law school
Lack of Vision in Law School Strategizing
May 28, 2014
Erwin Chemerinsky (UC-Irvine), Creating a Law School That Emphasizes Public Interest Law, 7 DePaul J. for Soc. Just. 1 (2013) talks about his deanship in the project of founding the law school in Irvine. It really is a shame Irvine, with all that money, just aimed to be a generic top 20 law school instead of experimenting. And more important than money: it began with no vested interests in the form of stodgy and divided faculty to overcome. It's only chance to truly make top 20, as opposed...
May 28, 2014
Erwin Chemerinsky (UC-Irvine), Creating a Law School That Emphasizes Public Interest Law, 7 DePaul J. for Soc. Just. 1 (2013) talks about his deanship in the project of founding the law school in Irvine. It really is a shame Irvine, with all that money, just aimed to be a generic top 20 law school instead of experimenting. And more important than money: it began with no vested interests in the form of stodgy and divided faculty to overcome. It's only chance to truly make top 20, as opposed...
Justice Scalia Rejects 2-Year Law School, Skills Training
May 24, 2014
Antonin Scalia, Commencement Address at William & Mary Law School,Reflections on the Future of the Legal Academy (May 11, 2014): What I want to discuss with you briefly—and I promise to be brief—is whether (to be blunt about it) you have essentially wasted one of your three years here, and could have done the job in two. It is a current proposal for reformthat law students should be permitted to sit for the bar exam and otherwise be eligible to practice law after only two years of study....
May 24, 2014
Antonin Scalia, Commencement Address at William & Mary Law School,Reflections on the Future of the Legal Academy (May 11, 2014): What I want to discuss with you briefly—and I promise to be brief—is whether (to be blunt about it) you have essentially wasted one of your three years here, and could have done the job in two. It is a current proposal for reformthat law students should be permitted to sit for the bar exam and otherwise be eligible to practice law after only two years of study....
Why Universities Should Bail Out Their Law Schools
May 23, 2014
Boston Globe op-ed: Bail Out Law Schools – But With Strings Attached, by Paula Monopoli (Maryland): When I joined the legal academy more than 20 years ago, American law schools were the cash cows of higher education. Revenue flowed from law schools to central administrations, and campuses were happy to let law schools oversee themselves. New programs sprang up by the dozens. Lots of new hires each year became the norm, and expensive symposia the order of the day. It never occurred to us that...
May 23, 2014
Boston Globe op-ed: Bail Out Law Schools – But With Strings Attached, by Paula Monopoli (Maryland): When I joined the legal academy more than 20 years ago, American law schools were the cash cows of higher education. Revenue flowed from law schools to central administrations, and campuses were happy to let law schools oversee themselves. New programs sprang up by the dozens. Lots of new hires each year became the norm, and expensive symposia the order of the day. It never occurred to us that...
Dad Was Wrong; You Can’t Do Anything With a Law Degree
May 21, 2014
As Jim Saksa was pondering whether to attend law school, his father offered what may have seemed like sage advice: You can do anything with a law degree. Now Saksa is looking for a job outside the legal field, and he’s beginning to think his expensive JD is more of a hindrance than a help. “In the last few months,” he writes in a column for Slate, “I’ve interviewed for jobs at a nonprofit, a think tank, and a PR firm among other places of business. I know from personal experience...
May 21, 2014
As Jim Saksa was pondering whether to attend law school, his father offered what may have seemed like sage advice: You can do anything with a law degree. Now Saksa is looking for a job outside the legal field, and he’s beginning to think his expensive JD is more of a hindrance than a help. “In the last few months,” he writes in a column for Slate, “I’ve interviewed for jobs at a nonprofit, a think tank, and a PR firm among other places of business. I know from personal experience...
Theory: The Time Was Never Better to Enroll in Law School
April 19, 2014
Is now the ideal time to enroll in law school? Steven Freedman, assistant dean for admissions at the University of Kansas School of Law, has been making the counterintuitive case that it is. In a series of posts on the law professor blog The Faculty Lounge, he argues that the relatively small number of people set to graduate with J.D.s in 2017 will mean better job prospects for those who do. In short, the supply of new lawyers will be much more closely aligned with the demand for their services...
April 19, 2014
Is now the ideal time to enroll in law school? Steven Freedman, assistant dean for admissions at the University of Kansas School of Law, has been making the counterintuitive case that it is. In a series of posts on the law professor blog The Faculty Lounge, he argues that the relatively small number of people set to graduate with J.D.s in 2017 will mean better job prospects for those who do. In short, the supply of new lawyers will be much more closely aligned with the demand for their services...
Groupons for Law Schools?
February 2, 2014
Still dreaming about going to law school and basking in the afterglow of a lucrative, prestigious career? Here's the latest on the law school scene and more: 1. Hurry! Get your coupons for law school tuition! Law schools seeking students really ought to consider offering discounts through Groupon. It could be a very effective way to reach customers—especially those who didn't even know they wanted to go to law school. Almost every week there's another law school slashing its tuition....
February 2, 2014
Still dreaming about going to law school and basking in the afterglow of a lucrative, prestigious career? Here's the latest on the law school scene and more: 1. Hurry! Get your coupons for law school tuition! Law schools seeking students really ought to consider offering discounts through Groupon. It could be a very effective way to reach customers—especially those who didn't even know they wanted to go to law school. Almost every week there's another law school slashing its tuition....
Crisis in Legal Education or the Other Things Law Students Should Be Learning and Doing
January 19, 2014
This essay reviews the recent criticisms of legal education (costs, loss of job opportunities, content of curricula) and suggests that law students might be better served by studying and learning different things in law school – not only conventional Socratic, doctrinal and even, adversarial clinical education, but organizational development, problem solving, decision making, group dynamics, dispute resolution and dispute system design. The article also contrasts two other professions – one newer...
January 19, 2014
This essay reviews the recent criticisms of legal education (costs, loss of job opportunities, content of curricula) and suggests that law students might be better served by studying and learning different things in law school – not only conventional Socratic, doctrinal and even, adversarial clinical education, but organizational development, problem solving, decision making, group dynamics, dispute resolution and dispute system design. The article also contrasts two other professions – one newer...
First-Year Law School Enrollment At 1977 Levels
December 18, 2013
First-year enrollment at U.S. law schools plunged to levels not seen since the 1970s, as students steered away from a career that has left many recent graduates loaded with debt and struggling to find work. The American Bar Association said on Tuesday that the number of first-year law students fell 11% this year. So far, 39,675 full-time and part-time students enrolled in law school, nearly 5,000 fewer than in 2012. That’s one student shy of 1977 enrollment levels, when the ABA reported 39,676 ...
December 18, 2013
First-year enrollment at U.S. law schools plunged to levels not seen since the 1970s, as students steered away from a career that has left many recent graduates loaded with debt and struggling to find work. The American Bar Association said on Tuesday that the number of first-year law students fell 11% this year. So far, 39,675 full-time and part-time students enrolled in law school, nearly 5,000 fewer than in 2012. That’s one student shy of 1977 enrollment levels, when the ABA reported 39,676 ...
Legal Education on Trial: Is the Third Year Necessary?
August 31, 2013
A suggestion by President Barack Obama to shrink the duration of law school could buoy the case of people who long have questioned whether law students really need a third year of academic study. But the idea comes as law schools already are struggling with declining enrollment and could be reluctant to cut into their sources of revenue. Third-year law students would 'be better off clerking or practicing in a firm,' President Barack Obama says. The main path to law practice...
August 31, 2013
A suggestion by President Barack Obama to shrink the duration of law school could buoy the case of people who long have questioned whether law students really need a third year of academic study. But the idea comes as law schools already are struggling with declining enrollment and could be reluctant to cut into their sources of revenue. Third-year law students would 'be better off clerking or practicing in a firm,' President Barack Obama says. The main path to law practice...
Dean Nancy B. Rapoport on Legal Education Reform
July 4, 2013
Rethinking U.S. Legal Education: No More 'Same Old, Same Old'. Abstract: "In this Essay, I suggest that we should think about how to create a curriculum that encourages students to develop a variety of skill sets. Law students simply don’t need three years of Socratic questioning regarding the fine details of court opinions. They need a wide range of experiences, preferably building on skill sets (like the twenty-six Berkeley factors) that effective lawyers have developed. A law school’s curriculum...
July 4, 2013
Rethinking U.S. Legal Education: No More 'Same Old, Same Old'. Abstract: "In this Essay, I suggest that we should think about how to create a curriculum that encourages students to develop a variety of skill sets. Law students simply don’t need three years of Socratic questioning regarding the fine details of court opinions. They need a wide range of experiences, preferably building on skill sets (like the twenty-six Berkeley factors) that effective lawyers have developed. A law school’s curriculum...
