- Second Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes, at AALS meeting, gives legal academics frank appraisal of where law school needs fixing, to the delight of many of us who’ve advanced a broadly similar critique [Caron, Above the Law, Sloan/NLJ]
- “Let’s Regulate Harder. That’ll Provide More Jobs For Young Law Grads!” [my new Cato post, citing an official from the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT)]
- ABA accreditation rules discourage reliance on less expensive (and often more practice-oriented) adjunct faculty [latest in David Segal series on law schools in New York Times; Catherine Dunn, Corporate Counsel] Plus: video of law school accreditation panel at Federalist Society national convention;
- Law school without undergrad degree first? Many other advanced countries do it that way [McGinnis and Mangas, Northwestern dean Dan Rodriguez response, M&M rejoinder; ABA Journal on views of NYLS’s Rick Matasar] Yet more on law school reform [Jim Chen via Caron, Caron, Mark Yzaguirre, Frum Forum]
- Complete point-counterpoint at ELF last summer on Tulane law clinic fracas (I’m counterpoint) [ELF]
- Why not rob the rich? Ask Prof. Leiter [Sullivan]
- Does law and economics amount to “studies in social engineering”? [Kenneth Anderson]
Filed under: bar associations, law schools, Second Circuit
One Comment
The near-depression we’re exeperiencing economically has exposed what had been an undetected scam for years: high-tuition money mills that put law school administrators and professors in a fat ‘n happy way, but expose graduates to huge debt and poor job prospects. The New York Times, this website and Above the Law have been “all over it”, as they say, along with an entire genre of complaint websites called “scam blogs.”
One factor is simply the overlawyered society. The times have a liberal bent, so we see lawyers on TV, helping the poor, Atticus Finch, blah blah. Everyone wants to be a lawyer. Nobody wants to be an inventor, engineer, scientist, plumber, manufacturer, etc. Production-minded conservatives don’t go to law school. Leviathan-lovers do. And they get full encouragement from the liberal professors. We have a million-person army of lawyers pushing paper to and fro, moving money from Bank Account A to Bank Account B, and much of serves to simply crimp innovation.
Solution: more TV shows and movies about heroic and dramatic business builders, stuff makers and cancer researchers. If you want human conflict, show how these folks have to bravely battle nettlesome lawyers and government regulators. Exciting! A duplicitious plaintiff’s attorney tried taking down an upstart drug company, but they not only beat him back, they brought a livesaving drug to market to boot! And as it turns out, that very lawyer’s LIFE WAS SAVED BY THE DRUG!
Now that’s drama.