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Nearly a decade has passed since an aspiring young lawyer in California, Anna Alaburda, graduated in the top tier of her class, passed the state bar exam and set out to use the law degree she had spent about $150,000 to acquire.
But on Monday, in a San Diego courtroom, she will tell a story that has become all too familiar among law students in the United States: Since graduating from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 2008, she has yet to find a full-time salaried job as a lawyer.
From there, though, her story has taken an unusual twist: Ms. Alaburda, 37, is the first former law student whose case against a law school, charging that it inflated the employment data for its graduates as a way to lure students to enroll, will go to trial.
Other disgruntled students have tried to do the same. In the last several years, 15 lawsuits have sought to hold various law schools accountable for publicly listing information critics say was used to pump up alumni job numbers by counting part-time waitress and other similar, full-time jobs as employment. Only one suit besides Ms. Alaburda’s remains active.
None of the other cases reached trial because judges in Illinois, Michigan and New York, where several cases were filed, generally concluded that law students had opted for legal education at their own peril, and were sophisticated enough to have known that employment as a lawyer was not guaranteed.
But a California judge let Ms. Alaburda’s suit proceed, brushing aside efforts by the law school to derail her claims.
“It has taken five years,” said her lawyer, Brian A. Procel of Los Angeles. “But this will be the first time a law school will be on trial to defend its public employment figures.”
Ms. Alaburda’s day in court will take on added meaning: These will be her first public words after years of silence while she pursued a remedy for a legal education gone wrong.
She now has student debt of $170,000, with loan interest around 8 percent. Her law degree was not a ticket to a stable, well-paying career, but an expensive detour before she went on to work in a series of part-time positions, mostly temporary jobs reviewing documents for law firms.
As her debt mounted and her job prospects faltered, she filed a lawsuit in 2011, arguing that she would not have enrolled at Thomas Jefferson if she had known the law school’s statistics were misleading.
More at link.
Personally I find it ridiculous. Just because you graduate doesn't guarantee you a job.
Her point is the fraud of padded statistics. Mark Twain always comes to mind when thinking of statistics. Twain said," there is lies, then dam lies and then statistics. If she can prove this then she will win.
Years ago Lawyers were assured a high wage. Today very few make that. It's an over saturated field. Also it's not a very hard degree to get like say an actuary. Actuary unemployment rate is zero.
I'm not certain how I feel about this. On the one hand, I've long thought law schools were a bit of a scam. Nonetheless, everyone (presumedly) going in has researched the legal field and employment situation in advance.
If the school did indeed misrepresent or use false statistics, that does not look good.
On the other hand, the report states that Ms. Alaburda was offered — and turned down — a law firm job with a $60,000 salary shortly after she graduated.
Beware! This scam is a common practice among many many well respected universities. The practice of greatly overstating the value of the degrees they offer. This practice is not limited to law degrees but includes a variety of degrees in other fields of study. A possible student must do the groundwork research in the public sector to find the possible practical application of a field of study prior to spending the first dollar.
This is like me moving to Hollywood and taking some acting lessons and then crying fowl when I don't become the next Brad Pitt.
However, if she can prove that the statistics were falsified, she might be able to get some of her money back. The problem with a judgment is that at the end of the day, she still has her law degree and she is a certified lawyer (passed the bar, etc). So, say she gets the court to award her a judgment of X dollars, but a week later, she finds a job making 6 figures. Why should the school be required to pay her anything now that she has found work?
This is like me moving to Hollywood and taking some acting lessons and then crying fowl when I don't become the next Brad Pitt.
However, if she can prove that the statistics were falsified, she might be able to get some of her money back. The problem with a judgment is that at the end of the day, she still has her law degree and she is a certified lawyer (passed the bar, etc). So, say she gets the court to award her a judgment of X dollars, but a week later, she finds a job making 6 figures. Why should the school be required to pay her anything now that she has found work?
It's been 10 years. Her loans are also much more now than when she graduated. Don't forget too she was at the top of her class. To me this is not any different than going to an ortho who talks you into surgery by showing you stats that they have a 98% success rate with this surgery, when in reality the success rate is only 48%, but they pad it so more people will agree to get the surgery...sounds much worse in that case, doesn't it? It is not really different in terms of the ethics involved.
Personally I find it ridiculous. Just because you graduate doesn't guarantee you a job.
It's unfortunate that you didn't bother to read your own link. The issue isn't about anyone being guaranteed a job (strawman, much?); it's about the law school putting forth false job placement statistics in order to entice potential students.
But, hey, I guess some people think it's unfair to expect a place that charges an average of $263k (yes, that's right - over a quarter million $) for a three-year law degree not to use inaccurate data as part of their pitch. And that's what I find ridiculous.
Maybe she'll win on the statistics manipulation, but there are plenty of resources to find this information about schools like this one. Being an attorney is no longer as lucrative and the field is over saturated.
It's hard for me to feel badly for a college graduate and law school applicant who didn't seem to do ANY research on this law school, the legal profession and current employment statistics. If she had she wouldn't of picked this place to begin with.
Law school gets sued by alumna. Isn't that poetic justice?
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