Thursday, August 18, 2011

Law School Blame Game Heads East

I previously blogged about an unemployed lawyer's regrettable lawsuit against Thomas Jefferson School of Law. The angry alumnus alleged that the law school misled her into believing her odds of post-graduate employment were stronger than they actually were, even though a simple glance at the school's bar passage rates should have easily dispelled her purported misconception.

Well, it looks like the Law School Blame Game is hitting the road, as alumni from New York Law School and Cooley Law School have filed similar complaints against their respective alma maters. Cooley, meanwhile, appears to be striking back by filing a defamation action against Kurzon Strauss, the law firm representing the unemployed alums.

The story is pretty simple at the end of the day: the plaintiffs applied to law school without performing their due diligence, graduated in the middle of a bad economy, want to blame someone, and decided their law schools are easy (and wealthy) enough targets. Bad times often popularize bad ideas, so I really hope for the sake of the legal profession that this one doesn't catch on.

Ryan T. Darby practices law in San Diego, California. He received an outstanding legal education and has no plans of suing his alma mater.