Sorry for the long gap since my last post. The real life of my own practice of law was about as busy last month as it’s ever been, and I just could not get back to this series of posts.
So, for those you who were reading along, here is the Cliff Notes recap. My thesis is this: law schools do a great job of providing most students with some of the very important analytical tools they need to practice law. Those tools are necessary — but not sufficient — to turn law students into practicing lawyers, equipped to competently represent clients. For some graduates, law firms take up the slack. But good law firm positions, or even government jobs for young lawyers are in shorter and shorter supply. And for lawyers who can find such jobs, clients increasing resist paying to train young lawyers. The law schools know how to provide the kind of teaching and training required to produce competent practitioners. But for most students, they just don’t do the job.
Even if you follow my argument, you may be wondering, what’s all this got to do with the subject we started on: access to justice? I submit, a very great deal.
As mentioned in my September 8 post, Delivery of Legal Services: An Unfinished Agenda, there is a huge underserved market for legal service among those with low and moderate incomes. With a few niche exceptions, like personal injury practice, existing law firms don’t do a very good job of serving this market. To some extent, they don’t because they don’t need to. They already have clients who supply the income they need. The profit margins that come with serving this market are too thin for most estabilshed law firms.
But many law students who are graduating now who just can’t find jobs. If law schools took seriously the job of teaching law students to practice law, they could teach them how to serve this huge market.
No, such graduates would not earn the huge starting salaries paid by our largest and most pretigious law firms.
But, even in good times, those firms employ a relatively small slice of graduating lawyers. Few lawyers will earn the fabulous salaries and bonuses the largest firms pay.
But something is far better than nothing. And if law schools taught lawyers how to practice law if would be far more practical for new law school graduates to set up thier own shops and provide personal legal services to under-served middle and even low-income Americans.
The law schools could help themselves by helping their graduates learn to provide real access to justice for most Americans.
Next time, is change in the wind? I hope so and I’ll tell you what I see.
Rich
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Didn’t finish up the facebook comment but that’s O.K. I think there is a critical need to teach legal analysis AND how to lawyer. Clinical programs are available to a few students and are helpful. As a law teacher, years ago, I began to use a practical approach in Civil Procedure. Actually began the course by exploring judgments…the end point in litigation…and then flashed back to the complaint, responses, jurisdiction, and then discovery, etc. Had students–and there were many objections–draft complaints, answers, motions for S/J, etc. Of the 4 folks who taught Civ Pro at the time I was the only one who did so, and there was considerable carping. I developed my own materials and ultimately Matthew Bender published a casebook that I co-authored with a colleague who was at Cleveland-State. Not a best seller but we attempted to use a practical approach in many of the areas. I believe there were others similarly-oriented that came out over time. But the traditional approaches–starting with Pennoyer v. Neff, for example, are hard to overcome, and there are many law academics still who did not come from a practice background. It is absolutely true that clients pay a considerable sum for “OJT” of recent law school graduates, not only in the time those lawyers consume, but also in supervisory time. And hopefully, clients do not suffer from rookie errors as the result of the lack of practice training in law schools, although I do not know if there are any data that would reveal those kinds of problems.
I do not advocate for law schools as job training mills, but failing to deal with aspects of the practical across the curriculum is a defect in legal education.
Thanks for the Comment, Michael. I think we very much on the same page. I don’t think law schools should be job training mills either. Practical training is of little value if not built on top of sound theoretical knowledge. I’m arguing for better balance, and I read you as agreeing.
Rich