A Top Law School's Email Gaffe Reveals Just How Bad Things Look For Its Grads

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/george-washington-email-gaffe-2012-9



George Washington University's law school got some bad press this summer when its dean made noises about reducing a stipend for unemployed graduates.
The school's "Pathways to Practice" program gives a $15-an-hour stipend to grads who get volunteer positions with non-profits, according to a blog run by law professor Paul Campos.


***SNIP

GW graduates who enrolled in the program got an email reminding them to turn in their time sheets – but whoever sent it failed to BCC them, an unnamed source told Campos.

So those grads saw exactly how many of their peers were also stuck with a unpaid gig: 121, or 21 percent of its graduating class.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/george-washington-email-gaffe-2012-9#ixzz27qnFfayA

[Demit]

1. While I understand the point that grads aren't getting salaried jobs, where they'd be making much

more money, I can't see why Business Insider would equate $15 an hour to being "unpaid." Or maybe I can. Another example of the 1% not understanding how the other 99% live.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

2. They are unpaid positions

In that the people the grads are working for are not paying them. If the school wasn't kicking in the stipend, the grads would be working for free.

[Demit]

3. I understand that. The positions might be unpaid, by the nonprofits. But the grads are being paid.

I'm taking issue with the magazines's wording. The grads are not unpaid.

As a side note: if the school wasn't paying them, I wonder how many would (or could) work for free.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

5. Meh

The positions are offered and accepted as unpaid positions. The fact that someone else is paying them to work doesn't change the fact that the positions themselves are unpaid.

[Demit]

6. And that the people working them are being paid.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

8. Yes

But not by the businesses that hire them.

If my daughter goes and volunteers at a food pantry, and I pay her, that doesn't change the fact that she the work she did was unpaid work.

[bayareamike]

9. 15 dollars an hour with 120 to 200 thousand dollars in debt

is not the 1%. Many law school grads are indentured servants these days. I say that as a graduate of a T1 school.

Hell, a Boston firm recently received almost 80 applications for a 10,000 dollar a year gig, lower than minimum wage.

Anyone who thinks that law school is still a solid pathway to financial freedom and success is not paying attention or is not familiar with the law school game.

[Daemonaquila]

4. Same as it ever was - where's the beef?

This is no different than in the mid-90s when I graduated law school in the top tier of my class. Some had firm jobs lined up, but many of those were in their family firm or in a firm where a parent worked. Others had provisional promises of work... if and when they passed the bar. Most were still looking, or working internships or nonprofit gigs, some with a stipend from one source or another.

People who think that graduating from law school, even a top one, has ever meant being able to slide into a job quickly, are simply wrong. There also have always been some law schools where virtually no grads have exited with a "real" job for a year or more.

The fact is, a lot of grads are entitled brats who are only in the profession for the money, and it has been a very long time since they've been needed in those "desirable" firms. There is a ton of work out there... but only among the large underserved population - i.e., anyone who can't just whip out a checkbook with impunity to pay a high hourly rate.

I've had to hire young lawyers at a firm in the past several years. Good golly Miss Molly, the attitudes and expectations! I'll be honest - most of them were not just unemployed, but unemployable. This isn't a story that reflects on the business climate, but on the entitled, unrealistic brats that come out of the law schools, and the schools that coddle those attitudes because it makes them money.

[midnight]

7. That is a great idea.... If a college graduates you and you can't find a job, they help you out...