Zombie blog "Esq. Never" (law school scambusting)

One of a number of "scambusting" blogs on the perils of a legal education, "Esq. Never" last posted in January. The post before that was in 2012. Some quotes from the last post, "The Bell Tolls for the Scam":

"One of the ironies of (at one point) anonymously managing  a blog lamenting the plight of dejected law grads is that I achieved a certain level of fame – most likely the greatest celebrity I will ever experience in my life.

No, it didn’t amount to the fame of a well-known legal scholar nor of even some of my other former “scam blogger” contemporaries. Nevertheless, I certainly never expected to be interviewed or profiled by the National Jurist or the Wall Street Journal.

It was, of course, ironic because all of the attention was directed towards a pseudonymous caricature, and instead of heralding success, it was a byproduct of my miserable condition.

Nevertheless, my anti-LS scam compatriots and I were usually one side of a story that also featured at least one apologist for the reigning system – whether law school dean, an ABA representative, or just a general mercenary for the machine.

In those days, condescending and dismissive remarks were the norm. I remember one dean bemoaning that LS critics tended to make the most noise because they were the most displeased. She further asserted that the majority of graduates were happily and quietly pursuing post-JD endeavors.

We now know this to be nonsense. In the years that have elapsed since this and other blogs have gone dormant, the mainline media has recognized that something is amiss as class after class of law grads are thrust into the unemployment grinder.

The Washington Post, the New York Times, and Slate have all run stories to this effect. If they don’t fully endorse the idea that the law school cartel is managing  a full blown scam, they are at least exploring the repercussions of saddling freshly minted JD’s with mind blowing debt while the schools shout ‘caveat emptor’ and hungrily look towards the next harvest.

Sure, every now and then an apologist pops his head up from the trenches in order to predict the imminent recovery of the legal market or to offer an unpersuasive case for paying the equivalent of three or four Mercedes for an unmarketable degree.

Nobody is buying it, though."

Even more:

".....It remains to be seen whether the closing of a few law schools will either result in institution wide reform – more practical coursework, lower tuition, and fewer semesters – or simply a reduction in the number of “firms” in this saturated sector.

For the time being, however, law schools have to grapple with the present economics of reduced demand for their services.

With fewer prospective students, law schools only have two unpleasant choices: Reduce tuition and hack away at the scam’s raison d'être or attempt to retain the present cash flow and torpedo the prestige to which these pseudo-august institutions so jealously cling.

There really is no other choice. Bread and circuses won’t fly anymore. If prospective students are unpersuaded that there are ample legal jobs available, no amount of moot court rooms with mahogany benches and cutting edge technology is going to drive them in.

If enrollment continues to decline, maintaining both high academic standards and fiscal solvency will be a difficult feat. There will be a smaller and smaller pool of quality applicants, who will be on the lookout for either bargains or true prestige.

Prospective students will still be courted heavily with scholarship offers from schools that at one time would have been far outside of their leagues. It’s unlikely that the “pedigree” of a top 50 or even 25 school would be enticing in comparison.

As enrollment tanks, this will be a very costly strategy to pursue. Cutting costs could mitigate the impact of decreased revenue from tuition, but less impressive facilities and fewer perks like lavish moot court trips could make law school an even more miserable environment.

Moreover, cutting faculty could mean the availability of fewer interesting courses, and a reduced support staff would likely result in delays in important administrative tasks (transcript requests; graduation verification).

I’m certainly not advocating retaining the largesse of the cartel, but for students with shorter-term time preferences, the loss of such immediate perquisites could serve as disincentives to matriculation.

While reducing tuition either directly or more subtly via increased financial aid is a costly endeavor, sacrificing student quality could be an even more dangerous game.

Schools somewhere in the middle can tolerate poorer LSAT scores and GPA’s for a while. They just need to hope that their peer institutions need to make similar sacrifices, and they can at least hold their relative place in the LS pecking order – for whatever that’s worth.

While the mid-tier schools can try to wait out the rough seas in their metaphorical dinghies of reduced academic standards – awaiting either miraculous salvation or the final storm to take them under – the bottom feeder schools don’t have such luxury."