Only a law school dean could spin this!
http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/2007/10/26/lawutil.htmlIn Business is reporting that the new dean of the Boyd School of Law left a strong impression on local lawyers in his first public appearance Oct. 17 at a Clark County Bar Association luncheon.
Dean John V. White, who joined the Boyd Law School in June after years on the faculty of Louisiana State University and other law schools, spoke of the Boyd school's teaching philosophy, its standing on the national stage and its future plans.
White discussed what he deemed "optimistic" future goals for the school as well as why it has no plans to chase higher rankings for the school on the national stage.
He noted that the school has come a long way in a short time and has achieved things far beyond what even long-established schools can boast. The quality of applicants (both from Nevada and out-of-state) has improved and the bar passage rate of graduates this year reached more than 85 percent -- significantly higher than the national average of 70 percent.
.... Their high rate of bar exam passage indicates significant success in establishing a quality program.
I have to write that I have often wondered about our legal system which seems so very broken--probably everyone except an attorney would admit that the more money someone has the more "justice" they receive--and especially amazed in the '90's when the media talked about the two lawyers in office when Bill Clinton was President and Al Gore the V.P. I never could find that Bill Clinton took the bar exam in Arkansas, even when he was Attorney General and Al Gore failed the Tennessee bar exam twice before giving up and entering politics (and this in a state where the passing rate had always been 85 percent; even "dumb as hell" Fred Thompson appears to have been able to pass it).
So, now the dean of UNLV's law school is praising the pass rate for the Nevada bar as proof of the quality education students get and compares the state pass rate against the national average. News bulletin: Each state writes a major portion of its own exam so you cannot compare pass rates among states. Plus, if you look at other years' exams, the Nevada graduates' pass rate jumped to 85 percent from under 50 percent overnight. Guess what...Nevada wrote an easier exam so that students could be more successful which would make the law school look more attractive. After all, if you can't pass the Nevada bar, why come to the law school.
So, no matter what spin is put on the issue by Dean "I need you to believe this" White and no matter that Chancellor "I quit; I don't quit" Rogers of the Nevada System of Higher Education wants to blame Governor " I only touched that waitress once" Gibbons for the sorry state of education Nevada has wallowed in for decades, the truth is that education in Nevada is in worse shape than a third world country, Nevada businessess and agencies only pay lip service to wanting well-educated workers, and no amount of re-writing tests can really hide Nevada's plummet to the bottom. But at least now we have lots of attorneys who couldn't have been licensed just a couple of years ago, which is exactly what the people of Nevada deserve for passively condoning our state of corruption.