In some imperceptible yet significant way, the experience of American legal education has reached a new low.

We all feel this. Between tuition that is out of control, deans who don’t tell the truth, and students who are willing to fight other students to the death to get jobs in a market where there aren’t enough to go around, law school feels like less of a good experience than it used to be.

And we feel that in the air even if we can’t put our finger on it. And then we see something like what’s happening at one state law school, and the whole sad experience of getting a legal education in America suddenly has a new mascot.

Today we have a flyer from a group of three 1Ls who want to hold “tryouts” for the other two members of their study group. We’ve seen this type of thing before — remember the study group at a top-ten law school that required a transcript? — but this latest application process takes things to another level.

This study group wants to charge people $20 for the opportunity to try out….

I really hope that after this flyer gets publicized, the 1Ls hastily put together some kind of “ha ha, we were only joking, aren’t we so clever” message or something. Because I can contemplate the tools that would put this together, but I’d never want to meet the psychos who would stand behind this after public scrutiny. Here’s the flyer:

They misspell the word “SUCCEED.”

I feel like a 1970s era Native American caricature crying a single tear as I look out onto a polluted landscape.

UPDATE (10/24/11): Check out some Georgia State law students’ humorous responses to the 1L study group.

Earlier: Study Group At Columbia Requires A Transcript