From NYT:
Nearly a decade has passed since an aspiring young lawyer in California, Anna Alaburda, graduated in the top tier of her class, passed the state bar exam and set out to use the law degree she had spent about $150,000 to acquire.
But on Monday, in a San Diego courtroom, she will tell a story that has become all too familiar among law students in the United States: Since graduating from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 2008, she has yet to find a full-time salaried job as a lawyer.
From there, though, her story has taken an unusual twist: Ms. Alaburda, 37, is the first former law student whose case against a law school, charging that it inflated the employment data for its graduates as a way to lure students to enroll, will go to trial.
Other disgruntled students have tried to do the same. In the last several years, 15 lawsuits have sought to hold various law schools accountable for publicly listing information critics say was used to pump up alumni job numbers by counting part-time waitress and other similar, full-time jobs as employment. Only one suit besides Ms. Alaburda’s remains active.
I wish Ms Alaburda the best of luck in her litigious efforts. Much of the education system of North America is a confidence trick played on the unsuspecting young. Finally the educrates are being brought to account. Going after fourth tier law schools is - however - far too modest an effort. Law students are - at least theoretically - adults capable of making rational decisions. What about children? Millions of innocent children are dragooned through the public school system each year. They exit lacking literacy and numeracy skills that would have been taken for granted even twenty years ago. If there exists legal merit to sue the law schools of American, the K-12 system deserves a class action to make the ones that took down the tobacco companies look like a joke. The notion of a "public education" is the biggest con game in modern North American history.
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