Revamping Career Services: Two Modest Proposals

Does somebody need a professional headhunter?

There are two sides to law school career services. One side you meet at conferences and events. The CSO employees you meet in public are smart, earnest people. They care about their students, and they know better than their deans the challenges of the legal job market. They’re pleasing to look at and interested in meaningful reform. You end conversations with them feeling like they’re underpaid.

The other side of CSO is the side you only hear about from the disgruntled students who actually need them. If the student has a job, they say there is one good CSO person in an office beset by lazy morons. If the 3L doesn’t have a job, the whole office is a solitaire-playing, baby-making, incompetent den of secretaries who are contractually obligated to use the word “network” in every single sentence.

I think both sides are true. There are some real CSO gems who work hard, and the law schools like to show these people off. But the system of law school career services is based on legal jobs economy that is gone and never coming back. People are using 2003 skills to contend with the 2013 job market, and it’s failing students all across the country.

It’s failing even students at Ivy League schools, as this story will point out. But I have two simple solutions that law schools could implement for next fall that would significantly improve the performance of law school CSOs….

Today’s amazingly disgruntled 3L goes to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In fairness to Penn, there are a number of schools where students are totally underwhelmed by their career services officers. But it is a little weird to hear this from a 3L at an Ivy:

Many of the graduating 3Ls from UPenn Law (who have attended other undergrad Ivies and schools such as Stanford and Berkeley) have been upset with the incompetency of UPenn Law’s Career Planning office (I know, it may not sound like news). This school is like a faux Ivy.

Many of us are still unemployed or stuck with undesirable back up jobs, even though we worked for consulting firms, the government, and major corporations before coming to Penn Law. There are still many of us with decent grades who are unemployed. And a lot of us have massive debt.

The Career Planning office at UPenn appears to do little to get job for students who strike out at On Campus Interviewing (or for those who want to work in public interest or government). It does not matter if you are west coast or east coast, the situation is bad all round.

Throughout the year, Penn’s career office will send a “job of the week” job posting email to the 3L class. Yes, that includes ONE job of the week. Other comparable schools (Duke and Harvard) send “job posting

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PCI Slams Oregon Bad Faith Proposals

March 22, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A handful of bills proposed in Oregon could hit consumers with nearly $200 million in cost increases and yield a rash of lawsuits, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, which is urging Oregon lawmakers to defeat several bad faith laws introduced in legislature this session.

Six bills that either establish private rights of action for first party/third party claims, or extend the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act to insurers, are in under consideration by the state’s Legislators: House Bill 2525, House Bill 3160, Senate Bill 512, Senate Bill 513, Senate Bill 514 and Senate Bill 686.

Many of the bills are aimed at bringing insurance issues under the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act or enable first party/third lawsuits against insurers, establishing a separate private right of action outside of Oregon’s insurance code.

Several of the bills are authored by Rep. Paul Holvey, chair of the Consumer Protection and Government Efficiency Committee, and Sen. Chip Shields, chair of the General Government, Consumer and Small Business Protection Committee.

A spokesperson for Holvey did not return a call seeking comment. Shields’ office agreed to get the lawmaker to comment, but he did not do so.

In introducing and supporting such legislation Shields in statements has argued that insurance is the only line of business exempt from Oregon’s UTPA, the state’s consumer and business protection statute prohibiting fraud in business transactions

“No company in the State of Oregon should be able to misled or mistreat you, no matter what industry they are in, ” Shields said in a statement.

HB 2525, for example, would direct the court to award attorney fees in certain circumstances, it allows class actions against persons that commit unlawful insurance practices, and permits the state’s attorney general to punish unlawful insurance practice as unlawful practice under unlawful trade practices law.

Other bills contain similar language, and wording such as

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