A committee of the American Bar Association has come up with the unthinkable: how about we rate law schools based on what students learn to prepare them for practicing law? This is CRAZY, according to everyone who runs a law school. There are at least three arguments against this being presented now, none of which are well, uh, argued. First: it seems to be that "this is a very bad time," what with lawyer unemployment running rampant. (Yes, why would we want schools to have evaluation when the provenance of a law degree actually may begin to matter in hiring? Oh right, for value for employers in hiring-and value for students in choosing a school.) And here is Yale Law School's new dean on the matter: "It is worth pausing to ask how the proponents of outcome measures can be so very confident that the actual performance of tasks deemed essential for the practice of law can be identified, measured, and evaluated." That's still not an argument against "outcome measures"-that's an argument for useful outcome measures! Also there is a crowd that says "diversity efforts" will suffer, because law schools are currently serving "minority" students poorly by allowing them to have lower bar passage rates. So maybe if they start treating and preparing their students-of-diversity (ahem) better, maybe they'll take responsibility for that.
Monday, January 11, 2010
31
Yale Law School is routinely ranked head and shoulders above the rest as the number one law school in the country. However, as a coworker, manager and employer of Yale Law School grads over the last 10 years, I can attest that most of them have no idea how to practice law. They graduate one or two capable lawyers a year. Everybody else is a poet, professor or McKinsey consultant.
Well, if the above is the best argument the new dean can come up with -- I mean, NOT A GOOD SIGN.
DISCLAIMER: I don't really know what I'm talking about ... but I think that this criticism is cliché and simplistic. "If you want someone who actually knows the law, hire a University of Michigan graduate. The Yalies are all talk and theory." And so forth.
One thing to begin with: it's a lot harder to get into Yale. Compared to other schools, the YLS students are typically smarter, more capable people. Most of them aren't in it simply to make a buck. Thye certainly don't need classes to prepare for the bar: they know how study. They can afford a more theoretical education, because they're smart enough to learn the biz. during summer internships and in their first years on the job.
The reason for the more theoretical or "academic" education has to do with the career goals of YLS students. They want to be supreme court justices; they want to go into politics, international law; they want to work with NGOs, non-profits, etc.; they want to shape policy; they want to contribute to academic law, maybe even become professors.
What really needs to happen is removing law school as a prerequisite for admission to the bar. People used to "read law" on their own and pass the bar all the time--and I'm sure they came away with more practical knowledge from their self-study than most law schools impart.
If people who wanted to be lawyers (for whatever misguided reasons) had a plausible alternative to incurring thousands of dollars of debt, I'd bet that the law schools would start getting their acts together in two shakes.
A partner at my firm didn't go to law school. She "read the law" so to speak and passed the bar back when they still let you do that. And, she's awesome.
I'll take that advice into cooperation. Now what say you and I go toe-to-toe on bird law and see who comes out the victor?
How's this?
(Sadly, I have yet to make time for "Always Sunny.")
"Bird law in this country is not governed by reason!"
I filibuster!
I challenge you to a duel!
Industries which earn the bulk their lucre via the misery of others are required to go through this type of introspection from time to time.
It's a poorly kept secret that nobody who graduates from law school actually knows how to practice law.
I could be wrong about this, but isn't one of the main criteria for those U.S. News-type college and law school rankings something like the "reputation" of the school among its peers? So for instance what the Dean of the Yale Law School thinks about Duke Law Schools gets turned into a number and plugged into the ranking formula? That's always struck me as one of the stupidest ways to rank any kind of organization, and particularly a professional school. How is it ultimately different from voting for "best dressed" at the Oscars or something?
There needs to be fewer law schools or some mandatory wait period before applicants are allowed to enter. The profession has to stop being the default pathway for undirected liberal arts grads, and the schools and banks aren't going to stop the gravy train of loans these people take out.
"It is worth pausing to ask how the proponents of outcome measures can be so very confident that the actual performance of tasks deemed essential for the practice of law can be identified, measured, and evaluated."
I am a consultant that creates performance measures for business and government operations. Allow me to humbly call bullshit and state for the record that anything can be measured.
I can think of some things that could be measured but ought not to be.
That would probably be an effectiveness, rather than output, measure.
I recommend to you the Times article from yesterday, re the skyrocketing # of law school admission applications. As Steve says upstairs, law school is a default profession path--and now it's being taken on by the unemployed or underemployed who can't find other decent [real] work.
Meanwhile, law firms continue to shed excess salaries by hundreds to thousands.
As to the efficiency of law schools to prepare one for the work? Well, they best ones? They sort of don't. Or haven't. Their pretense is Academic Integrity, or some such nonsense, for what is a education toward a "profession." Especially for those who litigate--hell, for those who primarily scriven--there's little to no time spent preparing for that. Law school rankings are to keep U.S. News & World Report's tenuous heart beating, and to provide large firms with website puffery.
"an" education, you overeducated, underbrained huzzy.
If not for failed lawyers from where would we fill up the congressional ranks?
Wait. What? How can law schools "allow" minority students to have lower bar-passage rates? People take the bar *after* law school don't they? The law schools aren't "allowing" low bar-passage rates.
Maybe they mean LSAT score, not bar?
Well, if it's good enough for elementary schools... wait.
So you people are basically for making law school even more boring than it already is (not that I went, mind you, but I've heard).
Actually, Yale is there to crank out a few really top flight academics who will never practice law until they serve on some high court; the rest are just there to pay the bills.
Boring? Nearly every law school story I've ever heard involves the words "so wasted" and "make it rain."
"That's still not an argument against "outcome measures"-that's an argument for useful outcome measures!"
I disagree. If you cannot set useful outcome measures that is an argument against creating outcome measures on the first place. After all, the inability to accurately determine whether or not you can achieve a specific goal is an argument not to attempt to achieve the goal in the first place.
"in" not "on the first ..."
Aren't people from the UK (and maybe other places) who only studied law as undergraduates, allowed to bypass US law schools and sit for the NY State Bar? I think that right there tells me that three years of law school probably doesn't teach all that much.
I don't see the direct correlation.
Basically, I can't study politics or law as an undergrad in the United States and go straight to the bar exam but someone in another country can do the same. If this is possible then I'm pretty sure plenty of American students would be just fine skipping law school and taking the bar exam instead. Meaning, that's three years and a whole bunch of money better spent doing other things.
I recognize three of the JAG protesters in that picture. (Old pic! Nice guys!)