In Too Deep?

 

b9df7f5b8b1280964519cb1f0cd53f13Thank you, Professor O’Hear and Professor Slavin for inviting me to share my comments with the Marquette University Law School community. 

On my first day of law school, former Marquette Professor Eric Goldman informed our orientation group that, much to his own dismay, the practice of law is nothing like it is portrayed on television.  “What?”  I thought, “You mean cases can’t be tried start to finish in one hour?”  

Although I never truly expected that practicing law would resemble the television shows, I realized that there was value to be gained by watching these shows.  Not only do they offer a bit of light-hearted entertainment, but also an opportunity to test those years of legal education. 

One of the most recent newcomers to legal television is ABC’s new dramedy, “The Deep End.”  In “The Deep End,” five new associates join L.A.’s most prestigious law firm—Sterling, Huddle, Oppenheim, & Craft.  As the show’s title would imply, these associates are immediately thrown into the deep end.   I can appreciate that filming document reviews and the preparation of written discovery would not make for entertaining television.  I also understand that filming legal research in a law library filled with Pacific Reporters is better cinema photography than filming.  Thus, within their first week of practice, the legal neophytes are handling motion hearings, taking depositions, meeting with the firm’s major clients, and of course, groping each other, their support staff, and their clients. 

Continue ReadingIn Too Deep?

Langdell’s Curse

langdell_portrait_vinton_03Michael Ariens has, through a number of blog posts, shared with us his thoughtful sentiments about American legal education.  This post is an attempt to continue that dialogue and to consider how we can better prepare our students for practice by contextualizing legal education.

Most legal commentators believe the primary purpose of law school is to prepare students for practice.  While there isn’t a single interpretation of what that means, it must at least include the ability to help clients “solve” their legal problems. (I use quotation marks around the word “solve” because legal problems are not like most mathematical problems in which there is only one solution.)

While that objective might seem obvious to some, especially the legal practitioner, it isn’t necessarily obvious to everyone, especially in light of the pedagogical approach to legal education that most law schools take.  This is because most law school courses teach substantive law, as well as fundamental legal skills like legal reasoning, through the vehicle of the case method.

The use of the case method as we know it can be traced to at least as early as 1870, when Christopher Columbus Langdell first instituted it at Harvard Law School in an effort to make the study of law more rigorous.  The idea was to treat the law as a science, and to treat cases (the source of the law) as if they were to be poked at and dissected in order to reveal their legal principles.  By requiring students to learn the law through such demanding exercises, the case method achieved its goal – law school became a more rigorous enterprise.

Continue ReadingLangdell’s Curse

Top Ten Changes in the Legal Profession Since 1979, Part II

Scale_of_justiceThe first half of the Top Ten list was posted yesterday here.

6. The changing structure of law firms, including specialization.

Only a few law firms were “national” or “international” in any sense of the word in 1979. The most well known was Baker & McKenzie, the Chicago behemoth. If I recall correctly, Foley & Lardner had no office outside of Wisconsin (and maybe Milwaukee) in 1979. In 1985, ten Dallas law firms had 100 or more lawyers, but none was as large as the three largest Houston law firms. One of those Dallas firms was the Cleveland law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue (now Jones Day), which came to Dallas in 1981, and which housed 122 lawyers by 1985. Jones Day’s “principal” office is now considered Washington, D.C., according to the National Law Journal, and it has 2,492 attorneys. Large law firms must be national in order to compete effectively for large corporate business (there may be a few New York-based exceptions to this rule, but just a few). Baker & McKenzie remains the largest law firm in the National Law Journal’s NLJ 250 with 3,949 lawyers in 2009, but five firms are larger than 2,000 lawyers, even after a bloodletting in which over 5,200 lawyers at the 250 largest firms were let go beginning in late 2008. The smallest of these 250 firms has 164 lawyers, a number that creates substantial fixed costs.

Firms this large are no longer partnerships in theory or fact. 

Continue ReadingTop Ten Changes in the Legal Profession Since 1979, Part II
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