This week a New York Supreme Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by disappointed, jobless New York Law school graduates. The New York Times has the details. A copy of Justice Melvin Schweitzer’s opinion is here (PDF) and linked and embedded below.
After all the arguments about misleading job prospects, Justice Schweitzer sums it up thusly:
The lawyers involved in this litigation are undeterred; one, David Anziska, offered this reaction:
“We always expected for many of these issues to ultimately be resolved on an appellate level,†[…] “Moreover, we fully intend to soldier on and to sue many more law schools in the forthcoming weeks and months ahead.â€
This opinion will enlighten other judges faced with these flimsy claims; here is a copy of Venable LLP’s memorandum in support of the motion to dismiss.
You have to feel for law students who hit the market as the Great Recession was grinding along the years 2008-2011 (2012?). Heck, you have to feel for law students entering law school right now.
Yet there never have been any guarantees coming out of law school. You like your odds better the higher-ranked the school you graduated from. And these plaintiffs went to New York Law School! They had to know there would be less of a door-opener feature to their diploma.
What all law students need to know is that there is nothing more off-putting than a lawyer who acts “entitled.” Entitled to a great job just because of the brand on the diploma, entitled to better work assignments, entitled to taking shortcuts to career success because “I didn’t go to law school to spend time doing X.”
There’s a joke that circulates among all lawyers who did not go to Harvard Law School. Surely you’ve heard it.
How do you know that lawyers you meet went to Harvard Law School? They tell you.
Over time, prospective law students will understand more clearly that law is hard, law is different now, law is not going back to hefty signing bonuses and multiple six-figure offers landing in your 3L apartment mailbox.
The truth is, for 98% of law students, the law after graduation was never like that anyway. To figure this out you don’t need a plaintiff’s lawyer to cobble together a lawsuit. You just needed to talk to a real lawyer or two before you accepted that admission from Random Law School.
That scarlet L? Here’s one:
