You are currently browsing the archives for Kyle McEntee.
What President Obama’s 2017 Budget Tells Us About Law Schools
February 16th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Originally published on Bloomberg.
As law school — as well as other graduate and professional programs — become ever-more costly, the viability of the current federal student loan program wanes. The latest evidence comes from President Obama’s 2017 budget proposal, released last week.
But first a little history.
(more…)
» Read the full text for What President Obama’s 2017 Budget Tells Us About Law Schools
Washington D.C. Adopts Uniform Bar Exam
February 9th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Originally published on Above the Law.
Washington D.C. is the 20th jurisdiction to adopt the Uniform Bar Exam. In an order filed last Thursday, the D.C. Court of Appeals confirmed that it would begin administrating the exam this July.
This will not be the only new UBE jurisdiction in the coming weeks or months. Vermont’s Board of Bar Examiners also announced that “Vermont expects to adopt the Uniform Bar Examination for [the] July 2016 bar exam.” It’s not official but the Vermont Supreme Court asked the Board to propose rule changes to quickly make way for the changes.
(more…)
» Read the full text for Washington D.C. Adopts Uniform Bar Exam
ABA House to Vote on Uniform Bar Exam
February 2nd, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Originally published on Above the Law.
Non-lawyers are encroaching on legal services traditionally offered by lawyers. Technology is changing how lawyers and clients think about value. Law schools have created a mismatch between the number of graduates and entry-level legal jobs. Throughout it all, regulators across the country are actively grappling (and griping) about how best to address these extraordinary circumstances.
While proposed actions or inactions cause sharp disagreements around the country about how to move the profession forward in the 21st century, one common-sense action shouldn’t: adopting the Uniform Bar Exam. Next Monday, the ABA’s House of Delegates will consider a resolution from the ABA’s Law Student Division that calls for all jurisdictions to adopt this portable exam. The House should support this measure, and all jurisdictions should adopt the UBE as quickly as possible.
(more…)
» Read the full text for ABA House to Vote on Uniform Bar Exam
10K 1L Scholarship For One Lucky Student
February 1st, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
For any readers out there who will begin law school this year — or who know someone else who will — I encourage you to check out a $10,000 scholarship contest. You can apply until April 15th, after which 20 finalists will be selected. One winner will be determined by votes via social media and will be announced on June 10th. The $10,000 will be paid directly to the student’s law school.
Law school is expensive and this will make law school slightly more affordable for someone. Scholarship application details can be found here.
Harvard Transfers Don’t Spell Financial Trouble, But Several Law Schools’ Bond Ratings Do
January 29th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
This article was originally posted on Bloomberg.
Is the law school crisis affecting Harvard? Probably not. The school did choose to take 55 transfer students last year, the fourth largest transfer class in the country. In the prior four years the school took between 30 and 34 transfers each year. Its higher than usual acceptance of transfers has fueled speculation that it was compensating for an original applicant pool that wasn’t strong enough. Whether that’s so or not, several indicators that may show a school faces financial duress have each remained steady at HLS between 2011 and 2015.
- First-year enrollment: enrollment ranged from 555 to 568 over the last five years. Applications were down 18 percent and yield declined from 66 percent to 60 percent, which indicates that several peer schools are making more competitive offers. Still, the school netted just one fewer first-year student this year compared to last and three more than in 2011.
- Admissions credentials: the median LSAT score did not change from 173 (99th percentile) and the median undergraduate GPA declined just .03 from 3.89 to 3.86.
- Tuition increased an average of 4.6 percent each year. Scholarship increases did not keep pace with tuition increases, indicating that the school took in more money each subsequent year.
- There’s no talk about trouble with Harvard’s endowment, or any indication that Harvard Law has liquidity issues.
How Student Loan Refinancing Could Undo Federal Loan Policy
January 26th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Originally published on Above the Law.
If you’re a law school graduate with a ton of debt, there are a few companies that really want to talk to you — if you went to the right school and have the right job.
The deal works like this. The bank or non-bank lender pays the federal government the balance of your loan and you pay the new lender instead. In exchange, the private lender charges you a much lower interest rate. Rather than a rate north of 7%, you receive a rate as low as 2.5%.
(more…)
» Read the full text for How Student Loan Refinancing Could Undo Federal Loan Policy
Arizona Summit Does Still Have Conditional Scholarships
January 22nd, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
On December 16th, I wrote a column for Above the Law on the ABA’s annual data dump. In it I highlighted nine schools that “reportedly” eliminated conditional scholarship programs. I used the quoted caveat in my column because I was skeptical that a few of these schools had actually eliminated the program.
One school I contacted was Arizona Summit. The school previously operated a very large conditional scholarship program and had a substantial percentage of students who lost these scholarships after the first year. It would have been a substantial budgetary hit to change the program at Arizona Summit in particular. However, the school’s 509 report indicated that it had. (more…)
» Read the full text for Arizona Summit Does Still Have Conditional Scholarships
Law Schools More Transparent Than Ever
January 19th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Since 1974, the National Association for Law Placement has surveyed ABA-approved law school graduates with the help of roughly 200 schools and a nod from the ABA. NALP’s annual survey asks graduates to describe their jobs, their employers, how and when they obtained the positions, and their starting salaries.
NALP checks the data for discrepancies and produces statistical reports of post-graduation employment outcomes for each law school. NALP must keep these “NALP reports” confidential, but individual schools may publish their reports.
Before the law school transparency movement, law schools did not publish NALP reports online for prospective students and others to see. Instead, these detailed, immensely useful reports occupied dusty filing cabinets. I recall when my organization first requested these reports from law schools, several career services deans told me they did not know where they were.
(more…)
» Read the full text for Law Schools More Transparent Than Ever
Why Ranking Law Schools Nationally Is Nonsensical
January 19th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
This piece was originally published on Bloomberg.
Earlier this month, at the American Association of Law Schools’ annual meeting in New York, the AALS’s Section for the Law School Dean hosted a panel on law school rankings. During a Q&A, Nebraska Law School Dean Susan Poser posed a series of questions to Bob Morse, chief architect of the U.S. News law school rankings.
I don’t know anything about schools except the one I went to and the one I’m at now. How do you justify asking us to rank the prestige of other schools, and how do you justify giving this component such a large weight?
Blake Edwards, writing for Big Law Business, has more details on the panel here. I want spark a discussion about some ways to improve the reputation metric.
(more…)
» Read the full text for Why Ranking Law Schools Nationally Is Nonsensical
How To Fix The U.S. News Law School Rankings
January 13th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
This was originally published on Above the Law.
To put it mildly, I’m not a fan of the U.S. News law school rankings. They poison the decision-making process for law students and law schools alike. For students, they cause irrational choices about where to attend or how much to pay. For schools, they produce a host of incentives that do not align with the goal of providing an accessible, affordable legal education.
Because of their undeniable influence, it makes sense to seek methodological changes that nudge schools in a better direction.
» Read the full text for How To Fix The U.S. News Law School Rankings
About Law School Cafe
Cafe Manager & Co-Moderator
Deborah J. Merritt
Cafe Designer & Co-Moderator
Kyle McEntee
Law School Cafe is a resource for anyone interested in changes in legal education and the legal profession.
Around the Cafe
Subscribe
Categories
Recent Comments
- on Scholarship Advice
- on ExamSoft: New Evidence from NCBE
- on COVID-19 and the Bar Exam
- on Women Law Students: Still Not Equal
- on Ranking Academic Impact
Recent Posts
- The Bot Takes a Bow
- Fundamental Legal Concepts and Principles
- Lay Down the Law
- The Bot Updates the Bar Exam
- GPT-4 Beats the Bar Exam
Monthly Archives
Participate
Have something you think our audience would like to hear about? Interested in writing one or more guest posts? Send an email to the cafe manager at merritt52@gmail.com. We are interested in publishing posts from practitioners, students, faculty, and industry professionals.