San Diego law school grad sues her alma mater for $50 million

[bigs5068]

We are all entitled to our opinions and I respectfully disagree. I don't think any school is capable of really seeing into the future any better or worse than a student. For example I knew many people in the aerospace engineering business (missile design) that were doing quite well for themselves during the Cold War. Once that suddenly ended that whole profession took a huge dive then came back when Iraq started. How could any aerospace engineering school predict when a war will end or begin.

Same with the law for example after Gideon v. Wainwright criminal defense attorneys became much more in demand. There had been no public defender office in existence prior this decision and suddenly states had  fully staff public defender offices I am sure this was GREAT for law schools, because 1,000's if not 100,000 of jobs opened up nationwide. Some legislation could pass helping lawyers or screwing lawyers in the next year nobody can say.

We can bring this into the medical field what impact will it officially have on Doctors and nurses again nobody knows if it will even be constitutional let alone the actual effects it will have. 

I could go on and on citing things that change and that is the point of education it lasts a lifetime. Any profession there will be ups and downs etc etc and you assume the risks for good times and bad when you choose to get a degree. I am sure at some point the legal market will pick up and then decline again. I will cite to Thane's post discussing the abysmal job market in 1991. I was 7 then, but I am sure there was a rescission and it later picked up. I imagine Thane and Morten have had ups and downs in their career just like everyone else. Just like you,  me, and the plaintiff in this case will have.

So I think it is absurd to begin with and then the fact that she is asking for 50 million is absolutely ludicrous. Her actual damages at most would be $400,000 and from my understanding of some 14th amendment cases I read an award of 100x more than the actual damages woudl be unconstitutional. Cases Print PDF - West Reporter version     Print and Email     Quick Print to attached printer     Print     Email     Download     Other delivery options menu 
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BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore
517 U.S. 559

State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell
538 U.S. 408

In state farm they basically said you can't have punitive damages more than 9x the amount of actual damages. They wanted to have some kind of restriction on punitive damags and the most generous actual damage award this girl could receive is 400,000. TJSL tuition is 33,900 right now. It has gone up every year so she likely paid slightly less, but just being generous she spent 100,000k in tuition over three years. The living costs are living costs and the school derived no benefit from it so I don't see how she could sue for that, but even lets give her that and it is another 75k, but I think that argument fail, but I will again just be overly generous that is a net loss of 175,000. There is an interest on this I understand, but I have already been overly generous in that award.

Then the question becomes what else would she have done over those three years. In all honestly probably struggled to find a job as an entry level college graduate just like she is doing now. However, we will again be extremely generous and say she could have made 100k annually over those 3 years. So just being astronomically generous her actual damages totaled $475,000. and she is asking for more than 100x this ridiuclously generous figure. Which just shows incompetence really I found this case law in a matter of seconds and just common sense should tell you it is not a 50 million dollar claim.

Then to further hurt her argument what is she going to do if she wins. Will she give up her membership to the bar? Or will she then continue to practice as a lawyer. I don't think that would be justified if she sues her school for then continues as a lawyer from the education she received? If she was saying I will give up my bar membership in exchange for a full refund maybe that is reasonable and I don't think that woudl be fair, but she is essentially asking for $50,000,000 dollars and I am assuming acting as on a lawyer on her own behalf based on the education she received from the school she is suing.
 
I am sure the school will make the completely legitimate argument that it was a contract with the consideration being money for education. You can't even have punitive damages for a breach of contract and certainly not an award of 100x more than the most liberal actual damages award you could be given. It is simply absurd I don't know what else to say. Maybe maybe if she was top of the class and she didn't pass the bar she could have a claim and again maybe, but she graduated and passed the bar and has the ability to be a lawyer. She could go out and get a client as a solo practitioner she has the rights of every other attorney whether they went to Harvard or Cooley if you passed the bar you can be in court. Her school gave her that option and know that things aren't going perfectly in her clearly delusional mind based on her 50 million dollar request she is taking no accountability for herself.

So what I am trying to say in my long and rambling rant I think this girl is a moron. However, that is my two cents and everybody is entitled to their opinion.

[jack24]

I agree the damages she's seeking are ludicrous

[unknownOne]

I think the reason she's suing for $50 million is because she's seeking class action status and needs the publicity generated for this purpose.

Thousands of people in law school right now are disillusioned as to what their law degree will likely do for them.  It doesn't help if law schools are being misleading with their employment numbers.  The problem is, the ABA sets the guidelines for reporting these figures.  That would probably allow law schools to hide behind these guidelines by saying, "Well, we're within the regulations for reporting set by the ABA", even though they may be exploiting it in some fashion. 

We also have far too many law school graduates these days and there doesn't appear to be any effort to curtail that.  The largest law school in the country, Cooley, just opened three satellite campuses on top of its main campus.  So, on top of its main campus being the largest in the country, it is now the equivalent of four law schools in and of itself.

[bigs5068]

If she is seeking class action status then maybe the damages aren't as ludicrous as I thought. The media is good at leaving details like that out, but if that is the case I will give her a little more respect.

In regards to the law schools opening up that is true, but every profession is packed right now. I was just with a bunch of people that studied aviation very random, but they were telling me how many pilot schools there were and how screwed up the system is. Apparently you need 2,000 hours of flying, but you have to find someone to give you the 2,000 hours because the school doesn't provide the 2,000 hours and most of them said it was a really messed up system and it was UNFAIR. I might be completely misreporting this, but they were all saying how competitive and hard it was, but there are people that are pilots.

The week before I was with a bunch of teachers complaining about the layoffs budget cuts blah blah. How hard it is for new teachers to get hired. My really good friend is in nursing school and she and all her classmates say how hard it is to find jobs and how unfair the system is.

So the point is every profession is messed up and HARD. It is very very difficult to start out in any profession and Morten and Thane have posted from their own personal experience as lawyers saying it is HARD. Morten went to Yale and said he had a STACK of rejection letters. Thane went to University of Texas and was on law review again he was rejected over and over. Eventually they got their careers started, but I am sure neither of them will say it was easy.

So point of the rant and everything I have ever posted on this site and in response to retards that post on third tier reality and JD underground is law school is no different than anything else. Law school is actually much more open that most programs they at least keep statistics. I would love for undergraduate schools to even attempt to report employment statistics. Or MBA's  here is UCLA's MBA career service website not even a mention of employment stats. http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x902.xml. There is no ABA or anything that I am aware of in that profession keeping any kind of tabs on employment.

A few more examples.
http://nursing.yale.edu/ Yale nursing school doesn't even have a career services office so they are not reporting employment.

http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/cdc/services/career-fair-schedule Stanford's career service website no mention of any type of employment statistics at all.

People assume getting a degree will open up all kinds of doors right away, but newsflash it won't. There are already literally millions of lawyers, doctors, teachers, pilots, businessmen, etc competing with eachother and recent graduates have to get into that mix and it is HARD.

I will again bring up my basketball experience and when I came in as a freshman after having a decent high school career I thought I was the sh**, but I was just a freshman and the sophomores, juniors seniors had been battling it out with eachother for at least a year before I got there. On top of that there were 4 other freshman competing with me. We all had to battle it out and I never sued the school for recruiting me and not giving me a starting spot right away. Instead we all had to fight for it and I put in a ton of work and a lot of time, but so did everybody else. For me it didn't work out as well as I would have liked, but that is life things don't always go perfectly instead  you have to work and earn work everything you get. Instead of whining and b****ing about how unfair everything is. Sadly I don't think many people get this.

To sum up my likely incoherent rant a degree in any profession is the BARE MINIMUM. You have not accomplished anything in any profession by getting a degree. It is great to have and it is the first step. However, you are going to have to pay your dues and it will take a long time. I am guessing Thane and Morten will attest to the fact that when they finally did get hired after numerous rejections they were not given a sweet corner office with 1,000,000 a year salaries and suddenly assigned to riveting 1st amendment cases. Maybe I am wrong, but I am speculating they started as associates doing the work nobody else really wanted to do. It probably took them years to get their careers started, but now they are authors and probably doing at least ok for themselves. Despite that they probably still have to deal with things that are not glamorous and fun every day. I am going to further speculate there are times when Morten and Thane lawyers from top schools that have been practicing for years do things they don't like to do.

So the law like every other profession is hard, takes a lot of times, and J.D. does not guarantee you anything. When you decided to attend form of higher education you make the choice to do so and are accountable for your decisions, but people seem to avoid this reality. Instead they sit around blaming everybody else, but that usually doesn't get them very far.