Iowa - Don't Go There

[jddude]

If you are a future law school student, and you are considering University of Iowa for law school, think again. This is what you will encounter:


*passive, unengaged, unmotivated, students. more interested in being mindless, robotic, automatons than in the process of developing and challenging one's mind so that a process of thought develops that is designed to form the platform of good, solid, legal analysis, which, in the end, is based on good, solid, common sense and the ability to engage in the full spectrum of dialectical analysis.


*professors who are clueless about the "real world" because most of them (1) have never had to deal with it; (2) have a distaste for the actualities of the legal profession that, quite frankly, belie their choice of "career"; (3) think that "teaching" involves engaging in a semester's long example of how to exploit their "Inner Napoleon"' (4) write exams that have almost nothing to do with what went on in the classroom for four months.


*over bloated, redundant administration. It seems clear that most law schools exist for no other reason than to perpetuate the flow of bodies through the system so that administrators - for the most part, people who couldn't work in the outside world if their lives depended on it, and who don't care about the students (Gee, remember these people...?) - can keep up the pretense that the law school actually serves a function outside of that that perpetuates its own existence. Iowa is no different. The reality is that the law school is a money making machine for the university, period.


The most distressing thing is that the school is turning out people who are walking malpractice suits. And they don't care. The attitude is "Give me your money, I'll give you a law degree." There is no profession, here. The whole process is treated as if it’s a joke. The administration, and to some extent, the faculty, but especially the administration think that (a) students are stupid; (b) students can't tell that the administration and faculty think they're stupid; (c) students don't "deserve" a real legal education, because they aren't capable of it anyway, and most of them won't have a real career. There is no serious intellectual training going on here. If you try to broach the topic, you're treated as though you're some apostate; you know, you're rocking the boat, you're messing with the illusion.


There was a recent article in the Des Moines Register about the fate of current law school graduates [http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071014/NEWS/710140330/1001/RSS01]. This is what awaits a significant portion of the graduates from this place.


Furthermore, while you can point fingers all you want at the law students, that doesn't alleviate the school administrators from having to take responsibility for the lies they perpetuate.


At the UofI law school, the Dean at that place is living in a fantasy world. The article in the Des Moines Register quotes her as stating that there are NY law firms that hire people from the top half of the class and pay them $180K to start. That is a flat out lie. There is only one law firm in NY that hires UofI grads on anything resembling a regular basis - that would be Willkie Farr - and they at most hire one or two people every couple of years. Moreover, no law firm in NY is going to hire people from Iowa based on their being in the top half of the class. Maybe top 10%, but below that, forget it. But, I guess this woman, Carolyn Jones, has to do something to justify the $250K salary she's paid. Don't ask me what she does for that money. Given her horrible communication skills - the woman can't even put together a coherent, well written letter - I'm sure she's doing whatever she can to keep shucking and jiving for that salary.


The people at the UofI law school are perpetuating fraud about the marketplace. As with most law schools, the Career Services Office is a joke; its populated by people who don't have a clue about how to help people connect with the job market, and they don't care. They're making their living off the backs of naive law students. The administrators at that place are only interested in helping lesbians, straight females, gay males, and especially unprepared minorities. If you are a heterosexual white male, and you decide attend this place, be prepared to be treated like dirt.


The marketplace is slowly waking up, though. Potential law school students are beginning to realize that the overwhelming majority of these schools exist for no reason other than to extract money from uninformed students in order to pay the salaries of these so-called "professors" (in law school, that means people who receive a salary for not teaching, or not doing much of anything else for that matter) and the administrators who are interested only in perpetuating their distorted social agendas.


More stories like the ones in the Des Moines Register and the Wall Street Journal are necessary as the schools refuse to provide honest, accurate information about what happens to their graduates. If even one person decides that going to Iowa is a bad career/financial decisions, it will be worth it. Hopefully, there will be some sort of cumulative effect and more of these law schools will see the end of their existence.

[. . . . . .]

Disgruntled, or Honest?

[Untypical Girl]

"The administrators at that place are only interested in helping lesbians, straight females, gay males, and especially unprepared minorities. If you are a heterosexual white male, and you decide attend this place, be prepared to be treated like dirt."

smells like sour grapes to me

[juliemccoy]

Newsflash: it's called bureaucracy and you're going to find it at any law school in the country, or at least at any public school you attend. It's 3 short, miserable years of being surrounded by people who, for the most part, are in their early 20s and have never had significant professional experience. Nor do they know why they want a law degree. Apathy is to be expected because one test determines 100% of your grade in each class and it isn't necessarily the smartest person getting the highest grade.

So is there a solution? Absolutely. Pick the location that sucks the least, hunker down and make the best of it.

[jalex519]

Isn't the OP's rant a straight copy and paste from somewhere else? It looks very similar to something I've read before....

[MHLM]

Go HAWKS!

Wally,

I like the blatant Iowa trolling I've seen from you of late. It proves there is more depth to your character than some of your T14-obsessed posts would lead me to believe.

[just Trev]

this really does make me start to wonder about some of the top 100 public universities in the south/mid-atlantic i was thinking of applying to.  kinda sketches me out, if you know what i mean

[vap]

Isn't the OP's rant a straight copy and paste from somewhere else? It looks very similar to something I've read before....

Yes, someone posted this (with the link to an article) a while back.

[just Trev]

my concerns about the amount of debt compared to to the potential for a job that will pay it off are rising.  it seems like one needs to be top tier, top of class for any assurance of financial security

[vap]

my concerns about the amount of debt compared to to the potential for a job that will pay it off are rising.  it seems like one needs to be top tier, top of class for any assurance of financial security

Concerns should be high.  Anticipate graduating near the median of the class at any school, and base your decision on that.  Full non-resident tuition at Iowa does not seem like a good investment.