it comes up every year

This issue comes up like clockwork every year, and since few people actually want to change law school, but seem to delight in calls to make it less intellectual (or shorten it to two years), not much will happen.

But, a couple results of the survey are confusing. In general, the first year of law school is radically different from the last two. Just about everyone (across the country) is taking the same classes, and there is intense competition between students. Papers are rare (I think that first year legal writing classes count as “papers” but I might be wrong.) The second and third year starts to resemble conventional graduate school – with more papers, independent research, etc. — but at most schools, it is still somewhat different.

But, at the same time, in the second and third years, students become more acclimated to working, and don’t fall into time-wasting traps (often set by professors.)

The problem, therefore, is that students are unlikely, in the first year, at most schools to “work on papers requiring integration of multiple sources.” (Some schools require this, but, by far, not most.) Likewise, first year students usually don’t participate in student government activities (but, for the most part, student government in law school isn’t take too seriously). Pro bono (at least within the contexts of the school) and clinical projects are usually off limits to first year students, too. Yet, for some reason, these activities, according to the study, were undertaken by more first year students than second-year students.

Having “serious talks” with people of different ethnicities or political beliefs is overrated. Most of the time “serious talks” are just rap sessions. By the time someone gets to their second year of law school, most people realize that these talks are wastes of time, and if you want to engage in serious dialogue, you can do so in the context of scholarly work (which is much more self-promoting) or litigation.

Larry, at 6:50 am EST on January 3, 2006

Few want to change law school??

I disagree that few people want to change law school. I would agree that few who benefit from the status quo want to.

The sole purpose of a law school requirement is to prevent lawyer pay from approaching that of teachers. Without it, law schools would have to compete for students and auto-didacts could sit for the bar exam without supporting law professors in the style to which they are very accustomed (as Lincoln and Clarence Darrow, among other great lawyers did).

Sitting for the bar exam in almost all states (46 if I recall correctly) requires a JD from a law school; in most of these states, the school must be accredited by the ABA. Thus, states have given the inner circle of the lawyers union the absolute right to control access to the union. The ABA’s main requirement is a minimum amount of time spent in class.

Thus, even as the ABA’s own studies show that 80% of the civil legal needs of the poor are not met at all (and that their criminal defense needs are usually “met” by the least qualified and experienced attorneys), the ABA whispers plaintive suggestions that lawyers ought to serve the poor ... forgetting that they barred most of the people who want to do that at the door to the law school (and saddled the rest with $80k of debt, plus whatever undergrad debt they had).

Meanwhile, state bars have unauthorized practice of law (UPL) committees whose sole function is to prevent anyone from horning in on the monopoly.

So who cares whether third year students self-report working hard? The only point of the third year is to keep those students from the practice of law for another year and to promote more failures on the bar exam (which tests first year law ... although you aren’t allowed to take it after you complete the tested courses).

JMG, at 10:27 am EST on January 3, 2006

The unspoken question here is whether we should get rid of the third year of law school. The law is becoming increasingly splintered and hyper-specialized, and in my view the third year (and much of the second, for that matter) is there to allow people to take elective courses they are interested in. As a professor, I am constantly frustrated by how much I CANNOT cover in a single semester—including stuff that is terribly important for students to know. I’d actually think about ADDING A FOURTH YEAR if I had my way, unpopular though that may be, to provide more substantive instruction—as well as practically-focused externships and the like.

I’ve posted more on this on my blog at http://law-career.blogspot.com.

Gregory W. Bowman, Professor at Mississippi College School of Law, at 4:38 am EST on January 6, 2006