This post argues that recent changes in legal education have harmed rather than helped most students and that legal education needs to change significantly, and predicts that no change will occur until it’s too late.

One significant change in law schools over the past twenty-five years is the bureaucratization of the institution. What were once fairly lean organizations have become bloated, and the increase in administrators is one cause of the greater-than-inflation increases in law school tuition. This increase in administrators, with the concomitant rise in tuition, has created a kind of chicken-and-egg problem.

The high cost of tuition has made many law schools leery of academic attrition (in part because if those former students don’t pay back their loans, the institution may find itself in trouble). You rarely see exclusion of one-third of the student body (I can think of just one school). But especially where bar exam passing rates have ranged considerably, because such rates can readily be compared, academic attrition has increased among a number of law schools in the past decade in order to pump up bar exam results.  One consequence has been the creation and rapid expansion of academic support programs for those students who are struggling. The theory behind such programs is sound. But though such programs can offer students tips on how to organize their study, and offer some study skills, I don’t think they can actually provide “academic” support in practice.