiring partners at firms who hired recent graduates from your school, judges (local, state, federal) who hired recent graduates as clerks, and contacts at businesses, non-profits, or other agencies and organizations that hired recent graduates for legal matters.
This is the first year we have instituted this system and we are hoping that you will aid us in making it successful.
We will use this information in the construction of a respondent sample for a survey to be sent out by mail in October 2013. The survey will use the same Likert scale format that we use for the survey sent to the dean of your law school. Like that survey, this one will ask for quality evaluations on a five-point scale, with a “don’t know” option. Please take steps to ensure that the contact information you supply us is current and valid. The survey is mailed and we cannot use names that do not have a valid mailing address or those with a non-U.S. mailing address.
Thank you for your participation!
U.S. News & World Report

Two thoughts on this. First, why is this going to admissions as opposed to career services? One would hope career services has the closest contact with employers.
Second, isn’t this transparently gameable? Admissions gets to hand-select 10 employers willing to sing the praises of recent graduates. A random survey of employers may not get perfect results, but at least it would avoid this bias.
We’ll have to wait until next year to see how (or if) this survey plugs into the annual rankings.
Earlier: ATL Top 50 Law Schools

21 Comments

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• Tags: Law Schools, Rankings, U.S. News, U.S. News Law School Rankings, U.S. News rankings, US News rankings

27 Jun 2013 at 1:30 PM

Bad Ideas, Cardozo Law School, Law Schools, Money, Rankings, U.S. News

A Law School Shows Everything That’s Wrong With Law Schools and U.S. News Rankings, In One Email

By Elie Mystal

And now back to our regularly scheduled programing. We join this episode of “My Law School Nearly Got Away With It,” already in progress.
We all know that law schools do all kinds of things to game the U.S. News law school rankings. U.S. News knows this, yet does little to stop this behavior. But rarely do we catch a law school red-handed.
Here, we have a school openly calling upon its students to do something for the express purpose of increasing the school’s U.S. News rank.
Even more embarrassingly, the school is targeting a class of graduates who have generally not had much luck in the employment market. The email suggests that the way to increase the value of their law degree is to give money to the school, since right now it’s not good enough to get them a job…

This email from the Cardozo School of Law alumni office is truly shameful. They sent it out to the class of 2011. The subject line, bluntly and inelegantly, says it all:

Subject: Help Cardozo Move Up The Rankings

The email is actually written by another person in the ‘Dozo class of 2011. You know how these things go. The school thinks you are more likely to give if one of your classmates makes the ask. But you know the alumni office approved this message. Here it is, in part:

Getting down to business, I would like to let you know a little secret about helping out Cardozo move up the rankings.
Did you know that one of the factors that US News considers in its rankings is percentage of alumni who participate in annual giving?
It’s true. Your gift to the law school can actually increase the value of your own degree…
I know money may be tight and, if you are like me, you may still be making a contribution to your legal education in loan payments every month. But, by helping out the school, it increases the value of what we have already put our hard earned time and money into. Something that I know I’m willing to do.

You can read the full email on the next page.
This email is pretty horrible. It’s instructing Cardozo students to give for the express purpose of gaming the rankings… because gaming the rankings “increases the value of your own degree.”
And you know who is going to be most interested in increasing “the value of what we have already put our hard earned time and money into”? People in the class of 2011 who are unemployed, underemployed, or generally disappointed with what the “value” of a Cardozo degree has gotten them so far.
In essence, the alumni office is telling people who haven’t gotten a lot of value out of a Cardozo law degree that the way to correct that problem is to give Cardozo more money. Does that even qualify as “throwing good money after bad”?
But law schools are going to do what law schools are going to do. What is U.S. News going to do? Here, we have direct evidence that Cardozo is trying to game the U.S. News rankings… is U.S. News going to react in any way? Are they going to punish Cardozo? Or are they just happy to continue to have these factors that have no relation to the value of legal education that schools can use to increase the perceived value of their law degrees?
I’ll note that Cardozo did not crack the top 50 in the Above the Law rankings.
And I’ll note that if the Cardozo alumni office sent out an email trying to “game” the ATL rankings, it would have to be sent to Cardozo alumni who are employers, telling them to give jobs to Cardozo students — not money to the Cardozo administration.
(If you’re interested, you can see the full letter on the next page.)