Graduate Sues Law School for Fraud 'Cause She Can't Find Job

[redheadbaker]

Except for that one that she turned down, apparently. I know that schools misrepresent statistics about graduates, and that's a problem, but it's not really sympathetic to sue your school saying you can't find a job when you were offered a job but turned it down. 

money.cnn.com/2016/03/08/pf/college/lawsuit-thomas-jefferson-school-of-law/

Anna Alaburda still couldn't find a job as an attorney three years after graduating from Thomas Jefferson School of Law. So she sued the school.

This isn't the first time a law school's been sued by former students, but it's rare for one to make it to trial. This one started Monday.

Alaburda claims the school misrepresented the number of its students who found jobs after graduating, and that she wouldn't have enrolled if she knew it was inflated.

Instead, she borrowed $100,000 to get her law degree at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She passed the California bar exam on her first attempt, but was unable to find employment, according to court documents.

The job placement stat in question was published in U.S. News and World Report, which ranks graduate schools each year and is a go-to reference for those comparing programs. When Alaburda was applying to Thomas Jefferson in 2004, the school reported that 80% of its recent graduates found jobs within nine months.

She assumed that referred to law-related jobs. Turns out, it didn't.

Judge Joel Pressman allowed the case to go to trial, which began Monday in California Superior Court in San Diego. He wrote that it was reasonable for someone to assume the employment figures didn't include "any and all" jobs, and a figure that does is "meaningless in the context of a legal education."

In court documents, Thomas Jefferson said it reported post-graduate employment correctly -- by the method required by U.S. News and the American Bar Association.

Law school rankings are dependent on this nine-month employment statistic, among other things including LSAT scores and completion rates.

"When the market was tanking for law school grads, you'd get hammered in the rankings if you didn't count all kinds of employment. Circa 2011, every school had about a 97% employment rate," said William Henderson, a law professor at Indiana University.

At the same time, the National Association for Law Placement was reporting employment rates closer to 65% for law school grads who were finding jobs in the legal field.

The method of reporting has changed since Alaburda first filed her lawsuit in 2011, around the same time a handful of other students filed similar ones. Most have since seen their cases dismissed.

Law schools must now report details about the jobs grads are getting, indicating whether you need to pass the bar for the position, if having a J.D. is an advantage, and if it's full- or part-time. The school must report these numbers to the American Bar Association.

Last year, Thomas Jefferson said 92 of its 293 (31%) grads found a job that required bar passage. Another 78 (about 27%) were unemployed but looking for a job, and the status of 28 grads was unknown.

But transparency alone doesn't make the job market easier for law grads. While it's improving, just 66% of those in the class of 2014 have found a job that required passing the bar, according to NALP. It was the first year the employment rate for law school grads rose since 2007.

More than 10% are unemployed. And the median starting salary of $63,000 is well below what it was before the recession: $72,000.

It's unclear whether Alaburda ever got a job as an attorney since she first filed the suit five years ago. Her attorneys were not made available for comment for this story.

In one court document that references her deposition, she admits to turning down an offer by a Southern California law firm paying $60,000 because it would not pay for her bar dues and required her to travel for one month of training.

While the law school would not comment on specifics of the case during litigation, it issued a statement from Dean Thomas Guernsey late Monday that said the school "is whole-heartedly committed to providing our students with the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to excel as law students, pass the bar exam and succeed in their professional careers."

[ttt]

Mar 9, 2016 22:20:54 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

In one court document that references her deposition, she admits to turning down an offer by a Southern California law firm paying $60,000 because it would not pay for her bar dues and required her to travel for one month of training.

Ummm yeah. Not all that sympathetic, sorry. 

[sugarglider]

TJ is a total scam of a school, and I hope they get slammed for lying.

OTOH, the scamminess of TJ is all over the Internet. A simply Google search will tell you as much.

[aurora]

Mar 9, 2016 22:23:02 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 9, 2016 22:20:54 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

In one court document that references her deposition, she admits to turning down an offer by a Southern California law firm paying $60,000 because it would not pay for her bar dues and required her to travel for one month of training.

Ummm yeah. Not all that sympathetic, sorry. 

So does she expect the university to detail what percent of grads land jobs that pay bar dues and what percent require travel?

I mean, I absolutely get that they should be reporting percent of grads get jobs in legal fields and not just any old thing to pay the bills, but this is over the top.

[isabel]

My best friend went to TJ. I knew it was a mistake from the beginning. She's now two years out, hasn't been able to pass the bar, and is working as an assistant in a casting agency.

That school is a joke.

[ESF]

I'm really not OK with the fact that these schools take federal money student loan program, pay themselves bloated executive salaries, and leave hundreds of young people with $100k+ in debt. Schools like this prey on vulnerable people. Many are often first generation college grads from sub-par colleges. The people going to these schools are by and large not savvy and don't have a lot of options. The stereotype that all lawyers make bank is deep, these people aren't on these boards all day listening to us bitch about our loans. These schools know this.

This woman filed this suit five years ago, which tells me she probably enrolled in 2006, when the legal market was booming and it was easy to ignore the facts.

It's all fine and well to laugh and point at the dummies, but seriously, you all know better than this. This scenario right here is why consumer protection laws exist. To protect vulnerable people from being exploited. That alone makes this case important; the fact that these schools can only do this through the use of federal tax dollars makes it abhorrent.

[ESF]

Mar 9, 2016 22:23:02 GMT -5 ttt said:

Mar 9, 2016 22:20:54 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

In one court document that references her deposition, she admits to turning down an offer by a Southern California law firm paying $60,000 because it would not pay for her bar dues and required her to travel for one month of training.

Ummm yeah. Not all that sympathetic, sorry. 

I'm going to guess that there's a lot more to this. They probably took two sentences out of context.

[bimbi284]

I know next to nothing about law schools, and even I know that school is a joke.

[downtoearth]

I read this yesterday and wondered if legal jobs are that hard, but it sounds like it might be the degree school that is looked poorly on, not the applicant, huh?

So they are a for-profit law school who fail to teach their students enough law to get hired or do law?

[ttt]

Mar 9, 2016 23:19:32 GMT -5 ESF said:

I'm really not OK with the fact that these schools take federal money student loan program, pay themselves bloated executive salaries, and leave hundreds of young people with $100k+ in debt. Schools like this prey on vulnerable people. Many are often first generation college grads from sub-par colleges. The people going to these schools are by and large not savvy and don't have a lot of options. The stereotype that all lawyers make bank is deep, these people aren't on these boards all day listening to us bitch about our loans. These schools know this.

This woman filed this suit five years ago, which tells me she probably enrolled in 2006, when the legal market was booming and it was easy to ignore the facts.

It's all fine and well to laugh and point at the dummies, but seriously, you all know better than this. This scenario right here is why consumer protection laws exist. To protect vulnerable people from being exploited. That alone makes this case important; the fact that these schools can only do this through the use of federal tax dollars makes it abhorrent.

I agree with you and in general, I think some of these schools are only a tiny notch above payday lenders.

But this specific woman doesn't sound like an especially sympathetic case.

[ribollita]

Is this thread title misleading? She's suing for fraud given their reported employment numbers.

[rupertpenny]

Mar 9, 2016 23:28:05 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

I read this yesterday and wondered if legal jobs are that hard, but it sounds like it might be the degree school that is looked poorly on, not the applicant, huh?

So they are a for-profit law school who fail to teach their students enough law to get hired or do law?

Do you mean hard to find? Because, yeah, they are. My H graduated around the same time as her (JD from a top 30 school in 2008, tax LLM from the top program 2009) and the only reason he works in a law firm today is because we moved abroad. He was completely unemployed for a full year after graduation, did unpredictable contract work for another year, and then finally found full time employment with the government. At least half of his lawyer friends have similar stories. 

In any case, I'm not mad at this woman. I hope she wins. 

[gretchenindisguise]

Aren't they always unsympathetic in some right?

Why is that? Why do we [general we] always do our damned best to find a way to be unsympathetic with victims of corporate greed, while not doing our damned best to get corporations to stop preying on people?

[curbsideprophet]

I don't like the assumption that the number of students with job was in reference to only legal jobs. I would not have assumed that.

[cville]

Mar 10, 2016 6:27:04 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

I don't like the assumption that the number of students with job was in reference to only legal jobs. I would not have assumed that.

Why not? Law school is vocational school. I don't find the presumption that employment statistics would be related to that vocation to be even remotely unexpected. I know I made such presumptions when I went to law school.

What the hell would the point of paying extra specialized legal training be if I was just going to get a job as, for example, a biology teacher?* And employment as something as amazing as a biology teacher is a pipe dream for many TJ grads.



*this is not a knock on biology teachers, and I realize that it could be read that way. I was just trying to think of something for which knowing the effects of changes in USSC makeup on the application of strict scrutiny would be professionally irrelevant.

[sugarglider]

Mar 9, 2016 23:28:05 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

I read this yesterday and wondered if legal jobs are that hard, but it sounds like it might be the degree school that is looked poorly on, not the applicant, huh?

So they are a for-profit law school who fail to teach their students enough law to get hired or do law?

Entry-level legal jobs were definitely difficult to find 2008-2012. They're still not easy. My classmates at my degree-granting school have the hustle and the school has an awesome career services department & is well-situated geographically, so we did pretty well. Classmates from my visiting school struggled and most are underemployed.

Meanwhile, big law firms pay $160k base + bonus + bar stipend + clerkship bonus (if you do a judicial clerkship first), and at one point, if you spent your 2L summer there, you had to pull a Tucker Max to get no-offered. The class of 2008 got laid off during their stump year, and the class of 2009 got screwed with no offers. No, the layoffs and no offers were economic. But they still carried the stigma from more prosperous times.
As for the law schools, they're using class of 2004 jobs data for students who are applying in 2005 to be the class of 2009. It's the data they had available, but it ended up being drastically different, even at schools that aren't scammy.

Maybe one or two TJ grads a year--tops--were ever getting into prestigious legal jobs out of law school, though. There are senior guys at firms, but they typically came up a different way.

[kadams767]

Mar 10, 2016 7:20:15 GMT -5 cville said:

Mar 10, 2016 6:27:04 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

I don't like the assumption that the number of students with job was in reference to only legal jobs. I would not have assumed that.

Why not? Law school is vocational school. I don't find the presumption that employment statistics would be related to that vocation to be even remotely unexpected. I know I did when I went to law school.

What the hell would the point of paying extra specialized legal training be if I was just going to get a job as, for example, a biology teacher? And employment as something as amazing as a biology teacher is a pipe dream for many TJ grads.

Well, to give a small benefit of the doubt, there are a fair number of people who go to law school with little intent to practice law. I don't follow the methodology of the stats super closely. Do people who end up working in politics after school count as employed in legal jobs? I think it kind of stinks if you need to omit those people from the employment statistics, because it can be a fairly substantial number, especially when that was the end game all along. I can name 10 people from my class alone who had no intention of anything other than political employment. Maybe this kind of thing doesn't happen as much anymore, I graduated in 2007. But there was a time when people still were going to law school because "you can do so much with a law degree."

[cville]

Mar 10, 2016 7:40:18 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Mar 10, 2016 7:20:15 GMT -5 cville said:

Why not? Law school is vocational school. I don't find the presumption that employment statistics would be related to that vocation to be even remotely unexpected. I know I did when I went to law school.

What the hell would the point of paying extra specialized legal training be if I was just going to get a job as, for example, a biology teacher? And employment as something as amazing as a biology teacher is a pipe dream for many TJ grads.

Well, to give a small benefit of the doubt, there are a fair number of people who go to law school with little intent to practice law. I don't follow the methodology of the stats super closely. Do people who end up working in politics after school count as employed in legal jobs? I think it kind of stinks if you need to omit those people from the employment statistics, because it can be a fairly substantial number, especially when that was the end game all along. I can name 10 people from my class alone who had no intention of anything other than political employment. Maybe this kind of thing doesn't happen as much anymore, I graduated in 2007. But there was a time when people still were going to law school because "you can do so much with a law degree."

Yeah. That was a big lie. Even though I didn't look too hard behind the curtain of employment statistics, I knew that the "so much" you could do with a law degree was "be a lawyer in many different ways" until about 5+ years out.

[sugarglider]

Mar 10, 2016 7:40:18 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Mar 10, 2016 7:20:15 GMT -5 cville said:

Why not? Law school is vocational school. I don't find the presumption that employment statistics would be related to that vocation to be even remotely unexpected. I know I did when I went to law school.

What the hell would the point of paying extra specialized legal training be if I was just going to get a job as, for example, a biology teacher? And employment as something as amazing as a biology teacher is a pipe dream for many TJ grads.

Well, to give a small benefit of the doubt, there are a fair number of people who go to law school with little intent to practice law. I don't follow the methodology of the stats super closely. Do people who end up working in politics after school count as employed in legal jobs? I think it kind of stinks if you need to omit those people from the employment statistics, because it can be a fairly substantial number, especially when that was the end game all along. I can name 10 people from my class alone who had no intention of anything other than political employment. Maybe this kind of thing doesn't happen as much anymore, I graduated in 2007. But there was a time when people still were going to law school because "you can do so much with a law degree."

I don know what it was a decade ago, but now the ABA job sheets break it down between private sector and government and between JD-required, JD-preferred, and non-JD jobs. That way people who work in compliance or consulting aren't lumped in statistically with people working in retail stores.

[kadams767]

Mar 10, 2016 7:44:10 GMT -5 cville said:

Mar 10, 2016 7:40:18 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Well, to give a small benefit of the doubt, there are a fair number of people who go to law school with little intent to practice law. I don't follow the methodology of the stats super closely. Do people who end up working in politics after school count as employed in legal jobs? I think it kind of stinks if you need to omit those people from the employment statistics, because it can be a fairly substantial number, especially when that was the end game all along. I can name 10 people from my class alone who had no intention of anything other than political employment. Maybe this kind of thing doesn't happen as much anymore, I graduated in 2007. But there was a time when people still were going to law school because "you can do so much with a law degree."

Yeah. That was a big lie. Even though I didn't look too hard behind the curtain of employment statistics, I knew that the "so much" you could do with a law degree was "be a lawyer in many different ways" until about 5+ years out.

Well, yea, duh. :-).

But I'm wondering who perpetuated that myth. Was it law schools? Or the same general population that thinks we all make mad money also believes that the degree opens a million doors in addition to those to a white shoe firm? A combination of both?

I don't know, I'm not a hard-line pro law school person or anything, but I think it's at least mildly shitty to expect them to exclude students like this from the statistics. They went to the school, they graduated, they ARE employed. It's disingenuous to specifically indicate they aren't employed in a JD-required position if they never intended to be in one.

And heck, maybe they do account for this somehow? I can't remember the last time I received one of these surveys.

[tres3]

Mar 9, 2016 23:20:49 GMT -5 ESF said:

Mar 9, 2016 22:23:02 GMT -5 ttt said:

Ummm yeah. Not all that sympathetic, sorry. 

I'm going to guess that there's a lot more to this. They probably took two sentences out of context.

Even she had accepted the job she would have been fired because she couldn't pass the bar despite being in the top 5 in her class. 

[wawa]

Mar 10, 2016 7:58:51 GMT -5 tres3 said:

Mar 9, 2016 23:20:49 GMT -5 ESF said:

I'm going to guess that there's a lot more to this. They probably took two sentences out of context.

Even she had accepted the job she would have been fired because she couldn't pass the bar despite being in the top 5 in her class. 

Did I misread? I thought it said she passed on the first try.

[sugarglider]

It looks like the ABA started breaking down jobs by category with the class of 2011 (released in 2012). Law school enrollment also dropped significantly in fall 2012. Of course, there were also a bunch of articles talking about out-of-work law grads, but I think the more precise statistics probably had some impact, too.

Look at TJ's in 2011:

employmentsummary.abaquestionnaire.org

More unemployed and looking for work than employed in full-time, long term JD positions. And over half of the FT, long-term JD positions are in firms with 10 or fewer attorneys. Those jobs can be wildly variable. But they are usually not very high paying, even if they give you fantastic experience (which can be the case but by no means will necessarily be the case).

[cville]

Mar 10, 2016 7:58:51 GMT -5 tres3 said:

Mar 9, 2016 23:20:49 GMT -5 ESF said:

I'm going to guess that there's a lot more to this. They probably took two sentences out of context.

Even she had accepted the job she would have been fired because she couldn't pass the bar despite being in the top 5 in her class. 

That's not what the story says, she passed on the first try. And most every firm/employer I know gives people a second try at the bar before rescinding the offer.

[andwhat]

I know nothing about law school, but there are tons of graduates who can't find jobs.

Sent from my SM-G920V using proboards

[curbsideprophet]

Mar 10, 2016 7:20:15 GMT -5 cville said:

Mar 10, 2016 6:27:04 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

I don't like the assumption that the number of students with job was in reference to only legal jobs. I would not have assumed that.

Why not? Law school is vocational school. I don't find the presumption that employment statistics would be related to that vocation to be even remotely unexpected. I know I made such presumptions when I went to law school.

What the hell would the point of paying extra specialized legal training be if I was just going to get a job as, for example, a biology teacher?* And employment as something as amazing as a biology teacher is a pipe dream for many TJ grads.



*this is not a knock on biology teachers, and I realize that it could be read that way. I was just trying to think of something for which knowing the effects of changes in USSC makeup on the application of strict scrutiny would be professionally irrelevant.

People use statistics to their advantage all the time. If you can make your numbers look better by including everyone who has a job I am not surprised that schools choose to do that. Especially given what others have said about this school. I have never heard of it and know nothing about it. However I highly doubt they were the only school using the numbers that worked best for them, even if they were misleading. Based on what others have said a better breakdown of the numbers is now required so it seems like this should not be as big an issue today.

[sfy]

Mar 10, 2016 7:51:44 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Mar 10, 2016 7:44:10 GMT -5 cville said:

Yeah. That was a big lie. Even though I didn't look too hard behind the curtain of employment statistics, I knew that the "so much" you could do with a law degree was "be a lawyer in many different ways" until about 5+ years out.

Well, yea, duh. :-).

But I'm wondering who perpetuated that myth. Was it law schools? Or the same general population that thinks we all make mad money also believes that the degree opens a million doors in addition to those to a white shoe firm? A combination of both?

I don't know, I'm not a hard-line pro law school person or anything, but I think it's at least mildly shitty to expect them to exclude students like this from the statistics. They went to the school, they graduated, they ARE employed. It's disingenuous to specifically indicate they aren't employed in a JD-required position if they never intended to be in one.

And heck, maybe they do account for this somehow? I can't remember the last time I received one of these surveys.

I can agree with this, but I would guess that the number of these graduates is so small, especially coming from TJ, that it's hardly worth the time already spent debating it. I'd feel comfortable wagering a large sum that the number of people like isabel's friend exponentially outweigh the person who went planning to work in politics.

[aurora]

Mar 10, 2016 0:36:27 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Aren't they always unsympathetic in some right?

Why is that? Why do we [general we] always do our damned best to find a way to be unsympathetic with victims of corporate greed, while not doing our damned best to get corporations to stop preying on people?

Thank you (genuinely). I'm going to have to do some self-evaluation to consider why I so often jump to unsympathetic (which I do).

[cville]

Mar 10, 2016 8:35:46 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

Mar 10, 2016 7:20:15 GMT -5 cville said:

Why not? Law school is vocational school. I don't find the presumption that employment statistics would be related to that vocation to be even remotely unexpected. I know I made such presumptions when I went to law school.

What the hell would the point of paying extra specialized legal training be if I was just going to get a job as, for example, a biology teacher?* And employment as something as amazing as a biology teacher is a pipe dream for many TJ grads.



*this is not a knock on biology teachers, and I realize that it could be read that way. I was just trying to think of something for which knowing the effects of changes in USSC makeup on the application of strict scrutiny would be professionally irrelevant.

People use statistics to their advantage all the time. If you can make your numbers look better by including everyone who has a job I am not surprised that schools choose to do that. Especially given what others have said about this school. I have never heard of it and know nothing about it. However I highly doubt they were the only school using the numbers that worked best for them, even if they were misleading. Based on what others have said a better breakdown of the numbers is now required so it seems like this should not be as big an issue today.

I can't tell if you're arguing with something I've said or not.

[tres3]

Mar 10, 2016 8:05:12 GMT -5 wawa said:

Mar 10, 2016 7:58:51 GMT -5 tres3 said:

Even she had accepted the job she would have been fired because she couldn't pass the bar despite being in the top 5 in her class. 

Did I misread? I thought it said she passed on the first try.

maybe I misread. I thought she didn't pass it.  maybe it was the general statistics about TJSL.