-- JocelynCazares - 02 Jun 2015

Is Law School Failing?

The Law Market

Despite the decrease in applicants in the last five years, with the Fall 2014 cycle having over 32,000 less applicants than Fall 2011’s 87,000 applicants, law school continues to be one of the most popular post-grad degrees to pursue. Moreover, among many families, minorities especially, it is one of only three degrees that are deemed worthy, along with a medical degree and an engineering degree. It also happens to be one of the most expensive degrees to attain. With this in mind along with the rougher job market that ensued after the financial crisis of 2008, the choice to pursue law has raised more concern than traditionally, often being referred to as a high-risk gamble for job security. With various sites and articles dedicated to convincing prospects whether or not to go, it’s odd that few discuss whether or not law school actually prepares you for the typical career people go to law school for, being a lawyer. There’s plenty of information regarding salaries, debt, style of life, job prospects, etc., but relatively few discussing whether law school is serving its function of producing prepared lawyers ready to start making things happen with their words. Of course there’s sites like TLS in which future, current, and former law students all impart their wisdom, but what’s seems most vital to know and understand prior to attending law school also seems to be most ignored.

The Inquiry

The question of whether law school is failing is obviously dependent on who is asking the question. This is why it is vital for people to understand prior to attending law school that many of the romanticized versions of what law school does are simply that, romanticism. Thus, to majority who anticipate law school to be a learning process, the delving into the mechanics of being a lawyer and the workings of the legal system, law school is failing. For those who expect law school to be a place that once completed, results in the ability to lawyer, law school is failing. It is for those who expect law school to be a giant networking marathon, simply a means to acquiring the necessary contacts for a career in law that law school is succeeding. That is not to say that law students cannot exist law school without the toolkit to lawyer, it simply means that the actual law school curriculum is not built to serve this purpose. It is not even built to serve the purpose of the BAR exam as many will be open about the fact that by the time it is to be taken, any practical knowledge is by far gone (if it ever was learned).

From the Perspective of an Almost Done 1L

The entire business that is law school is actually built in a way that breads fear and utilizes it to get students to do as the all-powerful administration want. Rather fostering a “learning” environment in which students are eager to learn and encouraged to inquisitive, students are perpetually in fear of jeopardizing their careers from the moment they begin. From the first day until the last, it is drilled into our heads that this is professional school, we are professionals, and every moment from orientation and on will forever follow us coloring our aptitude as professionals. The go-to cherished Socratic method promotes brevity of knowledge instead actual interaction with the material for fear that the professor will call on us, and god forbid we don’t know the answer. Moreover, the lecture approach to learning core materials in our first year is antithetical to any critical thought about the material we are being thought. Meanwhile, the attempt to contextualize the theoretical that law professors seem to dwell in is minimized, made to seem irrelevant, a fruitless, thought exercise. Thus, for those interested in learning how to effectuate the law, the three years and immense price tag are not resulting in much. Those interested in the tangible execution of the law and how it operates within society, law school will not instruct you. Fixated on principles like the “reasonable” person standard and mens rea, law school is not interested in addressing their societal implications or origins. It’s not within the curriculum to acknowledge that these “infallible” legal principles are products of mythology of the all-knowing privileged, white male perspective. Law school fails to provide the much-needed venue to discuss and recognize that the law is not an objective and infallible thing, but rather riddled with inconsistencies and arbitrariness that propagate inequities. Thus once again, law school fails for those entering it with the purpose of learning how to begin their own practice in making the law more reflective of the society it is supposed to work for, and not simply the privileged, the intricate interplay of race and law must be brought to the forefront.

How to Play

However, that is not to say law school is failing in its own objectives. It is then crucial to understand what is that the law school is seeking to accomplish in order for prospective students to know if law school is the decision they want to make and for current student to make the most of the situation they are in. Law schools are interested in number, plain and simple. They care about their rankings and will do anything to ensure they break the illustrious T-14 rank. Meaning, law schools succeed in providing the data necessary for these clearly flawed ranking systems, regardless of whether it leads to a better legal education or not. Therefore, law schools (especially those who have mastered the art of creating the perfect façade of job placement that enables their T-14 status) are succeeding in herding its students to careers they feel are safe, in providing the network of contacts to protect statistics. Thus for anyone seeking for more, they must learn this, capitalize on the contacts, and realize that they will have to self-start, serve, and champion for anything beyond the minimum.