Posted Apr 2, 2010 7:34 PM CDT
By Martha Neil

In another late-breaking addition to yesterday's list of April Fools' Day jokes, the Harvard Law Record is reporting that the Harvard Law School will refund the tuition of third-year students who graduate without job offers.

The purported tuition refund offer does not apply to graduates pursuing public-interest jobs, who should have known from the outset both that they were unlikely to get the job of their dreams and that they could have done better financially by never attending law school at all, the "news" article states. However, law school officials applied an induced-reliance contract theory to determine that the refund plan was fair to those who expected their HLS degree to land them well-paid jobs at presitigious law firms.

“We don’t promise incoming students meaningful careers or that they’ll become the next president of the United States. We don’t promise that they’ll have a positive impact on the U.S. or the world, or that they’ll find their passion in the three years it takes to complete their J.D." degree, "Dean Martha Minow" is quoted as saying in the article. "Really the only thing we do promise is a huge corporate salary at the end of these three years.”