Comments on: “Doing What We Do Best” or “Why Law Professors Should Feel Less Guilt”

By: Norman Stein

Norman Stein — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:12:33 +0000

I am not certain how you have concluded that lawyers interested in theory are happier than other lawyers. Many lawyers are, in a sense, problem solvers, often for people whose problems might raise deep theoretical problems but who basically want their problems solved on a cost-efficient basis. In this sense, many lawyers act as counselor, mediator, and social worker, and less as scholar. I am not certain we do a very good of training people for these roles. This is not to say that theory is in any sense irrelevant to performing these roles, but integrity, organization, good judgment, well-developed social intelligence, are probably the key aspects of good lawyering of this type.

To get back to my first reaction–how do you know, other than anecdotally, what skills and interests make a lawyer happy–I know many folks who are practicing law who are sublimely disinterested in theory, even at the plain doctrinal level (which is more and more relegated to second-class citizenship by law professors, at least in their scholarship and certainly to some extent in their classrooms), but by my estimation seem happy helping people work through their legal problems, often without doing a whole of legal research or deeply abstract thinking.

Perhaps law school itself is part of the problem: I wonder if, as you sort of suggest, some of our students might have been better off if they could still get most of their education through apprenticing.

I am not advocating that the first thing we do is kill all the law professors–I do think we give value, and to some students, a lot of value. But maybe not enough value to enough students to warrant a three-year track of formal legal education.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:42:48 +0000

So you are suggesting that because the law schools have invested all of their money and energy in recruiting faculty who have no ability whatsoever to teach actual legal skills that the law schools should not try to acquire new teachers who can actually teach real legal skills? Perhaps a bit blindly self-serving?

By: Bruce Boyden

Bruce Boyden — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:10:25 +0000

Rather, I think that law schools ought to devote their attention to those areas of legal education where they have a comparative advantage. What do law schools do well? The answer is that we do “theory” well.

I don’t think that argument quite works. For instance, suppose (contrary to fact) that law schools did jumping jacks really well. It doesn’t follow that law schools should add more P.E. classes.

However, I agree with you that the type of “theory” you are talking about is actually quite useful for practice, and difficult to pick up once a student is *in* practice (Orin Kerr might disagree with me there). But it seems to me that there is plenty of room for more learning by doing (with feedback) in law school rather than learning by listening and talking. That includes applications of “theory.” It may be unrealistic to expect graduates to be ready for solo practice on graduation, but that doesn’t mean law schools shouldn’t start the process.

By: Stephen M (Ethesis)

Stephen M (Ethesis) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:50:24 +0000

Lawyers who are intellectually excited by and engaged with the law are more successful — that is true. As a practicing lawyer who enjoys law, I discovered that in a particular metric I’m performing as well as three offices of attorneys in my company in this state. That was a real surprise.

However, the reality is that upon graduation upon graduation with a JD our students or at least fifty to eighty percent of them, if you are looking at 90% of the graduates from law schools in this country, be ready to hang out their shingle and begin the practice of law

Ethics committees in many states are dealing with the issues this creates.

From my perspective it is not so much that large law firms desire to shift the burden to the educators, but that there is a significant problem with young lawyers that most employers lack the skill, ability and knowledge to train (especially those new lawyers who end up training themselves as solos).

Do an analysis of the bottom 60% of all law schools and their graduates. You will see exactly what I mean in terms of the real issues and problems that face many graduates and that create the problems ethics committees face over and over again.