At about this time a decade ago, I had recently graduated from law school and was on the cusp of taking what would be both the most intense and the most meaningless exam of my life (my state bar exam). Soon thereafter, I would come to the full realization that my wayward decision to attend law school had obliterated both my career prospects and my financial solvency before I had even celebrated my 30th birthday.
To memorialize this occasion, my plan was to author one
final post as a retrospective of what has changed in the law school universe
over the past 10 years. One of those
major changes, however, has been the closure of many of the resources, which
once were required reading for those interested in the wayward practices of the law
school cartel.
As this present site is only rarely updated, it draws very
little traffic on its own. In the past, I have relied on two outside sources to
generate views for any new posts: Nando’s Third Tier Reality and JD
Underground. After nearly a decade of heroically profiling every ABA school
(and their corrupt practices), Nando both stopped blogging and inexplicably
removed TTR from the web.
Likewise, about a month ago, JD Underground (JDU) – the
subject of this post - met a similar fate. It would not make sense to spend
time writing a retrospective on the law school scam that nobody will read, but
as probably one of the few former JDUers with the SEO (or at least the web
presence) to attract a few eyeballs, I thought I’d instead use my final posting
to address JDU’s closure for those who wonder what happened.
To offer a full explanation, I think it’s necessary to give
a little history, but for those who want the condensed version (or TLDR, as the
kids say these day): There was some internal strife among JDU posters which led
the administrator to just shelve the whole site.
If you want the longer story, read on, but please note that
I was just an infrequent poster and not an insider. There may be more to the
story, which I welcome you to share in the comments. Everything disclosed below
is from my (limited) perspective.
History
JDU began in 2007 (shortly after I enrolled in law school).
My understanding is that it replaced a site called JD Jive, which also served
as an online forum for disaffected lawyers and law students. It featured a
no-frills interface for the aforementioned attorneys and students to share war
stories and gripe about their circumstances.
JDU wasn’t – strictly speaking – an anti-law school message
board. It did feature some threads poking fun at delusional 0L’s (non yet
enrolled students), who thought they would easily be able to repay six figure
student loan balances after law school. There were, however, also discussions
about bar exam prep, law firm reviews, and other more mundane matters of legal
practice.
I believe I checked out the site once or twice while in law school.
In my youthful foolishness, I dismissed much of what I read. I assumed that
even if things were as bad as JDU sometimes claimed, I would at least be able
to take on doc review work and easily satisfy my loans and move on.
I became more of an avid reader of the site after graduating
from law school. I think I mostly relied upon it for information on
when my state’s bar results had historically been released. Once I completed
the bar, and it slowly sunk in just how perilous my situation was, I started
taking more of the critical comments to heart. Moreover, several of the recession
wave of scam blogs began positing links directly from JDU. The truth had been
revealed: I was just a chump the law school cartel had bamboozled and then
shuttled out into the post-law school abyss.
Soon thereafter (with little else to do), I joined the
anti-law school brigade with this blog. Like the others, I used JDU as a
resource to generate traffic. It was through these links that a number of
reporters from various publications found my blog (and the others) and
contacted me. These early articles helped bring the scam to the
attention of a wider community.
As mentioned, at the time, JDU wasn’t purely an anti-law
school resource. The founder (who went by “admin”) always seemed a little
ambivalent about the cause, and there were other posters who commonly challenged
the scam blog movement with quips about “whining” and “entitlement”.
JDU had a bit of a reputation of being a “wild west” forum
where insults flew easily and caustic comments were the norm. I can’t recall
the exact evolution of the site, but eventually there was an off-topic section
with fewer law school-oriented comments. I think at one point there was a medical
grad sub forum as well as special fora with topics such as dating.
One of the reasons why my memory is a little sketchy
regarding this era was that as I started to repair my life, I spent less and
less time on JDU. I may have only visited it a handful of times between 2012 and
early 2015.
Starting in 2015, I found myself in a position where I had a
little more time, and I was curious about some of the developments in the
anti-scam movement. By this time, almost anyone who wasn’t a self-interested
party in the law school cartel recognized something was rotten in the system.
JDU was no exception. Almost all the apologists were gone. (Even the once
rabidly pro-law school Top Law School Forums were willing to listen to reason.)
Nonetheless, JDU had initiated some reforms. The law school
forum could no longer could be used as a battering ram against the scam. If
someone asked a question about going to law school, posters had to take care to
be very gentle should they want to dissuade that person. Standard anti-law school
terms like Third Tier Toilet (TTT) could no longer be used. Bans were also
frequently employed against violators. (This may have contributed to the site’s
eventual decline in activity.)
Except in the rare cases when I had a new article to share
or there was something about the scam bloggers I wanted to address, I used an
alias other than “Esq. Never”. That said, almost all my posts were about the
law school scam (school closings, law school lies, etc.). I weighed in a few
times about the Dan Markel case, but I almost never interjected on non-legal
subjects and tried to avoid US political discussions.
The Off-Topic section was the home for most of these
exchanges. While I never really contributed, I’ll concede there could be some
amusing threads. There was one character named “George Constanza”, who like his
namesake, apparently drew the short straw in life and really hated the modern
social scene. Another guy posted as “BizzyBone123”, who pretended (?) to be
some type of Cuban rapper. On the less amusing side, a poster named “Myth”
apparently was killed in a tragic accident and was memorialized in a few
threads on the site.
That JDU had attracted such a colorful cast of characters probably
helped lead to its downfall. The acrimony really dialed up on JDU (as it did
across the country) after the 2016 election. Admin was kind enough to create a
political subforum to shelter the rest of us from the brawls. (There was also
the “Dome” which served a similar purpose in keeping the more salacious and
offensive exchanges sequestered.)
Towards the end, the two remaining sub-fora: Politics and
“Dome” eventually were merged into the Off-Topic section. It seemed like this
was done because the site was less lucrative than it used to be. There were
only a handful of active threads on the law forum and OT wasn’t that active
either. Maybe the better economy had produced less law related griping and
social media had undermined the reach of such a forum, but regardless, admin
became convinced things needed to change
The Fall
The merger, however, turned the OT section into a near free
for all. The rivalries from the dome spilled over and the animosity between
Trump supporters and detractors helped fuel the contentious atmosphere even
more.
On Friday, June 14 (2019), JDU shut down for good. On the OT
section, there were a number of posts wishing everyone else goodbye. One thread
allegedly had the inside scoop. Apparently, there was an “offline” e-mail group
among some of the regulars. Tensions were boiling over in that arena, and one
user was threatening legal action over some things that had been disclosed
about her on JDU.
There had been warnings about this earlier on. Admin had
asked other posters not to comment on discussions related to the e-mail chain.
Nonetheless, it seems that given the decline in revenue and the threat of legal
troubles, it wasn’t worth it for admin to continue to maintain the site for the
benefit of its dwindling following.
Presently, the site just redirects to a generic page with
some spammy advertising links. It’s not clear if admin just gave up the domain
or if he still owns it but parked it in order to extract a little revenue from
those said links. In either event, it seems unlikely the site will come back
online.
Legacy
As mentioned, JDU served an important role in warning
potential law students of the perils of going the JD route. It also was an
important hub for other sites to grow and to connect mainline journalists with
the scam bloggers. There’s no doubt that it helped propel the movement even as
it was at times bogged down by law school shills, goofiness, and rivalries that
may have brought the community down.
For the time being, the law school scam battle is in a
détente (neither advocates nor opponents seem to be very active). It will be
interesting to see what happens when the next recession hits. Sadly, JDU won’t
be a force during that stage, but at least it was able to witness the fall of
a few ABA accredited schools. Perhaps, the next revolution will make
more use of ascending social media tools.
Unlike JDU, Esq. Never will remain up (for whatever it’s
worth) until it’s deleted by Blogger. Like JDU, however, I personally plan to
end my internet involvement in commenting on the scam. I know I’ve been in the
periphery of the periphery (who knows if anyone will even read this post), but
it’s been a decade: I’m glad to see some changes, and maybe there will be more,
but on this, I agree with admin, there comes a time to just officially close
things down.
Best wishes to anyone who has followed the sporadic postings
throughout the years, and for anyone considering law school, please read some
of the earlier posts and be very, very cautious in making a decision that can
literally upturn your entire life.
E.N.