Ethics

David Levi, former federal judge and current dean of Duke Law School, offers this op-ed about young lawyers.  Dean Levi purports to counter the market-based criticism that many law school graduates aren't prepared to be economically useful upon graduation, but to do so it he initially talks about the emotional satisfactions of teaching and mentoring young lawyers -- which, even if true, isn't really germane to the economic point.  Later in the article, he claims that law students really are ready to practice because of their work in clinical programs, skills courses, etc.  I would agree that many law schools have improved their curricula in that regard, but we have a long way to go.  Regardless, it's the market, not rhetoric, that decides what's worth paying for, and the market has been pushing back on first year associate's services for some time now.

For more comments from Dean Levi about legal education, see this video beginning around minute 45.  At about minute 49, Dean Levi suggests that for the "great [law] schools," the second and third years of law school education increasingly will be focused on interdisciplinary studies with other graduate students (e.g., environment, public policy, business).