Pressure for law school to cook the books?

September 21, 2011
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The University of Illinois College of Law has some explaining to do.

They admitted this week that they had incorrectly reported median test scores and median grade point averages for their incoming class on their school’s website. The incorrect information made the incoming class look smarter. Now previous years’ information is being examined.

Whether this misreporting was accidental or intentional has yet to be determined, but it does make you wonder if law schools are feeling pressure to stand out and make themselves look as good as possible to attract more applicants as well as look good to companies that rank law schools, like U.S. News and World Report.

They aren’t the first law school to incorrectly report student information. Villanova University School of Law lied about LSAT and grade point averages for nearly 10 years according to a recent investigation. With all this emphasis on where your law school ranks, I can’t help but think that the Illinois law school won’t be the last one we hear about.
 

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  1. vagueness cannot challenged, so let's write all laws vaguely and throw the constitution out the window.Even if the court is operating under a particular law, if they don't it they will change it to their liking. What a joke!!!

  2. Two convictions becomes one conviction with exactly the same sentence, only it is not clear wheter or not that sentence will be 18 months, 120 months or 138 months. Actually if the guns were in a home, whether or not they were his, he is protected under the 2nd amendment. Jurors need to learn the law and the constitution before judging others. The cour5ts need to do this as well.

  3. With all due respect, Rick, I think you probably would be making a mistake by going to law school. The job market for attorneys is so saturated, you may well find yourself unemployed and with a lot of debt. You mention law would be a good supplement to your skills. True. But employers unfortunately don't value that. You will find that a law degree may well pigeonhole you into an attorney slot and limit career options. If you have a good job now I would hold onto that. As an attorney, you may well end up making less with the aforementioned debt.

  4. Jack, I was only responding to bill's comment of tying everybody in government together. I agree with you though, it takes one bad apple to ruin the bunch.. As in any profession. What's truly unfair is when somebody violates someone's trust and takes complete advantage of someone

  5. John’s comment is unfair. The majority of attorneys can be trusted. Unfortunately, all it takes is one greedy, unscrupulous, immoral attorney to jade the public.

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