The dean of America's 67th-best law school is so sick of the media turning his profession into the new financial crisis that he took to The New York Times' opinion pages to lambast reporters for essentially ruining his industry.
"For at least two years, the popular press, bloggers and a few sensationalist law professors have turned American law schools into the new investment banks," Case Western Reserve University School of Law's dean Lawrence Mitchell wrote. "We entice bright young students into our academic clutches. Succubus-like, when we’ve taken what we want from them, we return them to the mean and barren streets to fend for themselves."
That media-induced hysteria has caused potentially promising lawyers to forgo law school because they're led to believe they won't get jobs, he says.
But that assumption is dead wrong, according to Mitchell. Law school prepares students for a long career and gives them the tools to handle a constantly changing job market, he argues.
And debt isn't as big of a problem as the media has made it out to be, Mitchell says.
"The average student at a private law school graduates with $125,000 in debt," he wrote for the Times. "But the average lawyer’s annual salary exceeds that number. You’d consider a home mortgage at that ratio to be pretty sweet."
We think the unemployed gradate of the University of Buffalo law school who accused his dean of "fiscally raping law students" might disagree as he pays off his $100,000 education.
Despite Mitchell's impassioned arguments, Case Western still seems to be facing reality as it welcomes a significantly smaller Class of 2015, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported in July.
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