Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Law Schools: This was bound to happen

http://chronicle.com/article/Crisis-of-Confidence-in-Law/129425/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en


Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Consider Philadelphia. my hometown, for example. For years, we've had the Rutgers Camden, Temple, Penn, Villanova, and Widener law schools. A few years ago Drexel --- which seems determined to have every type of school there is, as well as a museum of natural history --- opened a new law school. Did Philly --- with its 15,000-member bar --- really need another law school?

I have often said and occasionally written that the nation needs plenty of lawyers. A law school education is the best training in critical thinking a mind can get. And in this 21st century with its wars on terror, Patriot Act, etc., lawyers may be an important force against erosion of our civil liberties.

Conversely, if law school grads take on huge debts and can't find decent jobs, this is a problem... not least for the schools themselves. I mean... it's a lot like running a school for assassins, then sending them out into a cruel, cruel world where they aren't hired to shoot anybody. Yeh, they just might come back and put a bullet in you.

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