{"id":8509,"date":"2010-01-07T14:19:27","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T19:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=8509"},"modified":"2010-01-07T14:19:27","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T19:19:27","slug":"what-should-be-done-with-legal-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/01\/what-should-be-done-with-legal-education\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should Be Done With Legal Education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The front-page, above-the-fold article in the latest issue of the National Law Journal<\/em> asked whether a legal education makes economic sense these days. The well-publicized recent purge of partners and associates in large law firms, the paucity of jobs (noted in a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>) available to graduating law students,\u00a0and the massive increase in student indebtedness have\u00a0generated a flood of articles and Internet posts cautioning would-be law students against entering the profession. This post takes the view that legal education still makes long-term sense for many.\u00a0A later follow-up\u00a0post will argue that recent changes in legal education have harmed rather than helped most students,\u00a0that legal education needs to change significantly, and\u00a0that it won\u2019t until it\u00a0is too late.<\/p>\n

A paper recently\u00a0posted on\u00a0SSRN <\/a>entitled Momma Don\u2019t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be\u00a0. . . Lawyers<\/em> by Vanderbilt University School of Law Professor Herwig Schlunk argues that, whether\u00a0a law student\u00a0attends a top-ten law school and does well, is a \u201csolid performer,\u201d or is an \u201calso ran\u201d who attends a third-tier law school, that\u00a0student will have a negative return on investment. Whether Professor Schlunk\u2019s assessment about opportunity cost (the salary foregone by attending three years of law school) is accurate (I think that a starting salary of a new college graduate today, combined with the insecurity of those positions, makes the opportunity cost lower than he assumes), I believe law school remains, for many, the right decision.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

And Prof. Schlunk\u2019s argument has been made before. For example, there are a number of articles from the early 1970s (email me if you want the cites) that compared the cost of going to law school with other occupations (one example was carpentry). The authors concluded that becoming a lawyer was a poor investment decision, and the additional fact that lawyers worked onerous hours (which were less than currently is the case) made the per hour pay close to minimum wage pay. That turned out not to be the case, as the \u201cnation under lawyers\u201d (Professor Mary Ann \u00a0Glendon\u2019s acerbic phrase) continued to conquer by law new fields. Though the practice of law has, since the 1980s, worsened in some respects, the work of lawyers remains highly compensated on a comparative basis. Whether the practice of law is as intellectually and emotionally fulfilling as it was during the Golden Age of the 1940s through the late 1960s, I\u2019m not so sure. But the problem with Golden Ages is that they disappear quickly. That\u2019s why we are so romantically inclined to Camelot and Brigadoon.<\/p>\n

The decision to attend law school may offer a negative return on investment, but that is an inadequate basis for making this decision, as Professor Schlunk notes. Even though focusing on solely on the instrumental value of a law degree, Schlunk notes that \u201clawyers are found in all parts of the workforce performing all manner of jobs.\u201d The National Association of Law Placement (NALP) annual salary and occupation survey indicates that a substantial percentage (about 25 persent) of law graduates have for a long time taken positions outside of the practice of law (whether private or government-based). The reasoning and analytical skills taught in law school are valuable in a number of jobs, and these skills may be why lawyers are found in all manner of jobs. (It may also be that these are smart persons who could have found the same jobs without the three-year detour of law school.) Those particular skills are not that difficult to replicate, but no other educational institution seems to do it, or do it well. A traditional liberal arts program could teach these skills well (maybe some do that I don\u2019t know about), but the repeated focus on honing those skills, joined by the maturation of students (after giving lectures and teaching some undergraduate classes, I\u2019m even more happy teaching law students), provides a distinct value. Further, the employment market for both the near- and long-term for most employees in most jobs is likely to be more rather than less unstable and insecure. Given the high probability of a greater regulatory state, it seems likely that more lawyers will be needed in both government and private practice, the former of which may provide the most secure employment available (well, maybe tenured law professors have an even sweeter deal \u2014 no, not maybe, they do). And for the entrepreneurially-minded, sole practice can be very rewarding.<\/p>\n

Law school is not the right decision for the liberal arts major who doesn\u2019t know what else to do with his or her life, but that has been the case for thirty years. It simply has been the greater-than-inflation increases in tuition that have made the bet less certain. The key for law students, no matter where they attend law school, is to contain their debts as much as possible. If that means attending a less prestigious law school that is offering more financial aid, that may be the best decision of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The front-page, above-the-fold article in the latest issue of the National Law Journal asked whether a legal education makes economic sense these days. The well-publicized recent purge of partners and associates in large law firms, the paucity of jobs (noted in a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education) available to graduating law students,\u00a0and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}