What Law Schools Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering
Nothing new. Simple truths:
““The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” . . . “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.” ”
“Law schools . . . have added or expanded programs that provide practical training through legal clinics. But almost all the cachet in legal academia goes to professors who produce law review articles, which gobble up huge amounts of time and tuition money. The essential how-tos of daily practice are a subject that many in the faculty know nothing about — by design. One 2010 study of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced law for a single day. If medical schools took the same approach, they’d be filled with professors who had never set foot in a hospital.”
” . . . there are few incentives for law professors to excel at teaching. It might earn them the admiration of students, but it won’t win them any professional goodies, like tenure, a higher salary, prestige or competing offers from better schools. For those, a professor must publish law review articles, the ticket to punch for any upwardly mobile scholar. ”
And of course not only is there a lack of incentives, there are numerous disincentives, for law faculty to engage in the more theoretical forms of teaching, such as curricular design and developing effective means of assessment that measure actual learning of professional competences.
So. The emperors stand arrayed in all their naked glory on the front page of the New York Times, in what seems to have become almost a regular ritual of rather harsh exposure of their, ahem, shortcomings.
Will a single hiring decision, of the hundreds about to unfurl at this very moment in law schools across the country, change in the slightest?
Will a single prospective student in the process of deciding where to apply, modify his or her list of law schools one iota?
Will a single accreditation or government funding decision be even faintly affected ?
And, most important, will USNWR make any adjustment whatsoever to the solipsistic criteria that accord so much weight to the opinions of these very naked emperors of legal education?
No, no, no, and no — I’ll take whatever odds you’ll give. Nothing is changing. Not unless and until prospective law students finally realize how they are getting ripped off and stop showing up. Which will not happen because each student is betting that she or he will land in the 1% who either does get a good education in law school — that is possible — or who despite an inadequate education, finds a meaningful and satisfying way to live and work after law school that justifies that student’s investment in law school — which is also possible, though rare.
Will the Occupy movement change the maldistribution of wealth and/or income disparities?
Will repeated denunciation of the self-serving structure of legal education transform — or even alter — that structure?
I’m not holding my breath.
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness | 3 Comments »
Best Practices for Legal Education 