Law School Applications Decline 11 Percent in 2011
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Are college students finally beginning to understand that going to law school is often a dubious financial decision?
According to a recent article in the American Bar Association Journal, the answer is yes.
Even though college graduates have traditionally responded to economic recessions by increasing their applications to graduate schools, this year law school applications are down more than 11 percent:
Applications to start law school in the United States in the fall of 2011 have dropped 11.5 percent since last year and are on target to hit the lowest level in a decade, according to data provided by the Law School Admission Council Inc.
After widespread publicity about the hard-hit legal economy, it appears many prospective applicants have gotten the message that a law degree isn't necessarily a ticket to well-paid employment or even a legal job, the Wall Street Journal reported.
While many commentators have commented on the economic reasons behind the decline in law school applicants, there is an underappreciated aspect to this trend. The status of lawyers is declining. When people and especially parents begin to realize that becoming a law degree is not a guarantee of a secure income, fewer children will be encouraged to become lawyers. That may or may not happen over the course of a generation. But I am already seeing that some lawyers are beginning to lose some confidence and be aware of their declining fortunes. This may not be a bad thing for lawyers and their clients. I continue to expect lawyers to be a high-profile occupation. We're talking about a relative decline. if we see lawyer's jokes go out of favor or largely disappear, then we will know that the status of lawyers has taken a nose dive. I'm not expecting that, but in this rapidly changing world that wouldn't shock me.
Posted by Gideon on 03/22 at 01:01 PM
Categories: Law Schools |
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Why Law School Grades Don’t Matter
There's a famous scene in the 1984 mocumentary "Spinal Tap," in which one of the members of the fictional rock band explains that their sound projects were louder than other bands because the the dials on their amplifiers go up to the number 11, rather than the more traditional 10.
The most recent game that law schools are playing reminded me of this scene. As reported in the New Tork Times, some law schools are arbitrarily and retroactively increasing the grade point averages of their students to make them more attractive to potential employers.
[Loyola Law School Los Angeles] is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.
In the last two years, at least 10 law schools have deliberately changed their grading systems to make them more lenient.
I've previously commented on the deficiencies in law school education. Even without this game-playing, and regardless of their grades, there is little reason to hire attorneys fresh out of law school. A vast majority of what lawyers know is learned on the job. Experience matters.
Apparently, law school administrators believe that the people who hire lawyers, including their own alumni, are a bunch of chumps. Do they really think that lawyers won't notice that grades have been inflated retroactively? This is just another sign that law school education is fundamentally flawed.
It's just one more reason to avoid hiring recent law school graduates altogther.
The Legal Apprentice Returns
Thomas Jefferson was one; Abraham Lincoln too.
Both became lawyers by apprenticing with a practicing lawyer. The legal apprentice may be making a comeback, albeit with a modern debt-ridden twist. Jefferson and Lincoln lived before the establishment of law schools. For the past hundred years, a vast majority of American lawyers graduated from law schools and then immediately started to work. Famously, in recent decades, the graduates of select law schools commanded very high starting salaries right out of law school. For an increasing number of law school graduates, the six-figure starting salary is a pipe dream. It's being replaced by a new arrangement–working with a mentor for cheap as a way to get experience.
A recent article in the online edition of the American Bar Association Journal describes this trend without using the word apprentice. It appears that the ABA has finally concluded that it may not be a good idea for people to go to law school.
The chairman of an ABA commission studying the impact of the economic downturn on the legal profession has some advice for would-be law students: You may want to reconsider.
Allan Tanenbaum, chairman of the ABA Commission on the Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Profession and Legal Needs, spoke to the Wall Street Journal for a story on the dim employment prospects for this year's law grads.
Tanenbaum told the newspaper that the average law-school debt for students is $100,000, and in the current job market, many "have no foreseeable way to pay that back.”
The article elicited comments that are much more intersesting than the article itself. Two in particluar caught my eye. Both were written by lawyers who have hiring responsibilities. Both suggested that new lawyers find new arrangements.
As a managing partner at a small Central Texas firm I can say that I have seen 2 types of law students; those that make it happen and those that expect it to be done for them. We have 2 interns this summer. We have found a way to hire (at a low salary) one intern that made it happen. This kid has a real shot at a real job when he gets out. The other kind of asked for a favor and due we agreed. I have my doubts about the latter. The point here is that there are jobs out there and we are an example of where jobs are. These kids just have to quit looking for the big job and look for the better “arrangement”.
The second comment echoed the first, which was written by David Sergi.
I agree with David Sergi. I am managing member of a boutique IP firm that *I* started after less than 3 years of practicing in BigLaw. Law school is still a great education to have, but you can’t expect for a job to be given to you. You have to know what you want to do with that legal education and make it happen! Choose the best “arrangement”, not the most glamorous or high-paying job.
My advice to law students: BigLaw is dying, so stop looking for those opportunities… You need to connect with the legal community and find a mentor who is willing to teach/train you in the practice of law. THAT is how you make a legal career.
If you went to to law school to be “a baller”, well you’re going to be mighty disappointed.
Neither of these commentators uses the word apprentice, but that in essence is what they are describing. I have my doubts about whether apprentices will become a mainstay of legal practice. I continue to believe that the current generation of law school graduates will become a lost generation and that salaries for law school gards will recover as the economy improves. The difference between the haves and the have-nots will continue to grow, as an increasing percentage of law school graduates will never practice law.
What does this mean for clients? The best advice is still to avoid inexperienced lawyers. But also recognize that there is a pool of relatively talented people who are willing to work for cheap. It's now easier to hire a paralegal with a law degree. That's something to consider for very basic tasks.
Legal Education Stinks
The President of The State Bar of California, Howard B. Miller, didn't actually use the word "stinks." But that is a fair reading of his assessment of what attorneys know immediately after they graduate law school and pass the bar exam. Here are his exact words, as they appear in the May 2010 issue of the California Bar Journal:
For the foreseeable future the starter jobs that provided traditional training for those lawyers are not coming back (See Miller, Structural or Cyclical?, President’s Column, February 2010 California Bar Journal). Out of necessity, and without any practical experience, many unemployed lawyers are or will be setting up their own solo, usually community-based, practices. Those practices can be enormously satisfying, and when done well are needed by clients. Given the current state of legal education and what the bar exam tests, however, it is far from clear those lawyers are qualified to do so, and will not just be a risk to themselves but to their potential clients.
When a lawyer such as Mr. Miller writes that it's "far from clear" whether beginning lawyers are "qualified," that's as close as he likely to get to saying publicly that they are a risk to their clients. This is not the first time that I'm writing about a prominent member of the California legal establishment who is indicting the quality of law school education. What's refreshing about Mr. Miller's column is that he also speaks candidly about the value of the Bar Examination. He recognizes that the test is a deeply flawed measure of whether someone is qualified to practice law.
How many would want a surgeon to operate on them who had only been tested on a written exam, without seeing or operating on a patient, even in a simulation? The bar exam continues to exist as an accepted but flawed tradition, with only tangential problem solving connections to representing clients or any realistic certification of the ability to practice law. The coming changes in law practice, in its pricing models and client expectations for community-based solo practices, will require those of us who have been deeply involved in the current structure of the bar exam to think through what an effective qualification exam must be, which, in addition, can have an impact on necessary changes at the law schools as well.
To his credit, Mr. Miller addresses issues that are generally not discussed in public. His article mentions that more law students need to weigh the costs and benefits of going to law school. He even mentions that law school publish questionable statistics about how many of their graduates are employed following graduation, and suggests that this might be causing students to overestimate the financial rewards of becoming a lawyer. All of this is commendable and timely.
But there is a different approach to this problem—the Lawyer On A leash approach. It's terrific to see articles like the one written by Mr. Miller. But his term as President of the State Bar ends in a few months. There is a much more powerful and sustainable way to change the dynamic of the legal profession and law school education. And that that's to educate you the clients. It's going to take a lot longer to convince law school deans and the creators of the bar examination that they are involved in a deeply flawed enterprise. I have much more faith that, once more current and potetial clients know what lawyers say to each other about the quality of legal education, they will take appropriate steps to protect themselves. That's the Lawyer On A Leash approach.
A Lost Generation Of Lawyers
I'm an optimist, so it pains me to say this: the current generation of law school students might turn out to be a lost generation. There is plenty of evidence that they are having a hugely difficult time finding jobs. The unemployment rate coming out of some law schools might be 50% or higher. What hasn't sunk in is that a large percentage of this cohort of law students may never meaningfully work as lawyers. I fully expect that some of them will try to open a law office and make a go of it. But most are not likely to succeed. Even in the best of economic times, operating a law office is not for everybody. Moreover, this is one debt-ridden generation of students. Many of them will graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of student loans and for students who attended private universities and law schools, it's easy to rack up debts in excess of $100,000. That is a difficult financial posture from which to try to start a new business.
Ironically, the difficulties facing law school graduates seems to be lost on the next generation of college graduates. They are sticking with the old strategy of applying to graduate school when the ecnomy is tough. The number of law school applicants is way up; in some schools up more than 50% compared to last year. The idea of applying to law school seems understandable, but mostly it's just ignorant. This is not like recessions of the past. the legal profession was undergoing significant changes before this recent economic downturn started. Those chnages were already putting significant downward pressure on fees for a wide array of legal services. Some aspects of legal work were commoditized a decade before the Great Recession began.
So what does it mean? It means that we are likely to see a semi-permanent underclass of lawyers. Those who are technically lawyers, but who can't make a decent living at it. This process started a few years ago. In 2005 I met a law school graduate who was being paid $10 an hour by her firm, pending the results of her bar exam. I expect that many law school graduates will face an even more challenging environment in the next 3-5 years. The ecomomy will get better, but I suspect and fear that the economic recovery will largely pass by the current generation of law students.
What does it mean for people who hire lawyers? It means that we will have more self-taught lawyers. Fewer new lawyers will have the benefit of an experienced boss. It means that the costs of commodity-type legal work such as basic wills will continue to stagnate. It means tha the relative advanatge of experienced lawyers will continue to grow. I am big beleiver in hiring lawyers who have the specific experience you need. Law is largely learned on the job. That is not changing as a result of the recession. Thus, if you have an important legal issue, it will be more important than ever to find an experienced lawyer. The experienced and the established lawyer will and should benefit disporportionately. The rich will get richer. And sadly, many new law school grads will be part of a lost generation of lawyers.
“When I Graduated From Law School, I Wasn’t Ready To Practice Law.”
One of the dirty legal secrets that lawyers know and clients don't is that law school graduates aren't ready to practice law.
Thus, I wasn't surprised to see the quote that's in the title to this post. What did surprise me is the person who said it and the circumstances under which it was said.
So who confirmed what many lawyers already know about law school? None other than Erwin Chemersinsky. Former law professor at Duke and the University of Southern California Erwin Chemerinsky. The current Dean of the law school at University of California Irvine, which opened its doors a few weeks ago. That Erwin Chemerinsky.
It's unusual to hear high profile academics discuss deficiencies in law school education. But what makes Dean Chemerinsky's statement especially noteworthy is that it's part of a broader indictment of law school education. "If we simply replicate existing law schools, we have failed," Chemerinsky said. According to a recent article published in the California Bar Journal, the law school curriculum at UC Irvine has been changed to include a year-long class on lawyering skills that focuses on negotiations skills, interviewing, and fact investigation.
That's right. A vast majority of law school graduates have not specifically learned how to negotiate. It's one of the many things lawyers do that is learned on the job.
And one class isn't going to turn otherwise-inexperienced lawyers into master negotiators. You should therefore continue to think twice (or three times) before you turn over your negotiation to a former Art History major with little or no negotiation experience.
Dean Chemerinsky should be commended for taking some steps to provide more practical training to law schools. Is it likley to be enough to change my view that most clients should avoid recent law school graduates? No. But at least it's a start.
One reason why UC Irvine isn't likely to change what law students know is that its mission is centrally connected with an effort to impress other academics, and not clients. One of the school's stated goals is to be a top 20 law school. So how do you know if a school's faculty is good or in the top 20? If you're an academic, you measure how often articles written by the faculty have been mentioned by other scholarly publications. Never mind that most scholarly legal publications are read by few practicing lawyers, it's hard to imagine something less significant to clients than the number of times the professors of the lawyer you are thinking of hiring wrote something that was mentioned by other law professors.
Until the economics of law school changes, it's unlikley that law schools will give anything but a passing glance to providing practical training to their debt-ridden students. I wish the new law schoopl at UC Irvine well and I commend the students who have taken a chance to breakout even a little from the usual law school experience.
But if you're a client looking to hire a lawyer, you're still much better off avoiding newbies and finding someone with experience that is directly related to your situtaion.
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