A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled Were Law Students Snookered By Law School Job Statistics (click here to access) and I concluded that while law schools should report accurate data, a student could not reasonably argue that they went to law school because of the one page of a law school’s website that said they would get a job right after graduation.
Apparently a New York Supreme Court Judge agrees. Last week, the Judge tossed out the first of many lawsuits brought by students who claimed they were snookered by misleading job statistics. The significant part of the court decision is reposted here.
The court does not view these post-graduate employment statistics to be misleading in a material way for a reasonable consumer acting reasonably. By anyone's definition, reasonable consumers -- college graduates -- seriously considering law schools are a sophisticated subset of education consumers, capable of sifting through data and weighing alternatives before making a decision regarding their post-college options, such as applying for professional school. These reasonable consumers have available to them any number of sources of information to review when making their decisions.
The Judge’s argument is in essence that because potential law students are “sophisticated” and have many sources of information available at their fingertips they knew or should know that employment and salary statistics provided by the law school should not be the sole basis for their decision.
Sound familiar? It should as here is what I wrote and posted a few weeks before the decision.
That being said, I also think students have a responsibility to perform some research about the job market such that they are comfortable with a decision to become a lawyer. A simple internet search will (and would have) shed some light on the fact that not every lawyer is making a six digit salary and that finding a job as a lawyer (especially in this economy) is difficult. In addition, the law school application process is extensive and it strikes me that at some point during that six month to year process (LSAT, application, acceptance, summer) that a student has an affirmative responsibility to investigate the job prospects a bit more than relying on the webpage of a private law school.
I for one am happy the lawsuit was thrown out and I hope that the cases in other States follow the same path. Law schools should report meaningful job statistics but suing a private institution because you were "misled" by a statistic on a webpage is not the answer in my opinion. Not everything should be a lawsuit and this entire situation is an example of the world looking in and seeing the legal profession (law schools, students, lawyers) behaving badly.
To be clear, this is not the fault of students but I do not think that lawsuits are the answer here. As such, I feel the case being thrown out for EXACTLY the reasons stated in the decision is exactly what should have happened. I recognize that this opinion is not shared by everyone and would welcome feedback and commentary so that both sides are adequately represented.
