The Future of the Law CollegeThe Future of the Law College
I grew up in the 1980s when it seemed that everybody wanted to be a lawyer like the ones on LA Law. The 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (up until 2007) was the era of Huge Law when the promise of a $one hundred,000 to $160,000 salary was, it seemed, extended to any individual graduating from a best 20 college and to lots of people today graduating from a top rated 50 law school with fantastic grades and clerkships.
Even in previously terrible economies – 1990 to 1992, 1998-2000 – the law profession seemed to survive, if not thrive. Hundreds of thousands of smart (and even not-so-smart) men and women have been encouraged to turn out to be lawyers by a combination of outrageous salaries – in 2007, Cravath, 1 of the prime corporate law firms in the nation, presented bonuses of almost $one hundred,000 for major performing associates – federally subsidized student loans, the supposed security of a protected profession (with its bar exams), and putative prestige (see any John Grisham novel).
Of course, the truth of all that was often a small suspect. While a major 20 law grad back in the day could anticipate to earn a six-figure salary, unless he chose to go into public interest law, many graduates did not have the similar luck. And even though it’s definitely neat to believe of yourself as a higher minded constitutional litigator, or a trial lawyer from a Grisham novel, the practical, day-to-day practical experience of getting a lawyer was constantly (and nevertheless is) grinding.
Moments of glory are few and far amongst. Never get me incorrect, I delight in the practice of criminal law and appreciate assisting customers. And as my father could possibly say, it is superior than digging a ditch. But the day-to-day practice of law is not out of a movie script. It requires helping folks with a DWI, drug charge, or embezzlement or larceny. Only hardly ever are most lawyers involved in higher profile murder trials involving film stars!
The demand for law college and the government subsidization of college led to the development of the college business, aided by publications like U.S. Online law programs with its ludicrous college rankings. Schools became monetary profit centers of universities (like profitable sports programs) and in numerous situations have been expected to kick back cash to the central university administration to support underwrite the rest of the much less profitable components of the university.
The fees had been passed onto current graduates and, eventually, the legal customer in the form of high legal fees, particularly in corporate law.
Who benefited? One particular of the beneficiaries was the law school faculty. The common faculty member at a decent law college has next to no practical experience. The individual went to a major law college, practiced for a year or two, and then went out into the legal academy job industry at the age of 28 or 29 to get a faculty job. A handful of law professors retain up their practical abilities by performing pro bono legal function, or by consulting on the side.
Most law professors know precious small about what it indicates to be a lawyer, and they’re basically proud of this. That’s for the reason that the rest of the university has often looked at law schools (and company schools) as basically trade schools. Considering the fact that law professors don’t want to feel they are engaged in a huge Vocational Technical college, they attempt to distance themselves from the practice of law.
Second, the actual curriculum associated with law college has changed small from the 1930s, when it focused on 19th century popular law concepts or ancient tort or property law ideas. These principles have very small to do with the standard way home, tort, or criminal law is practiced in modern day America. Most of these laws are statutory, not frequent law, anyway.
As if to excuse their woefully inadequate ability to train lawyers, law professors and law school deans love to inform incoming students that they never teach you how to be a lawyer, they train you how to think like a lawyer by means of the Socratic System.
Of course “considering like a lawyer” is a silly concept. All it seriously implies is thinking meticulously about an problem. Yes, it needs a little bit of discipline. But it is not hard, and does not require 3 years of college.
The Socratic System – the one that was produced popular by John Houseman’s Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase – is also bunk. Most professors do not do it properly. And all it amounts to is asking pointed queries and hypotheticals about some thing that was just read, and will quickly be forgotten.
The problem with the Law School – which has almost often been ineffective at education lawyers – is that it has a built in constituency – the law professor – who is going to fight like heck to keep his or her privileged position.
Law college has been experiencing a boom in the previous 4 years, as routinely happens when the economy takes a dive. That is due to the fact rather than go out into an uncertain job industry, a lot of young current college grads (and even mid-profession professionals) choose to go to college in the hopes of improving their employability. (What they are often performing is increasing their debt load, with no affordable hope of paying those loans back. Hence the clamoring to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy!)
But as the legal market place continues to suffer, even in comparison to other parts of the economy, prospective students are going to take other paths, and turn to other sorts of careers, even if those careers are much less financially rewarding, mainly because the sheer amount of dollars it takes to go to school for 3 years is too a great deal to consider paying.
In recent conversations with fellow lawyers, I’ve heard about how even best law schools are possessing trouble placing their students. That puts the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, which is a excellent law school, but not a excellent law college, in a quite tough position.
If the University of Virginia (a top rated ten law college) has trouble putting 1-third of its student class in best law firm positions, what does that mean for the UNC-CH which is not as prestigious and also which has the unfortunate situation of getting in a state with only two moderate sized legal markets (Charlotte and Raleigh) and competing with other great law schools, such as Duke (despite the fact that Duke tends to send students out of state) and Wake Forest, as nicely as Campbell (which is an underrated school that trains its graduates greater than UNC) and North Carolina Central (which is the best worth for a legal education in the state and trains some fantastic lawyers).
There are too quite a few UNC Chapel Hill grads in North Carolina government to ever let the law school disappear totally, but its privileged position will commence to erode. As will the privileged position of many law schools.
So what will happen to the Law College? First, the smarter school deans will give up the pretense that law college is not a trade college. They will embrace the notion that the whole curriculum need to be revamped to focus on the sensible abilities necessary to practice law.