Academic

REDESIGNING THE AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL. ?American law schools are an integral part of a vertically int?

By Glenn Reynolds

REDESIGNING THE AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL. “American law schools are an integral part of a vertically integrated system of production in which the end product is lawyers. Law schools are having rapidly increasing problems ’selling’ their ‘products’ to potential employers/purchasers. Even if the law schools do not voluntarily cut back on the numbers of admitted students some states will decide there should be no public subsidy for educating students for employment areas such as law where there is no demand.” And quite a few others. All part of the higher education bubble’s eventual deflation.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Concerning your post and the commentary on http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/114388/ I have to say this. I’m NOT a lawyer, and I think of that as a badge of honor, I went to school to be a mechanical engineer, but something I learned over the years is that one of the advantages of being a law grad isn’t the ability to bleed money from the system, but rather that any study of law seems to promote a very broad sense of understanding. I’ve yet to meet a dumb lawyer. They might be wrong, but they aren’t dumb, simply because of the broad application of law requires them to understand many things. A lawyer, someone who never played with legos, might find themselves needing to understand the intricacies of building a bridge to bring a suit, so. . .they learn the basics of those intricacies so they can bring their case. A lawyer who was born without feet might have to make an argument about the harmful construction of a sneaker (I actually heard that that was a real thing, not the lawyer with no feet, but about poorly designed shoes) and that lawyer who never wore a shoe in their life will learn about the basics of making shoes, and what it can do to feet.

I have a lot of problems with “The System” but as far as the individuals that serve the field? I think they are some of the most curious individuals in our society.

Yes, that’s right. (And it’s part of the fun. When I was in law school and moonlighting for a local firm, I had to learn a lot about how locomotives brake for a case, and I did, and I liked it.) Some would say, of course, that the law is a waste of these talents, and they may be right. But society decides what talents it will reward and how, and it has decided to reward those who put these talents to work in law. Now it appears supply has caught up with demand, but society should still think about what it wants to reward. My Sunday Washington Examiner column is about this, more or less.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on February 04, 2011 (boomark / email).