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Off-Topic FIU law ranked ahead of UM law

TheOriginalCane said:
Did you go to law school? Because the point of law school is not to teach to the Bar Exam.

A couple of things. First, you really only have 2 "elective" years to take specific courses (2L and 3L, as your first year is pretty much set with standard required subjects like Contracts, Torts, Property, Civ Pro, etc.).

And, say, the Florida Bar has a grouping of subjects that COULD be tested on the Florida portion of the Bar Exam, like Trusts & Estates and Domestic Relations (courses that not everyone chooses to take as a 2L or 3L). It is impossible to take all the classes that "could" be tested on the Florida Bar exam, particularly if you take other classes like Litigation Skills (also an important thing to study) or do a Clinical Placement (kinda like an internship).

The bottom line is that you MUST study some subjects that you did not, in fact, take a corresponding course for. If you were prepping for the Bar exclusively, you'd need a fourth and/or fifth year of law school.

And I'm not sure what you're getting at with "subpar candidates". And I'm definitely not sure what "grade inflation" has to do with the Bar Exam. As a poor unfortunate soul who was on the VERY LAST FULL 1L YEAR OF THE C-CURVE AT MIAMI, I can tell you that the C-curve didn't make me any better or worse on the Bar Exam (the year after me got to dump the C-curve mid-year, and then the year after that there was no C-curve at UM Law).

Increased class size? I can partially get with that. But let's not forget, the Bar Review courses themselves have long been held in huge classes and/or "videotape" (or whatever other technology has developed into).

I don't know, maybe these graduates are not working hard enough, doing enough practice questions, and making the best decisions with their time during the summer. There's very little reason to FAIL the bar exam. No matter if you graduate from Harvard or the #200 law school in the country. You have to refresh yourself on 1L courses (most of the multistate portion) and cover yourself on all the state-specific subjects that might be tested.

Even when you go to the University of Florida...not every single class is "here's the correct answer to this issue for when you eventually take the Florida Bar exam". Do UF and F$U teach a bit MORE "Florida law" than UM? Absolutely. But UM has always had a Florida Con Law course in the catalog, if anyone is so worried about passing the Florida Bar, they can get a nice jump by taking THAT class.

But the reality is that most people want to take a few classes in the subject areas that they WANT to practice in. Yes, I took Federal Income Tax when I was at UM Law. No, it is not a subject tested on either the Multistate OR the Florida-specific Bar exam. Oh well.

It's not the job of the law school to teach the bar exam. It CAN BE HELPFUL for the law school to provide the facilities and the atmosphere for recent graduates to use during the summer while they prepare for the bar exam.

But you have to take a bar exam prep course. You have to do as much as you need to do to prep. If you need to do thousands of practice questions for the Multistate, do it. If you have to write dozens of practice essay questions for the Florida portion, do it.

Whatever it takes. And UM is not to blame, at least on the course offerings. Maybe UM could do more to help out in the summertime. Somehow I managed to get things done even as the whole law school was being rebuilt.

Excuses. Lots of law grads today are gaping pussies.
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I stopped reading after your strawman argument in the second sentence.

You read what I wrote. You are intelligent enough to understand what I wrote. Don't be disingenuous.
 
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No_Fly_Zone said:
I stopped reading after your strawman argument in the second sentence.

You read what I wrote. You are intelligent enough to understand what I wrote. Don't be disingenuous.
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Huh? My post was 100% accurate.

Law School isn't designed to teach the Bar Exam. Same with Med School and Business School. You pass the licensing exams on your own.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Did I count the sentences wrong? I thought you took issue with my second sentence.
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Correct. But I never wrote law school should be designed to "teach to the test".

It is a professional degree in a profession where you can't practice law without passing the Bar. If your students aren't passing the Bar at a reasonable rate (as you charge them over $50K per year), that's a significant problem.
 
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No_Fly_Zone said:
Correct. But I never wrote law school should be designed to "teach to the test".

It is a professional degree in a profession where you can't practice law without passing the Bar. If your students aren't passing the Bar at a reasonable rate (as you charge them over $50K per year), that's a significant problem.
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Look, I won't belabor the argument, but there are a lot of articles out there that discuss the ups and downs of bar passage rates, which can fluctuate widely and wildly from state-to-state, and from administration-to-administration. And, anyhow, the statistic usually cited in relation to law schools is "first-time bar passage rates". The vast majority of people eventually pass the bar, even if they have to take it a couple of times (JFK Jr.).

I'll just clip one short paragraph from the article below for practical purposes. While I'm not "proud" of UM's first-time bar passage rate, I will note that it's not that far off with from the general Florida Bar passing rate. Which, also, is nothing to be proud of. I have no idea what the **** is going on with studying for the bar these days, it's really not that hard to do.



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www.abajournal.com

Are remote learning and burnout to blame for declining bar pass rates?

The ABA Journal is read by half of the nation's 1 million lawyers every month. It covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.
www.abajournal.com
 
No_Fly_Zone said:
Strongly disagree. It's law school. The point is to prepare students to practice law. You can't practice law without passing the Bar. Period.

And blaming the students? No. That's a policy problem. If UM law is drawing subpar candidates, what does that say about the law school? At some point, people need to produce up to the brand or the brand suffers. And if they are struggling through their 1L year, then boot them from your law school. The ugly truth is grade inflation and increased class sizes has torpedoed UM law's bottom 1/3.

Two decades ago many of those kids would have been processed out. Today, they graduate with a 2.6 GPA and fail the Bar.
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But every state (less so now with the UBE) tests it differently. FIU being a largely Florida school post graduation builds its curriculum with an eye towards the Florida exam. Miami cannot and should not do that.

The point of law school should be to teach you how to think and analyze like an attorney in practice; not take a two day exam. And it fails at that too.

One story that will always stick out in my mind is I did my LLM at Miami and the head of the program specialized in a niche area I was interviewing in, so she helped me prepare for my interview. She asked what I would ask them about and I mentioned a recent case that we spent 1/2 of the semester on. She told me absolutely not as that was a mere academic exercise with no working practicality.

Miami needs to do better leveraging its national network, placing kids outside of the legal field, and with a larger variety of size firms. Pretty much, substantiate its price tag. I live and practice out of state. My firm lets you search by school. It’s on my LinkedIn. They know how to contact me for money. I’ve never been contacted in 13 years since graduating to help with networking or job placement.
 
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wspcane said:
But every state (less so now with the UBE) tests it differently. FIU being a largely Florida school post graduation builds its curriculum with an eye towards the Florida exam. Miami cannot and should not do that.

The point of law school should be to teach you how to think and analyze like an attorney in practice; not take a two day exam. And it fails at that too.

One story that will always stick out in my mind is I did my LLM at Miami and the head of the program specialized in a niche area I was interviewing in, so she helped me prepare for my interview. She asked what I would ask them about and I mentioned a recent case that we spent 1/2 of the semester on. She told me absolutely not as that was a mere academic exercise with no working practicality.

Miami needs to do better leveraging its national network, placing kids outside of the legal field, and with a larger variety of size firms. Pretty much, substantiate its price tag. I live and practice out of state. My firm lets you search by school. It’s on my LinkedIn. They know how to contact me for money. I’ve never been contacted in 13 years since graduating to help with networking or job placement.
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That last paragraph nails it.

I was the first person in my entire family to go to law school. I had NO IDEA what the **** I was doing when it came to networking and mentorship at the early stage of a career. Some of my best friends were the same way, we had no "earlier in life" guidance from friends or family on how to get started in our legal career paths. That was part of the reason I did the Tax LLM, it was a much more specific avenue to take, you could see the networking and job placement was much more active.
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
Look, I won't belabor the argument, but there are a lot of articles out there that discuss the ups and downs of bar passage rates, which can fluctuate widely and wildly from state-to-state, and from administration-to-administration. And, anyhow, the statistic usually cited in relation to law schools is "first-time bar passage rates". The vast majority of people eventually pass the bar, even if they have to take it a couple of times (JFK Jr.).

I'll just clip one short paragraph from the article below for practical purposes. While I'm not "proud" of UM's first-time bar passage rate, I will note that it's not that far off with from the general Florida Bar passing rate. Which, also, is nothing to be proud of. I have no idea what the **** is going on with studying for the bar these days, it's really not that hard to do.



View attachment 238218




www.abajournal.com

Are remote learning and burnout to blame for declining bar pass rates?

The ABA Journal is read by half of the nation's 1 million lawyers every month. It covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.
www.abajournal.com
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I hear you. It really shouldn't be that hard to pass the Bar. And, yes, there are a myriad of factors. But then again...

FIU Law graduates have finished first in Florida on eight consecutive July bar exams and three of the mid-year/February exams since 2016. Since 2005, more than 87% of FIU law graduates have passed the bar exam on their first attempt - the highest passage rate of any Florida law school.

I consider this a significant trend, and a meaningful metric.
 
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No_Fly_Zone said:
I hear you. It really shouldn't be that hard to pass the Bar. And, yes, there are a myriad of factors. But then again...

FIU Law graduates have finished first in Florida on eight consecutive July bar exams and three of the mid-year/February exams since 2016. Since 2005, more than 87% of FIU law graduates have passed the bar exam on their first attempt - the highest passage rate of any Florida law school.

I consider this a significant trend, and a meaningful metric.
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At a minimum it doesn’t reflect well on UM given the cost of the education. It’s not hard to understand why people might opt to go to a State school with a lower cost that’s doing well. My guess is that the quality of FIU applicants will continue to rise driving demand and student quality upwards.

Buy stock in FIU Law now.
 
RVACane said:
At a minimum it doesn’t reflect well on UM given the cost of the education. It’s not hard to understand why people might opt to go to a State school with a lower cost that’s doing well. My guess is that the quality of FIU applicants will continue to rise driving demand and student quality upwards.

Buy stock in FIU Law now.
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I am very involved in hiring at my office and I have been making a point of doing OCI at FIU Law for about 6 years now. From a hiring perspective, they're a great value.
 
Cane4life18 said:
FIU has been whooping UM for the past few years. FIU has a better law school than UM, UF and FSU. >70% bar pass rate is the norm for FIU. UM has been struggling to reach >55%. UM scored below 50% pass rate recently.

UM has to do something with the tuition cost. I think tuition cost is limiting the type of student that can attend a school like UM.

This coming school year is projected to cost 86-88k for a full year. That's ridiculous. I know campus is going through wide spread renovations but that's too much. I graduated in 2018 and tuition cost were 56k for a full year. In a couple of years it will cost 100k per year for a undergrad degree. That's called digging an early financial grave for most people.
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It was a lesson for me. Lawrence in Appleton Wisconsin was in that ballpark. We looked everywhere, got in at UF, that's that. I would love to have him go to Miami. And so would he. But unfortunately the economics didn't work out
 
No_Fly_Zone said:
I am very involved in hiring at my office and I have been making a point of doing OCI at FIU Law for about 6 years now. From a hiring perspective, they're a great value.
Click to expand...
Do you pay them less? Or they hustle more? What do you mean by great value?
 
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