Law School Industrial Complex: Not Enough Jobs For Students

An online movement spearhead by "scambloggers" calls out unfair practices by law schools

Once ignored and harshly criticized by some respondents as only representing a handful of unhappy, unemployed law graduates, an online blogging movement, known as the “scambloggers,” can no longer be written off by the law school institutions law schools and law professors that the group seeks to condemn. The name itself was ascribed to the group several years ago. Although the bloggers themselves didn’t choose the name, they embraced it. They still draw a lot of criticism, but they also have a lot of support. Moreover, more bloggers, some who are not part of the legal community, are joining them in their efforts to expose the high levels of debt that individuals accrue to obtain professional degrees.

This loosely connected crew of ex-law students argues that universities deliberately fudge employment numbers of graduating law students and therefore are involved in a troubling form of fraudulent activity. Many of the scambloggers also argue that law schools are churning out far too many grads in a brittle economy, and are doing so to merely line their own pockets. In so doing, law schools are turning grads into indentured educated Americans. Regardless of how they are perceived, these bloggers have proven something powerful: when using the pen as a weapon – especially when implemented collectively and on the Internet – one’s foes better watch out.

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The scambloggers are well equipped to go after the schools and instructors. Having been trained to debate and argue in law school, the scambloggers have, quite cleverly, turned academic civility on its head. Furthermore, their claims are based upon data and exhaustive research. But the way in which they deliver the facts is far from traditional. For instance, the author of Third Tier Reality, who goes by the moniker Nando, “flushes” professors and law schools down commodes on a regular basis. These blog posts are oftentimes accompanied with pictures of filthy toilets or feces. Of course not all the scambloggers use toilets and images of fetid waste to denounce the “law school scam” – that is Nando’s specialty. To be sure, each one of them has a unique and peculiar style. For instance, The Law School Tuition Bubble (LSTB), written by Matt Leicher, offers a different type of approach than Nando’s Third Their Reality. The evidence and analysis, however, is just as damning. Esquire Painting, on the other hand, is personalized and creative in a literary sense, i.e., the writer of this – John Koch – includes poetry and songs. These are just a few examples out of a growning number of scambloggers’ sites. In addition, this group was not the first to launch the movement.

So when exactly did the scamblogging movement start? Since these scambloggers aren’t the first ‘generation’ of disgruntled law grads, who inspired them to launch their own blogs and get involved with this online, populist community?