Welcome to The National Law Journal's Law School Review, which is an online forum examining the current state and future of legal education. We want to address the question, "Are law schools in crisis?" If the answer is yes, what are the most pressing problems and how should educators and regulators address them? If the answer is no, what is it that law schools are doing right? Is this enough to ensure their future viability? We have assembled a panel of experts to share their thoughts on the subject (see the roll call of contributors on the right), and we hope to create a robust dialogue and exchange of ideas.
-Karen Sloan
Crisis? Law Schools and the Bar, -Self Serving Pandemoniums, Organized Anarchies, or Standing Insurrections? The battle cry is “ Remember Litchfield Law School”. No entrance requirement, graduating 101 U.S Representatives, 28 Senators, 15 Governors, and three U.S. Sup Court Chief Justices. Few even know about Litchfield.
Can a “ Crisis” last so long no one knows one exists? Didn’t Langdell actually create the “ Socratic” case method because he was near to being blind and required the students to read the cases? Wasn’t Socrates put to death for such stuff? Didn’t the ABA “ First” Committee in about 1902 “stack” the AALS formative committee on legal education with law practitioners to ensure they all got a chance to handle the new meat graduating from emerging law schools? Aren’t associates billed out for $ 225 per hour and paid $40 for five years? Don’t many County Courts require mandatory arbitration for all civil cases? Now, 33% of all ABA “ Approved” law school graduates cannot pass a bar exam with a JD in hand. Today, there exists a billion dollar industry in bar exam prep classes. Known is that one must engage in a catechism of bar memorization and elliptical trick arts to get a license, and further that their own law school didn’t teach these skills and abilities. Cost of that rip off? One cant imagine the Catholic Church denying 33% of all the individuals who passed their catechism classes.
Many State Bar Associations total control of entry to the profession in each State. The Supreme Courts defer to them for screening of new lawyers. These folks buy national examination materials prepared by people they never see or have known, and religiously rely on the exam materials to deny entry and search for individuals who have not paid for and completed their “ catechism” in the post law school bar prep empire. Here we don’t even begin to consider the absurd “Star Chamber” State Character and Fitness Committees and the litany of confusion, subjectivity and “secret” decision making in which they are engaged.
Is there is crisis? Yes, in fact it has become an institution, lasted over 100 years, trashed much of the third branch of U.S. Government and our democracy, and left our people in City parks to be smashed on their heads for asking to be part of the American Experience.
Yet go to a County Courthouse, and listen many an ABA grad with a bar license present a case, and you can see the result.
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