| I think this discussion is missing the point. Eben's delineated his firm's business plan in the midst of the discussion on how we, as consumers of a high-priced legal education, need to change the way/change what we are being taught. The problem is that we don't know what we want changed. There are two fundamental questions that we have to address. They are 1) What do we want to do? and 2)What do we need to know to be able to do it?
Question 1 can be answered relatively early in our law school careers. Some people come to school knowing exactly where they want to go afterwards, but are derailed (obviously there are exceptions) by the system that is in place, which is, to adopt Eben's metaphor, a cannery. Others come in without a clear objective and end up molded similarly. So Eben's point was that if we want to break the mold, we need address these concerns to the administration (ie. line the corridors during their semesterly faculty meetings). In order to enjoy an environment that does not inherently create a biased view of the industry, we need to demand it. The fundamental issue is that we aren't exposed to opportunities in an effective way. The consequences of this are the grading system, the classes we are taught, and even the curriculum itself.
The second question follows similarly, but I imagine that as we begin to explore opportunities under the guidance of professors who believe it is of value to culture an entrepreneurial spirit, the answer will unravel.
This is a novel plan, but I am afraid of taking the next step. Maybe this means I have failed to live up to Eben's expectation. Maybe, as he suggested briefly in class, I am afraid because I lack the knowledge about what could happen. For a law school to break away from traditional norms is not only bold, it is somewhat counterintuitive (although admittedly, my knowledge of the history of the institution of law school is shallow). It is counterintuitive because it suggests that the institution for learning about the very foundation of society is fluid, and that suggests that maybe the law is not the firm grounding that greater society embraces, but something dynamic. Here's the kicker. For a law school to take this bold step, it would take a united student body. Assuming change was (perhaps reluctantly) embraced, the law school would be laughed at. Perhaps a parade of blog postings scoffing at crazy XYZ Law School. Then the other schools would fight it. They would levy criticism in scholarly publications, perhaps even devote a journal note to asserting how unrealistic such a system would be. But ultimately, and this is crucial, if the entire school from faculty to students to donors persisted on a course based on human values, they will succeed in producing lawyers, who affect change with their words, not simply crates canned meat.
-- JonathanFriedman - 01 Apr 2009 |