From a Harvard lawprof: were today’s abundance of law schools to give way in part to a revived clerkship/apprentice model, American law would develop more slowly and organically than it does now, besides which where’d we train our philosopher-monarchs? [Noah Feldman, Bloomberg View] You can buy my recent book Schools for Misrule (including a Kindle download version) here.
One Comment
Legal academics have a pretty specific notion of “what it can be”: a lefty scheme of redistribution, diminishment of freedom, and strangling of traditional values.
What gets me is how little actual practical training comes with legal education or lawyering. Three years of expensive case reading and discussion topped off by a summer of expensive bar training (not included in your law school tuition). You’re then dropped off in a firm or government office where you’re magically expected to know nuts and bolts. You never sit in a chair next to an older lawyer while he drafts a motion and explains what he’s doing, step-by-step, including how to file it with the clerk. The overcrowded legal profession prefers a sink-or-swim approach, since older lawyers don’t have much of an incentive to let anyone else in on the practice pointers. Overall it makes the legal profession a nasty and brutal affair that grinds up the unwary — yet still attracts people in droves.