Posts Tagged ‘Iowa’

The influx of law students into the profession — and the deflationary pressure they bring to legal salaries — just can’t be stopped. There are too many prospective law students. And they aren’t listening to reason.

We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes, drums… drums in the deep. We cannot get out … they are coming.

The University of Iowa College of Law — that’s right, Iowa — is receiving a record number of applications. The administration sent out this, almost taunting, email:

‘Greetings from The University of Iowa College of Law:
We have nearly completed a busy Fall travel schedule. Also, it has been a very successful travel season, as reflected in our total application numbers to date: Applications to The University of Iowa College of Law have increased 62% versus this time last year, and the quality and diversity of those applications has increased significantly, as well. It is still early in the admissions season, so we will see if these positive signs hold up over the long term. These increases do, however, reinforce the strengths of The University of Iowa College of Law:’

I don’t even know how to make sense of a 62% increase in applications. But I’ll try after the jump.

[Above the Law]

Palestinian attorney Jonathan Kuttab will discuss the prospects for peace in the Middle East when he speaks to the University of Iowa College of Law on Monday, Oct. 12. His lecture begins at 3 p.m. in Levitt Auditorium in the Boyd Law Building. Admission is free and open to the public.

Kuttab currently practices in both Israel and Palestine. He was born in West Jerusalem, but after the 1967 Six Day War his family moved to the United States. After practicing with a Wall Street law firm for several years, he returned to his homeland and co-founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners, and Al-Haq, an organization that assists with human rights issues.

[Media Newswire]

An Iowa Law School dean sent around the following email earlier today:

Water Shut Off TODAY, October 6, from 3:30-7:00 pm!

Please be notified that the Clinic construction crew will be re-routing some of the plumbing in the Clinic area today thus requiring the BLB water to be shut off from 3:30pm to 7:00pm this afternoon. If you have any questions, etc., please let me or the project manager, Nic Riesenberg nic-riesenberg@uiowa.edu know.

A tipster sent us the following email:

Oh god, something happened today at the University of Iowa School of Law that was soooooo gross. They shut off the water without much notice and people continued to use the restrooms. I just finished lunch, so I won’t go into the details, but it was terrible. Human waste all over the floor, just walking near the restrooms was dreadful. It took the school like two hours to put up signs warning would be restroom users about it. It was filthy.

We reached out to our contact at the school who said:

Yeah, that happened. I think some of the guys thought it was cool to fill the toilets with their urine, really childish stuff. I avoided the restrooms so I can’t confirm the smell.

Awesome…

A Michigan lawyer who didn’t get an interview for a faculty job at the University of Iowa has sued for age discrimination.

Immigration lawyer Donald Dobkin says he was 55 when he responded to a law school ad last year seeking teachers with experience in administrative law, immigration and other practice areas, the National Law Journal reports.

Dobkin, a professor at Central Michigan University, claims the Iowa school offered the job to two applicants under 40 with lesser qualifications. Dobkin has written several articles on immigration and constitutional law, and he has handled more than 7,000 immigration cases. But he didn’t even get an interview, according to the complaint.

“Academia is not above the law,” Dobkin said in an e-mail to the ABA Journal. “The legal academy is the only professional educational body which has professors teaching who have never practiced their profession ( with some exceptions) yet purport to be competent to train the future lawyers of the 21st century.”

[ABA Journal]

A tightened credit market and job uncertainty has spawned a recent drop in applications to Iowa’s law schools, according to admissions officers and enrollment statistics. At the same time, officials say, new graduates face fewer jobs than usual at money-strapped law firms.

The number of applicants at the University of Iowa College of Law declined for the third straight year in 2009, to 1,289 students – more than 500 fewer than in 2006. The number at Drake University Law School fell to 1,090 so far this year, 121 fewer than in 2007.

Prospective students in the last few years have looked increasingly at cost, and at which school is most likely to land them a job, law-school admissions officers said. Collins Byrd, assistant dean for admissions at the University of Iowa College of Law, said scholarships also play a greater deciding role.

“The economy has had a huge impact this year, but this time it’s different,” Byrd said. “In the past, you’d have huge influxes of people wanting to go to law school or graduate school. But for us, and a number of schools, the applicant pool went down and the quality of the pool went up.”

Test scores and grade-point averages for recent incoming classes have risen compared to past years, Byrd said.

Some students with lower scores chose not to attend, he said, because they did not qualify for enough scholarship aid.

[Des Moines Register]

Law-school admissions offices are facing a bittersweet paradox.

While the economy may be down, unemployed college graduates’ interest in postgraduate education is taking off.

“Generally, we do well when people are miserable,” said Collins Byrd, the assistant dean in charge of admissions at the UI College of Law.

When there is a decline in the economy, students tend to go to law school immediately after receiving their undergraduate degree, he said.

Furthermore, experts have noted financial rewards, such as lawyers’ salaries, are a key motivator to go back to school, trumping ideals such as helping people or delivering justice.

Byrd said he feels the students’ motives — to make more money later or stay away from the current state of the job market — are not a problem at the UI.

But applicants typically know how a law degree will help them solve problems in the future, he said.

One UI law student has seen evidence of the economy’s effect on many of his peers in their decisions to continue their education.

“I have heard more than a few people mention that with this economy [law school] had more appeal,” said Joshua Brody, a second-year UI law student. This way, he said, students can postpone their entrance into the job market by an additional three years.

[Daily Iowan]

Q: I am an Iowa College of Law alum, and I am concerned about the path the school has taken the past few years, dropping out of the top 25 rankings and losing key members of the faculty. There is a golden opportunity to hire a new dean, but more has to be done. Can you share your views on the future of the law school?

Mason: The latest rankings, I believe, have us placed at No. 26 overall and ninth among public universities. But I believe we can, must and will do better. Hiring the new dean will provide a great start to a process that will include rebuilding a strong faculty and setting priorities that will build on and expand the existing and traditional strengths of our law school.

[Des Moines Register]