Why Do Law Schools Feel the Need to Lie About Jobs?

Paul Campos, the University of Colorado law professor who recently dug into the actual employment numbers of the "professional cartels" known as law schools, was interviewed by The Young Turks.

[Interviewer:] Why do [law schools] feel like they need to lie to everyone to get applicants to their schools? [around 6:35 mark]

[Campos:] For a long time the system was working fairly well for most people because…first of all tuition rates at many of those schools were much, much lower so therefore even if employment rates were significantly exaggerated, which they were, the costs involved in that exaggeration were significantly lower. Also the job market in legal employment has gotten much, much more difficult—not just because of the current recession but because of rationalization in the market for legal services. Big law firms are employing many fewer lawyers, technology is taking over a lot of jobs that used to be done by human beings, and a lot of things are being off-shored. So when you combine all those things, the somewhat imaginary of character of the employment statistics has become much more problematic and much worse. And then adding to all that is the sort of invidious effect of the struggle for rankings.

So, there you have it. Law schools lie because of the Four Rs: Recession, Rationalization, Rankings and Robots.