If we ever own our own place again, I'm thinking grey walls with pops of color would be a very fun way to go! Seems like it would only work in rooms with lots of light and windows, though. . . I'm inspired by these nonetheless.
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Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
This Article Makes Me Feel Better About Quitting Law School
A Case of Supply v. Demand
Law schools are manufacturing more lawyers than America needs, and law students aren't happy about it.
By Annie Lowrey
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010, at 4:14 PM ET
During the recession, the logic was ubiquitous: The economy is terrible—better to wait it out! It is a three-year fast track to a remunerative, respectable career! It's not just learning a subject—it's learning how to think! Law school, always the safe choice, became a more popular choice. Between 2007 and 2009, the number of LSAT takers climbed 20.5 percent. Law school applications increased in turn.
But now a number of recent or current law students are saying—or screaming—that they made a mistake. They went to law school, they say, and now they're underemployed or jobless, in debt, and three years older. And statistics show that the evidence is more than anecdotal.
One Boston College Law School third-year—miraculously, still anonymous—begged for his tuition back in exchange for a promise to drop out without a degree, in an open letter to his dean published earlier this month. "This will benefit both of us," he argues. "On the one hand, I will be free to return to the teaching career I left to come here. I'll be able to provide for my family without the crushing weight of my law school loans. On the other hand, this will help BC Law go up in the rankings, since you will not have to report my unemployment at graduation to US News. This will present no loss to me, only gain: in today's job market, a J.D. seems to be more of a liability than an asset."
He is one of dozens of law students who have gone public, very public, to chastise the schools they elected to attend for leaving them older and poorer. One popular medium is the "scam blog," where indebted, unemployed attorneys accuse law schools of being little better than tuition-sucking diploma mills. (Sample blog title: Shilling Me Softly.) The author of one popular, if histrionic, such blog describes his law school as a Ponzi scheme.
Others have taken, perhaps inevitably, to the courts. Kenneth Desornes, for instance, named his law school in his bankruptcy filing. He asks the school to "[a]dmit that your business knew or should have known that Plaintiff would be in no position to repay those loans."
The students might be litigious—no surprise there—and overwrought. But they've got a point. The demand for lawyers has fallen off a cliff, both due to the short-term crisis of the recession and long-term changes to the industry, and is only starting to rebound. The lawyers that do have jobs are making less than they used to. At the same time, universities seeking revenue have tacked on law schools, minting more lawyers every year.
That has caused some concern among lawyers who think the accrediting organization, the American Bar Association, is doing the profession a disservice by approving so many new schools. (Contrast that with medical schools. They come with much higher startup costs and tend not to be money-makers. Relatively few students get medical degrees every year, and demand far outstrips supply.)
The job market for lawyers is terrible, full stop—and that hits young lawyers, without professional track records and in need of training, worst. Though the National Association for Law Placement, an industry nonprofit group, reports that employment for the class of 2009 was 88.3 percent, about a quarter of those jobs were temporary gigs, without the salaries needed by most new lawyers to pay off crushing debts. Another 10 percent were part-time. And thousands of jobs were actually fellowships or grants provided by the new lawyers' law schools.
The big firms that make up about 28 percent of recent grads' employment slashed their associate programs in 2009 and 2010, rescinding offers to thousands and deferring the start dates of thousands more. Worse, the profession as a whole shrunk: The number of people employed in legal services hit an all-time high of 1.196 million in June 2007. It currently stands at 1.103 million. That means the number of law jobs has dwindled by about 7.8 percent. In comparison, the total number of jobs has fallen about 5.4 percent over the same period.
At the same time, the law schools—the supply side of the equation—have not stopped growing. Law schools awarded 43,588 J.D.s last year, up 11.5 percent since 2000, though there was technically negative demand for lawyers. And the American Bar Association's list of approved law schools now numbers 200, an increase of 9 percent in the last decade. Those newer law schools have a much shakier track record of helping new lawyers get work, but they don't necessarily cost less than their older, more established counterparts.
But what of those high salaries for the lawyers who do get jobs? After all, big law schools report that the average graduate is still making in the high five figures for entry-level work. The problem is those statistics are what lawyers might call hearsay. For one, law schools report their own salary-at-graduation data to organizations like NALP and magazines like U.S. News and World Report, collecting it from student surveys. But, NALP notes, there is an obvious bias problem. Students don't bother telling their law school what they are making unless they are making a lot. So the figure is probably too high, and either way is not a scientific measure.
Another point is that prospective law students usually look at average pay at graduation. But the average hides substantial inequality: There are the jobs at white-shoe firms that pay about $160,000 per year to recent graduates, and then there are the rest of jobs, which generally pay between $45,000 and $60,000. Almost no salaries are near the median or the average. They are clustered at the bottom, with fewer high earners, many of whom come from a handful of super-elite law schools, up at the top. That means that most students do not meet the break-even salary—the starting salary that would make law school tuition a good investment, estimated at around $65,000.
Students simply "cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, the dean of New York Law School, in 2005. "Even those making the highest salaries find that the debt that they have accumulated while in school may tax them for years."
Still, the harsh realities of being a young lawyer have not stopped thousands from enrolling in law school during the recession. Veritas Prep, a graduate school admissions consulting firm, found in a recent survey that four in five prospective applicants still plan to apply to law school even if "a significant number of law school graduates were unable to find jobs in their desired fields." Only 4 percent were dissuaded.
So does that just mean a continued oversupply of lawyers, dragging down their own median salaries and dealing with their heavy debt burdens while a few lucky associates make it to the corporate big leagues? Not necessarily.
David McGowan of University of San Diego and Bernard Burk of the Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford argue that trend cannot continue. Prospective students will recognize that law school can be a bad deal, and one way or another is not a sure thing. Applications will slowly drop off. The marquee law schools will be fine. But some of the newer, lower-ranked law schools will end up shutting down—meaning fewer lawyers, and the vindication, if not the employment, of all of those scam-blog authors.
Law schools are manufacturing more lawyers than America needs, and law students aren't happy about it.
By Annie Lowrey
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010, at 4:14 PM ET
During the recession, the logic was ubiquitous: The economy is terrible—better to wait it out! It is a three-year fast track to a remunerative, respectable career! It's not just learning a subject—it's learning how to think! Law school, always the safe choice, became a more popular choice. Between 2007 and 2009, the number of LSAT takers climbed 20.5 percent. Law school applications increased in turn.
But now a number of recent or current law students are saying—or screaming—that they made a mistake. They went to law school, they say, and now they're underemployed or jobless, in debt, and three years older. And statistics show that the evidence is more than anecdotal.
One Boston College Law School third-year—miraculously, still anonymous—begged for his tuition back in exchange for a promise to drop out without a degree, in an open letter to his dean published earlier this month. "This will benefit both of us," he argues. "On the one hand, I will be free to return to the teaching career I left to come here. I'll be able to provide for my family without the crushing weight of my law school loans. On the other hand, this will help BC Law go up in the rankings, since you will not have to report my unemployment at graduation to US News. This will present no loss to me, only gain: in today's job market, a J.D. seems to be more of a liability than an asset."
He is one of dozens of law students who have gone public, very public, to chastise the schools they elected to attend for leaving them older and poorer. One popular medium is the "scam blog," where indebted, unemployed attorneys accuse law schools of being little better than tuition-sucking diploma mills. (Sample blog title: Shilling Me Softly.) The author of one popular, if histrionic, such blog describes his law school as a Ponzi scheme.
Others have taken, perhaps inevitably, to the courts. Kenneth Desornes, for instance, named his law school in his bankruptcy filing. He asks the school to "[a]dmit that your business knew or should have known that Plaintiff would be in no position to repay those loans."
The students might be litigious—no surprise there—and overwrought. But they've got a point. The demand for lawyers has fallen off a cliff, both due to the short-term crisis of the recession and long-term changes to the industry, and is only starting to rebound. The lawyers that do have jobs are making less than they used to. At the same time, universities seeking revenue have tacked on law schools, minting more lawyers every year.
That has caused some concern among lawyers who think the accrediting organization, the American Bar Association, is doing the profession a disservice by approving so many new schools. (Contrast that with medical schools. They come with much higher startup costs and tend not to be money-makers. Relatively few students get medical degrees every year, and demand far outstrips supply.)
The job market for lawyers is terrible, full stop—and that hits young lawyers, without professional track records and in need of training, worst. Though the National Association for Law Placement, an industry nonprofit group, reports that employment for the class of 2009 was 88.3 percent, about a quarter of those jobs were temporary gigs, without the salaries needed by most new lawyers to pay off crushing debts. Another 10 percent were part-time. And thousands of jobs were actually fellowships or grants provided by the new lawyers' law schools.
The big firms that make up about 28 percent of recent grads' employment slashed their associate programs in 2009 and 2010, rescinding offers to thousands and deferring the start dates of thousands more. Worse, the profession as a whole shrunk: The number of people employed in legal services hit an all-time high of 1.196 million in June 2007. It currently stands at 1.103 million. That means the number of law jobs has dwindled by about 7.8 percent. In comparison, the total number of jobs has fallen about 5.4 percent over the same period.
At the same time, the law schools—the supply side of the equation—have not stopped growing. Law schools awarded 43,588 J.D.s last year, up 11.5 percent since 2000, though there was technically negative demand for lawyers. And the American Bar Association's list of approved law schools now numbers 200, an increase of 9 percent in the last decade. Those newer law schools have a much shakier track record of helping new lawyers get work, but they don't necessarily cost less than their older, more established counterparts.
But what of those high salaries for the lawyers who do get jobs? After all, big law schools report that the average graduate is still making in the high five figures for entry-level work. The problem is those statistics are what lawyers might call hearsay. For one, law schools report their own salary-at-graduation data to organizations like NALP and magazines like U.S. News and World Report, collecting it from student surveys. But, NALP notes, there is an obvious bias problem. Students don't bother telling their law school what they are making unless they are making a lot. So the figure is probably too high, and either way is not a scientific measure.
Another point is that prospective law students usually look at average pay at graduation. But the average hides substantial inequality: There are the jobs at white-shoe firms that pay about $160,000 per year to recent graduates, and then there are the rest of jobs, which generally pay between $45,000 and $60,000. Almost no salaries are near the median or the average. They are clustered at the bottom, with fewer high earners, many of whom come from a handful of super-elite law schools, up at the top. That means that most students do not meet the break-even salary—the starting salary that would make law school tuition a good investment, estimated at around $65,000.
Students simply "cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, the dean of New York Law School, in 2005. "Even those making the highest salaries find that the debt that they have accumulated while in school may tax them for years."
Still, the harsh realities of being a young lawyer have not stopped thousands from enrolling in law school during the recession. Veritas Prep, a graduate school admissions consulting firm, found in a recent survey that four in five prospective applicants still plan to apply to law school even if "a significant number of law school graduates were unable to find jobs in their desired fields." Only 4 percent were dissuaded.
So does that just mean a continued oversupply of lawyers, dragging down their own median salaries and dealing with their heavy debt burdens while a few lucky associates make it to the corporate big leagues? Not necessarily.
David McGowan of University of San Diego and Bernard Burk of the Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford argue that trend cannot continue. Prospective students will recognize that law school can be a bad deal, and one way or another is not a sure thing. Applications will slowly drop off. The marquee law schools will be fine. But some of the newer, lower-ranked law schools will end up shutting down—meaning fewer lawyers, and the vindication, if not the employment, of all of those scam-blog authors.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Getting Spooky!
A few weeks ago my sister Cori came up with the idea to make Halloween Potions, sort of Harry Potter style. It sounded so fun I decided to join her! We went to thrift stores where we found old bottles and vases to decorate and we printed labels we found online. We even came up with some on our own.
CENTER ABOVE: "Witch Potion" Since 1692. Brewed with only the finest all-natural ingredients in the grand tradition of Salem's finest witches.
RIGHT ABOVE: "Warts Andall Spray" From Starlight Potions and Remedies. If you have warts, they will be removed. If you want warts, they will appear. (Freshness guaranteed or the next spell is free.)
LEFT ABOVE: "Befuddlement & Confusion Draft" From Potter's Apothecary. Effect: Causes the drinker confusion of the oddest sort. Caution: Do not operate brooms under influence.
CENTER ABOVE: (Emma made this one up): "Death Skulls Potion Punch" Instructions: Take 2 tablespoons before Midnight on Halloween or you will be instantly paralyzed and fail to recover until Midnight the next night. (As prescribed by Dr. Em and Dr. B)
RIGHT ABOVE: Pixie Dust Preserved in Pixie Tears" (Made From Concentrate)
LEFT ABOVE: Extra Eyeballs
CENTER ABOVE: "3 Wishes"
RIGHT ABOVE: "Shadow Powder" From Bubble Bubble Potion and Cauldron Company. Just a pinch sprinkled over your head and you disappear into your surroundings. (Order early for same day delivery)
LEFT ABOVE: "Truth Serum"
CENTER ABOVE: "Frog Flesh" When you don't have a prince, a frog will do.
RIGHT ABOVE: "Phoenix Feathers" Use: 1 Dash sends you flying! Expires October 31, 1790. Witches of Oz & Company.
LEFT ABOVE: "Dreamless Sleep Potion" Chase your nightmares away with Slug & Jigger Apothecary's #1 Product. Use: 1 tincture 30 minutes before Midnight.
LEFT CENTER ABOVE: "Poison Apple Potion" From Elmira's Essential Essences. Everyday essentials for the evil queen in all of us.
RIGHT CENTER ABOVE: "Pickled Eyeballs" From Good Witch Elixirs (Potions for Witches on the Fly) Prophecy: These sibylline eyeballs will see your future but never tell you until you eat one! Enjoy!!
RIGHT ABOVE: "Enchanted Dream Dust in Extract of Happily Ever After" From Starlight Potions and Remedies.
If you ever want to make some of these, let me know I can give you some tips! The girls LOVE them. A little imagination and the sky's the limit! My sister's are more scary and gory so she can give you some good tips, too!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Brooke's Black Eye
What a nice shiner, eh?
Before you get ready to call CPS, let me explain!
Emma wanted a toy Brooke had. Apparently Emma had it first but she went potty and Brooke took it while she was on the porcelain throne. Emma started chasing Brooke, trying to get the toy back. She grabbed Brooke's shirt and then let go and Brooke, who was in mid- sprint, went flying forward and landed on her face, right on the toy she was holding (which was a little plastic car I think.) Emma gave her push after she was down, too.
I was FURIOUS! I grabbed the toys and threw them. Then I gave Emma a nice swat on the tush. Then I picked her up and took her to my bed and said, "YOU STAY HERE AND COOL OFF!!!!" (I have a no spanking policy, but sometimes the gloves gotta come off. Do you feel me on this?)
Anyway, eventually we sat down and discussed it rationally and I said Brooke should have given the toy back if Emma had it first,
but Emma shouldn't have chased/ pulled/ pushed Brooke,
and I shouldn't have spanked or yelled. We all said we were sorry.
Brooke got this shiner just in time for the primary program at church. She was front and center the whole time, too.
Here they are right before church:
Cougar Chase
My Dumpster Diving
Believe it or not, I got this table from our dumpster. Yes, I personally pulled this table OUT of the dumpster. It had nasty old burritos with peppers smeared on it. There were flies. There were Mc Donald's wrappers. And who knows what else. Sure, I probably looked like a crazy lady, but there was a table with potential on the line. I could see it. Someone just needed to give it some TLC!
It was light wood to begin with and it was pretty dirty and had some stains from water or other liquids on it. So the girls helped me clean it up and I sanded it and stained it a nice dark cherry. Sooo fun! Being starving students has taught us to be creative!
* * * * * *
I also found this cute little table next to the dumpster. I just couldn't let this be thrown out!
Monday, October 11, 2010
High School Reunion Thoughts. . .
So my 10 year high school reunion is coming up next month. Part of me is really excited and part of me is really nervous. Why? This may sound silly, but I ticked quite a few people off 2 years ago when I was vocal about my views on Prop 8 and the traditional family on facebook. I did this in response to M. Russell Ballard's (apostle of the LDS church) asking us to use the internet, blogs, social networking sites, etc. to spread the word about our views on marriage and how we believe it is in God's plan to be between a man and a woman (nothing hateful or bigoted). I think I was honestly naive enough to think people would just say, "Oh, that's just how Mormons roll. They have their beliefs and I don't agree but whatever." But I guess when you stand for traditional marriage in front of your friends when you're from the San Francisco Bay area and one of the most liberal counties in the nation (Sonoma County), you're bound to make a few waves and a few enemies. I've always worried about whether or not people like me, but I guess it's time for me to grow up and realize there's more important things in life than being well liked at your high school reunion, eh? Such as following the guidance of Church leaders and the guidance of the Lord. I may not be highly thought of by many I went to high school with now, but hopefully I proved to the Lord and to myself that He is more important to me than keeping up my image (if I even have one). ;)
Sort of on this topic, I'm also REALLY inspired by this blogger who calls himself "gay mormon guy":
http://gaymormonguy.blogspot.com/
Sort of on this topic, I'm also REALLY inspired by this blogger who calls himself "gay mormon guy":
http://gaymormonguy.blogspot.com/
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Since Alan Quit Law School. . .
*We've taken 2 day trips, 2 ice cream outings, and 2 dinners out.
*I've joined the Ward Choir again!
*We've had dinner TOGETHER consecutively for I think 9 days in a row (which has been quite the adjustment since I'm used to making dino-bites and vegetables with ranch every night for the girls. Note to self: Alan does NOT do meatless lasagna, at least not with a smile on his face.)
*Alan has been playing the piano again *happy sigh* while the girls dance around the room and he and I sing (which is something I need).
*The girls have been enjoying the stories Alan makes up at bed time on Tuesday nights called "The Adventures of Princess Saphire." They giggle the whole way through and Brooke is constantly saying, "What's going to happen?! Tell us!" She can hardly stand the suspense. The characters are Prince Henry and of course Princess Saphire. And there's Dr. Pickle, Baby Princess Hailey, and the Evil Wizard Rufus. There's the Duke of Smacky Smacky who smacks too much when he eats. The girls' favorite character is Prince Waa Waa who has a giant portable crib that he lives in. And he whines when he speaks. I smile a big smile inside when I listen to them all laughing together. . . And when I realize I haven't put them to bed by myself in a month! *jumps for joy!*
*We also watched General Conference this weekend. :) President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most" was a confirmation to us that we made the right choice in quitting law school. Here are my favorite parts of it. I bawled the whole way through, by the way.
If life and it's rushed pace and many stresses have made it difficult for you to feel like rejoicing, the perhaps now is a good time to refocus on what matters most.
One of the characteristics of modern life seems to be that we are moving at an ever-increasing rate, regardless of the turbulence or obstacles. . . Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy, and too little sense of meaning in their lives. It is said that any virtue when taken to an extreme can become a vice.
There comes a point where milestones can become millstones and ambitions, albatrosses around our necks.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks, in a recent general conference, taught, "We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen families."
There is a beauty and clarity that comes from simplicity that we sometimes do not appreciate in our thirst for intricate solutions.
Yet amidst the multitude of voices and choices, the humble Man of Galilee stand with hands outstretched, waiting. His is a simple message: "Come, follow me."
My dear brothers and sisters, we would do well to slow down a little, proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most. . . They will teach us to do "all these things. . . in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that [we] should run faster than [we have] strength. [But] it is expedient that [we] should be diligent, [and] thereby. . . win the prize.
Our key relationship is with our families. Since "no other success can compensate for failure" here, we must place high priority on our families. We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together.
In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home.
Let us simplify our lives a little. Let us make the changes necessary to refocus our lives on the sublime beauty of the simple, humble path of Christian discipleship- the path that leads always toward a life of meaning, gladness, and peace.
*I've joined the Ward Choir again!
*We've had dinner TOGETHER consecutively for I think 9 days in a row (which has been quite the adjustment since I'm used to making dino-bites and vegetables with ranch every night for the girls. Note to self: Alan does NOT do meatless lasagna, at least not with a smile on his face.)
*Alan has been playing the piano again *happy sigh* while the girls dance around the room and he and I sing (which is something I need).
*The girls have been enjoying the stories Alan makes up at bed time on Tuesday nights called "The Adventures of Princess Saphire." They giggle the whole way through and Brooke is constantly saying, "What's going to happen?! Tell us!" She can hardly stand the suspense. The characters are Prince Henry and of course Princess Saphire. And there's Dr. Pickle, Baby Princess Hailey, and the Evil Wizard Rufus. There's the Duke of Smacky Smacky who smacks too much when he eats. The girls' favorite character is Prince Waa Waa who has a giant portable crib that he lives in. And he whines when he speaks. I smile a big smile inside when I listen to them all laughing together. . . And when I realize I haven't put them to bed by myself in a month! *jumps for joy!*
*We also watched General Conference this weekend. :) President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most" was a confirmation to us that we made the right choice in quitting law school. Here are my favorite parts of it. I bawled the whole way through, by the way.
If life and it's rushed pace and many stresses have made it difficult for you to feel like rejoicing, the perhaps now is a good time to refocus on what matters most.
One of the characteristics of modern life seems to be that we are moving at an ever-increasing rate, regardless of the turbulence or obstacles. . . Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy, and too little sense of meaning in their lives. It is said that any virtue when taken to an extreme can become a vice.
There comes a point where milestones can become millstones and ambitions, albatrosses around our necks.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks, in a recent general conference, taught, "We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen families."
There is a beauty and clarity that comes from simplicity that we sometimes do not appreciate in our thirst for intricate solutions.
Yet amidst the multitude of voices and choices, the humble Man of Galilee stand with hands outstretched, waiting. His is a simple message: "Come, follow me."
My dear brothers and sisters, we would do well to slow down a little, proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most. . . They will teach us to do "all these things. . . in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that [we] should run faster than [we have] strength. [But] it is expedient that [we] should be diligent, [and] thereby. . . win the prize.
Our key relationship is with our families. Since "no other success can compensate for failure" here, we must place high priority on our families. We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together.
In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home.
Let us simplify our lives a little. Let us make the changes necessary to refocus our lives on the sublime beauty of the simple, humble path of Christian discipleship- the path that leads always toward a life of meaning, gladness, and peace.
South Lake Tahoe Day Trip
A couple Saturdays ago, we took off to South Lake Tahoe, just because we can. The girls were chanting in the car, "Three cheers to dad for quitting law school! Hip Hip Hooray!!!"
That night Emma had me write out her testimony that she wanted to read in Sacrament meeting.
"My name is Emma Lindsay. I'd like to bare my testimony that I know this church is true. And yesterday I went golfing in Tahoe with my family. Spending time with family is a great way to prepare for testimonies."
She went up all by herself but got a little shy and walked away from the pulpit, starting to cry. Then daddy carried her back up and read it for her. It was really sweet. And it makes us feel really good to see that the girls are noticing how much more time we have together now.
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