Lawyer Satisfaction Blog

Law schools have failed their students and the public but college graduates continue to apply and attend without having the facts or information needed to make an informed decision.

I request that you read this post and, if appropriate, forward it to any college students considering going to law school as well as any of those, such as pre-law advisers, who advise such students.

This is a unique, almost chaotic, time in the legal profession.

Large law firms are reevaluating the way they do business as the economic downturn has resulted in their clients no longer being willing to pay for the training of associates. Many also want value pricing not hourly fees.

Small firms are being given a second look and becoming more attractive to lawyers. In that vein, the presentations I am making to bar associations, including one this past September for the New York State Bar Association Committee on Lawyers in Transition, are aimed at helping lawyers learn about small firms and how to find positions there.

Law schools are under attack from all quarters: including law firms asking that the law schools prepare their students to practice law; students who are paying so much and often believing that they are getting so little; the ABA for inadequate teaching methods and devoting too much time to academic research.

Lawyers are expressing great dissatisfaction in their large firm practices. The American Bar Foundation's After the JD study of 5000 associates from the year 2000 on found that 59% of the graduates of the top law schools working for large law firms planned to leave within two and a half years.

A significant aspect of what I refer to as the "funneling" of as high as 95% of the graduates at selective law schools to large law firms through on-campus interviewing is that as many as 50% of the students wanted careers serving the public and were diverted from those careers. As you are aware we still have a crisis in the country where 80% of the legal needs of the 45,000,000 least wealthy of us are not met by the legal profession.

Some articles point out that the high cost of law school is "justification' for law students to take high paying positions. Rarely examined is why that cost is so high.

Those involved in advising college students who plan to go to law school in the past have focused primarily on how to get into the schools rated the best by the USNews annual survey. The problem is that that survey is defective. For example, it does not have a criteria evaluating how well the law school prepares students for the practice of law. Its focus is on intangibles such as reputation and which law schools get the most graduates the fastest into the largest law firms.

What is needed is a group of students or prelaw advisers who will research and inform college students about the state of legal education today. The group might want to design a far-reaching project could evaluate law schools based on whether they teach the fundamental values and skills of the legal profession and other relevant criteria such as reasonable cost. One example of such an evaluation tool is at the end of Overcoming Law School Defects .

The articles on my website and blog contain much information, resources and warnings about the deficiencies of legal education for those considering doing so.

I also recommend you read what Chuck Newton just posted in this Third Wave Blog entitled Death to Big Law (Schools)?

Law schools simply cannot live off the hope that poor (literally), innocent students can borrow ever increasing amounts of money, almost on a whim, to satisfy the peculiar beguilement and distraction of law school insiders. It is having and will continue to have very severe financial consequences for its graduates; marked by intense dissatisfaction for the choice they made to attend law school in the first place.

I invite anyone interested in talking about any of these issues or in designing a law school evaluation project to post a comment here or contact me directly by email.

A proposal for a new public law school for Massachusetts, one of only 7 states in the country not to have a public law school, has generated an enormous amount of controversy with many saying that there is a need for a school with a reasonable tuition and others saying there is at this time no need for a school that would add more lawyers to an overcrowded field. Prominent among the opponents, shocking as that may not be, are the local law schools. What is shocking is that I find myself agreeing with the stand of the law schools.Over a week ago, I submnitted what follows as a proposed op-ed to the Boston Globe. I welcome your comments.

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON THE PUBLIC LAW SCHOOL PROPOSAL

What's missing from the discussion about the need for a new public law school for Massachusetts is any consideration of the failure of the existing law schools to serve not only the educational needs of their students but also the legal needs of the public.

In 1980, Lloyd Cutler, Esq. (adviser to Presidents Carter and Clinton) remarked that 95% of lawyers' time is devoted to the wealthiest 1% of our society, the 25% most disadvantaged get 5% of their time and the remaining nearly 75% cannot afford and get virtually none of their time."

As Harvard Law School's Public Interest Adviser from 1984-89, I observed that at least 40% of the students hoped to represent individuals in personal plight matters. That school and other "selective" law schools, however, funneled as many as 95% of their graduates to large law firms by failing to prepare them to work in small law firms and by devoting staff time to the insidious on-campus interviewing placement program.

Little has changed. Diverting students from their career dreams has led to shattered self-confidence and rampant dissatisfaction within the legal profession as well as continued lack of access to the justice system for the public. So while we seem to have too many law schools in this state and this country, recent surveys indicate that only 20% of the legal needs of the 45,000,000 least wealthy in this country are met by the legal system.

The possibility that the new school might contribute to the state coffers is not a plus. The law school industry continues to ignore decades of calls that it provide quality legal education at a reasonable cost. For years, universities have been able to consider their law schools "cash cows". Law schools increase tuition to outrageous levels far beyond the rate of inflation with many questioning the value of what students (some borrowing up to $200,000 at a time when starting salaries are plummeting) get in return.

Last Friday's edition of the Harvard Law Record published a copy of an alumnus' response to a request for a contribution suggesting ".. you might concede that the Law School could ease financial strain on students without reducing the quality of the J.D. degree. One way would be to drop the third year or, or postpone it to mid-career."

Law professors teach large classes with little opportunity for students to show their understanding of a concept and be evaluated on that performance. Staff is hired to replace faculty who take less of a role in administrative duties such as career planning and devote time to academic research unrelated to effective student education.

During the current economic downturn, with large firm layoffs and job deferrals, one school's solution is to offer a masters degree, basically a fourth year of law school through which the student can finally learn to practice law. Most law schools, however, are content to promote alternative paths that students are unprepared to pursue, hoping for the return to "normalcy" when they can revive the funnel to the large law firms and thereby shore up their US News ranking.

If law schools fail to reform legal education to prepare their students to practice law at a reasonable cost and to serve the legal needs of the public, the legislature should enact a law reinstituting the former system by which lawyers became members of the bar - "reading the law". California, Vermont, Virginia, New York, Maine. Washington and Wyoming still have variations on this process whereby an applicant may take the bar exam after study under a judge or practicing attorney for an extended period of time. Such a law should also establish an office within the Executive Branch which would provide limited supplementary training to advise and support those pursuing this option.

We do not need another law school. We need to demand that the current ones uphold the fundamental values of the legal profession and devote their efforts to meeting the needs of their students and the public.

_____________________________________________________________
Ronald W. Fox, Esq. directs the Center for Professional Development in the Law and is the author of Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law
______________________________________________________________

AUGUST 9 1989 - HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1963, I worked for a large law firm, served in the US Army JAG and worked in an insurance company. After two years as an associate for a sole practitioner, I founded two small law firms representing individuals and community groups and became one of the first lawyers in the country to offer divorce mediation. Concerned about the issue of the unmet legal needs of the public, I served on the boards of legal services programs, created referral programs for the Massachusetts Bar Association and the National Lawyers Guild, started an association of legal clinics, and served as president of a family mediation association.

In 1983 I returned to Harvard Law School as its public interest adviser. On August 9, 1989, my position was eliminated by a recently appointed dean of that law school. I have reprinted below some material related to the elimination of that position.

Since that time I have provided career advice to lawyers and law students and consulted to law schools, law firms and bar associations. In addition I have advocated for the restructuring and reform of legal education.

From what I have observed over the last 20 years, though there has been much criticism of legal education and calls for reform (including the highly regard 1992 ABA MacCrate Report), the law schools have largely ignored them.

Are you as concerned as I am that during the current economic downturn, the law school industry is desperately trying to maintain the on-campus interviewing "funnel" to BigLaw despite the recent survey of 5000 associates finding that 59% of "top-ten" law school grads plan to leave BigLaw jobs within 2 years while other data indicates that 80% of the legal needs of the least wealthy 45,000,000 of us are unmet?
.
Do you think that there have been and will continue to be positive changes and improvements in the delivery of legal education?

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August 8, 1989

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
Cambridge, Massachusetts 01938

OFFICE OF THE DEAN

Mr. Ronald Fox
Harvard Law School
Pound 310

Dear Ron

Many thanks for your recent gift to the Law School Fund. I appreciate your support of the School's annual giving program.

With best wishes

Sincerely,
/s/ Bob
Robert C. Clark
Dean

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August 14, 1989

MEMORANDUM
TO; The File
FROM: Ron Fox
RE: Meeting with Dean Robert Clark

On Wednesday, August 9, 1989, at 11:30 A.M., I met with Dean
Robert Clark. He told me that he had made some decisions about restructuring and that I was not likely to be pleased. June Thompson would no longer be in admissions and would be full time in placement and there was also going to be an appointment of a new director of counseling. He mentioned that he did not know what I did in my job, although he had seen one letter that I had written and he thought it was very good. He had decided that it was not cost effective to have a 8/10 position devoted solely to the 6 to 8 people who were interested in public interest, therefore, my position was being eliminated as well as the position of my assistant (Dana Bullwinkel] who is about to enter graduate school).

I asked him to clarify whether or not that meant that I had been fired. He said that that was putting it too bluntly: my position was being eliminated. He said that he did not know how long I had been working at the law school. I was not being told that I had to leave the next day. When the administrative dean, Simone Reagor, returns from vacation, I would talk to her about the details.

When I asked him whether he had mentioned that there was going to be a new position, new director of counseling, he said that was the case, and that it was a position for which I would not be considered. (It now appears that this new position was created by the half of Mark Byers, the career counselor for the law school, that was assigned to the Placement Office and the other half of his time that was assigned to the Counseling Office under the Dean of Student's Office and Mark has been told that he can apply for this job but that he should be looking elsewhere in the event he does not get it.)

I had prepared a memorandum for him and had attached to it some of the material I had written over the last year and a half on public interest career planning and placement problems and issues at the law school and my suggestions and proposals. I gave it to him and told him that if he wanted to discuss any aspect of the material, I would be prepared to do so.

I left the office about 11:37 A.M.

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14 March 1990

PUBLIC INTEREST LAW CAREER PLANNING CENTER
955 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Ronald W. Fox Tel: (617) 868-6669
Executive Director Fax: (617) 876-0203

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE STUDENTS OF HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

I first want to say that my six years spent directing the public interest career activities at Harvard Law School was the most positive, rewarding and satisfying professional experience I have had since leaving the law school in 1963. I talked, wrote to, and learned from, intelligent, talented, concerned, responsible, committed people - students, staff of the law school, alumni/ae, other lawyers, and career planning professionals at other law schools. I also publicly want to let you all know how much I appreciate your personal visits, kind words and public statements in my support. Your actions made a stressful time more comfortable and gave me the reason, strength, encouragement and confidence to found the Public Interest Law Career Planning Center which will assist law students and lawyers who want to pursue careers in public interest, human services and government.

I came to the law school to direct the public interest career and placement activities after 15 years working in private practice and with many non-profit organizations trying to increase the quality and quantity of legal services delivered to people with low and moderate income. It appeared to me that Harvard Law School believed that it had an obligation to make careers in public interest law a realistic option for its graduates. And, in fact, over the next three years I received approval to establish the IL Public Interest Career Workshop; was given funding to publish the Public Interest Directory; was given the time to assist in the development of "Opportunities in Public Interest Law"; was encouraged to solicit $300,000 from an alumnus, Kenneth Montgomery, `28, for a public interest summer grant program which he generously funded; was given the time to establish a Task Force on Public Interest Law of the National Association for Law Placement; and was afforded the opportunity to give advice and guidance to about 100 individuals in each class and many alumni/ae.

I was impressed by the depth of commitment to public interest within the student body. I talked to students, analyzed class lists and read surveys that confirmed my findings that 40% of each class were interested in pursuing public interest careers. A study of one class revealed that by the time of graduation, 40% of its members had attended public interest workshops and/or devoted substantial time to public interest law either during the summer or in a clinical course. I spent many hours listening to students and providing information to allay their fears and to counter pressures from peers, the law school, family, and society in general to take positions they did not want. In addition, I received frequent calls and visits from anguished alumni/ae wanting to leave jobs in large firms they found boring and/or in conflict with their values. Yet every year, upon graduation, over 90% of the class take positions with large law firms representing commercial institutions and others in the wealthiest 1% of the society that the legal profession serves well. At the same time the rest of the society, 247 million people, are either totally unable to afford legal services if they have a housing, health, employment, discrimination or family problem, or, if they are indigent, only able to have a lawyer at no cost to them for one out of every fourteen of these legal problems. I refer to this factual situation as the "Crisis in Public Interest Law."

Many of you presently at the school as well as those who have recently graduated recognized that much of fault for, and the responsibility for remedying, the lack of diversity of career choices of graduates of the law school lay within the law school itself. You questioned 1) the curriculum's reliance on commercial cases, 2) the high cost of attending the law school accompanied by approval of higher student debt 3) the second-class status of the clinical program, 4) the preference given to large firms in the hiring process by the allocation of a disproportionate amount of staff time and resources to a recruiting process dominated by these firms and held in the fall when few other legal institutions know their future legal hiring needs, and by the failure to examine in depth negative aspects of such firms, especially the many student complaints of discrimination and unfair treatment 5) the failure of the law school to challenge the "prevailing wisdom" generalizations based on flawed assumptions, such as "Work in large firms is intellectually stimulating and prestigious and one receives the best training there," "Grades are very important in obtaining any job," "There are no jobs in public interest and even if there were, most students can not afford to take them because of the amount of their debt," "The work in public interest areas is boring, routine, uncreative and unimportant", "There is no training in public interest jobs" and "It is important that you find a job and become an employee rather than going out and creating your own institution" 6) the failure to provide adequate staff and resources for students and alumni/ae looking for career advice 7) the indifference and lack of availability of most of the faculty for career and job advice.

In early 1988, I requested funds from June Thompson, the Director of Placement, for additional staff and resources needed to create a Career Development Division in the Placement Office. Because of her basic disagreement with me about the existence of a crisis and her belief that there was little need for career advice generally and public interest career counseling specifically, the request was rejected. In April, 1988, I submitted a proposal through the Dean's Office requesting that a Career Development Center outside of the Placement Office be established to offer guidance to students, staff, faculty, alumni and others on public interest and many other less accessible and less familiar careers. I know of no staff or faculty meetings called to review the proposal, to discuss career issues, to debate differences in orientation or to set goals and priorities. No written responses were ever sent about the proposal and in early August. 1988, I heard indirectly that a decision had been reached - nothing would be done.

In April, 1989, after two very unsatisfactory meetings with June Thompson, I again renewed my request to the Dean's Office for the establishment of a Career Development Center. At about the same time I proposed the creation of a Center for the Delivery of Legal Services in the Public Interest which would coordinate research and activities on the "crisis" throughout the law school, including placement, career planning, the counselling center, financial aid, and the alumni/ae office. I inquired about the status of the proposals weekly. No staff or faculty meetings were ever called to review the proposals and I received no written response.

On July 1, Robert Clark became the dean and on August 9, 1989, two days after my return from vacation I was told to make an appointment to see him. At the meeting, after I introduced myself, he informed me that although he did not know what I did, he did know that it was not cost effective to have a four day a week position devoted to public interest when only six to eight people were affected so he was eliminating my position and that of my assistant, Dana Bullwinkel. He said that in our place a full-time staff assistant would be hired who would report to June Thompson and counsel students in all areas of the law, not just public interest.

The school lacks, and seriously needs, a well-supported, well-staffed, well-publicized, career development office and a public interest career center. I regret not having been given the opportunity to establish these offices but I remain optimistic. I believe that the law school will in the near future come to grips with the crisis. I do not think that it will ignore the imbalanced and inappropriate diversion of 90% of its graduates to the representation of 1% of the population. I do not think that it will want to be considered an irrelevant factor in the search for equality of access to the justice system. I am optimistic because so many of you spoke out this fall demanding more support, resources and guidance on the many varied public interest careers. I also want to express to all of you my deepest respect for the responsible actions you have taken in support of those who want to pursue legal services for those who need them the most. Because of your untiring efforts, your organizing, your factual and reasoned responses, your requests and demands, and your persistence, you have made many aware of the concerns of students and issues that had previously gone unrecognized. You have provided encouragement not only to students here but to students at other law schools and untold lawyers and college students considering a career in public interest law.

Your involvement is not only important, it is critical and necessary. Almost all of the significant progress that Harvard Law School has made and most of the programs that have been developed in the last fifteen years in the area of public interest career planning and placement have resulted from student demands. The creation of the public interest committee by the new dean with a broad mandate to review the role of public interest within the law school is a recent example. We are truly in the midst of a crisis which will not be resolved while you are in law school. How you respond to it in law school, however, may determine how you respond to it throughout your entire legal career. Your actions this fall have given many people reason to be optimistic. Continued best wishes in your efforts.

Sincerely,
/s/Ron
Ronald W. Fox

I had the opportunity and the privilege yesterday to make a presentation entitled "Think Small: Learning About and Locating Positions in Small Law Firms" for the New York State Bar Association. About 30 who registered were "live" in the "studio" at the law office of Lauren Wachtler, the chair of the Committee on Lawyers in Transition. An additional 175 registered for the webcast

THE VIDEO OF THIS 110 MINUTE WORKSHOP IS NOW ACCESSIBLE ON-LINE HERE..

BEFORE YOU BEGIN, HOWEVER, READ BELOW!

IF YOU DECIDE TO VIEW IT, I SUGGEST YOU DO THE FOLLOWING:
1. PAUSE THE VIDEO AS IT BEGINS;
2, CLICK THE ATTACHMENT ICON AFTER "HANDOUT #1 SUGGESTED READING ";
3. DO THE READING AND THE EXERCISES; AND THEN.
4, WATCH THE VIDEO

I initially talk about how we got to this point (my 50th year in the legal profession) where the vast majority of the public are unable to obtain the services of a lawyer and the vast majority of lawyers are dissatisfied. (I quote from the recent American Bar Foundation "After the JD" press release indicating that 59% of the associates from what they refer to as the "top ten law schools" intend to leave their present large firm employers within 2 years and that those in firms of greater than 250 lawyers are less satisfied than their counterparts in smaller firms.)

I state my belief that the culprit are the law schools which funnel their students to BigLaw through on-campus interviewing and ignore those unable to be interviewed and, in the process, neglect the legal needs of the public by failing to teach skills, values and career planning and charging outrageous amounts for tuition, far greater than the worth of the services delivered. My experience in the last 25 years leads me to conclude that lawyers who are unhappy because they are unable to find employment or dissatisfied at the law firm the law school "placed" them in, will invariably suffer from a lack of self-confidence, self-respect and self-worth.

The second part of the program begins with making lawyers aware of one of the four fundamental values of the legal profession - the commitment of a lawyer to take a position consistent with his or her professional goals and personal values. I then suggest how to go about finding a position in a small firm pointing out that 66% of all lawyers in private practice are in firms of 5 or less lawyers. I advise that they choose and area of law, find out who does it, make contact with some to promote and market yourself, keep doing something and eventually accept a position likely to provide career satisfaction.

I also suggest that, as they implement this process, they might want to look at themselves as independent contractors and, rather than limiting themselves to jobs as employees, look for opportunities to work part-time for one lawyer, then one or two others until they are full time partners, associates or solos.

The program raised a number of issues. Whether or not you view the webinar, I invite you to comment and share what you think about these or any related topics: the legal needs of the public; the need for major restructuring of legal education; OCI and the funnel; dissatisfaction of lawyers in BigLaw; the lack of self-confidence of lawyers generally; the opportunities in small firms.

I HOPE YOU FIND THIS PROGRAM HELPS YOU IN YOUR SEARCH FOR CAREER SATISFACTION..

Ron Fox .

On Wednesday, September 16, 2009, from noon to 2pm (EDT), I will be doing a live webcast for the New York State Bar Association Committee on Lawyers in Transition entitled Think Small! Learning About and Locating Positions in Small Law Firms

"For many years, if not decades, there has been an intense focus on large law firms as if they represent the entire legal profession. The lack of openings within large law firms makes this a most appropriate time for lawyers and law students to realize that there are nearly unlimited options in small law firms. There are jobs; there are positions; there are openings!"

For more information and to register for this free program go to this NYSBA website..

A week ago today, I submitted the following to the New York Times with a request that it be considered for an op-ed stating, as required, that it had not been previously published. The paper's guidelines state that if you receive no telephone call or e-mail within three business days, you should assume that the paper has decided not to print the submission.With that in mind here is the comment I sent to the paper.

The Light at the End of the Funnel

By Ronald W. Fox

The theme of Downturn Dims Prospects Even at Top Law Schools (August 26, 2009) is the negative impact on law students of the reduced hiring by large law firms.

Twenty five years ago this week I became the Public Interest Adviser at Harvard Law School. Over the next five years, based on conversations with students and placement staff at law schools across the country, I concluded that more than half of all law students hoped to work with individuals or small entities.

Sadly, the law schools, deaf to their students' career aspirations, failed them: did not teach them to practice law; did not teach them that lawyers must be committed to taking positions consistent with their professional and personal values; and did not make them aware of the wide range of options for lawyers.

They did, however, set up a well-staffed extremely efficient on-campus interviewing program limited to large law firms, the only ones who could predict their needs two years in advance. These large firms were eager to hire and were quite successful.

In most selective law schools nearly ninety-five (95) per cent of the graduates of each class flowed through the "funnel" to jobs in those firms representing primarily large corporations.

Since I left that position twenty years ago this month, I have had the privilege of working with lawyers dissatisfied with the path they had traveled. Most hoped that the benefits of a law degree would be autonomy, intellectual stimulation, knowledge of a trade, respect, reasonable income and a life of serving others.

Instead many found themselves unhappy in their jobs but felt trapped. With few skills, little awareness of any options or how to look for unadvertised positions, they could not even begin to search for a new position until they regained their self-confidence and a sense of self-worth.

I strongly believe that much of the well-publicized malaise and dissatisfaction within the legal profession is caused by the neglect of, and the disinterest of the law schools' faculties and staff in, the careers of their students.

While the law schools in the past have been wildly successful in raising the cost of attending law school far beyond the rate of inflation often justifying increases (and the debt required to afford it) by not so subtle promises of high-paying positions in large law firms, this is no longer the case.

What the writer of the article might have suggested is that the prospects are dim, not for the students, but for the law schools, as prospective law students, aware of what some have referred to as the law school financial hoax stop applying to law schools that refuse to prepare them to practice law for a reasonable tuition.

The writer might also have looked into the connection between the law schools' neglect of their students and the unmet legal needs of the public.

Upon hearing of the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, my wife and I took our 10 year old grandson to the JFK Library and read in the family's statement about "his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all."

Much like what we are facing on the issue of healthcare, but not as well publicized, are statistics that indicate that eighty (80) percent of the legal needs of the 45,000,000 least wealthy members of the public are not met.

According to the ABA's MacCrate Report, a fundamental value of the legal profession is the commitment of lawyers to: promoting justice, fairness, and morality; helping the profession ensure legal services to those who can't pay; and enhancing the capacity of legal institutions to do justice.

But the lawyers who are law professors and deans of law schools may not be living up to this commitment to justice if they are not preparing students to represent those with middle or low income, not making students aware that two-thirds of all lawyers in private practice are in firms of 5 or less lawyers (including one-half who are solos) and not reducing the cost to attend law school so that debt load does not drive career choice.

They certainly are not eliminating the funnel, the on-campus interview program which "places" students rather than helping them to actively "choose" what interests them.

We are faced with a situation where at least one-half the law students in the country would like to provide services to individuals and have little to no interest in large law firms while millions of the public are in need of their services.

Will law schools take no action except wistfully yearn for a return to the halcyon days when they will again divert law students from representing the public, funnel students to large law firms, and continue without restraint to raise salaries and tuition, all under the banner of "law is now a business"?

Or will they incorporate the fundamental values of the legal profession and act, not based on self-interest and those of large law firms, but for the benefit of law students and the public. If they do, we can be proud of law schools and consider them partners in Senator Kennedy's "tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all."

Ronald W. Fox is the founder and primary consultant of the Center for Professional Development in the Law a/k/a Career Planning for Lawyers .

Additional Biographical Information

Since 1990, Ron has: provided individual guidance to lawyers in transition seeking positions consistent with their personal values and their professional goals; posted on his Lawyer Satisfaction Blog ; consulted to over 25 law schools, including Cornell, Boston College, Notre Dame and Northwestern; presented workshops for the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; created and facilitated the ABA Public Service Division's "Town Meeting" for the six Washington D.C. law schools; and authored Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law published by the ABA Law Student Division;

Ron graduated from Harvard Law School in 1963 and practiced law in a variety of settings for 20 years including two law firms he founded. In 1974 he was one of the first providers of divorce mediation and was active in developing that field until 1990. Working with bar associations, he designed and created numerous lawyer referral and other programs aimed at the delivery of legal services to low and middle income individuals. From 1983-1989 Ron worked at Harvard Law School providing career planning services to law students pursuing careers serving the legal needs of the public and also co-founded the Public Interest Committee of NALP.

Many of you are aware of LawShucks which has become well known for keeping track of the number of lawyers and staff laid off from BigLaw. Recently someone began to post his/her thoughts under the title of The Laid Off Diary

As I read the articles, I recognized that the diarist, although likely not having the background and experience of a career planner, had distilled in the various articles the essence and fundamentals of the approach I employ in helping lawyers make a transition from dissatisfaction or unemployment to, hopefully, a satisfying position.

I took excerpts from many of the posts in the diary and, with the approval of Law Shucks and its diarist, present them here. I think you will find what follows worth reading.

EXCERPTS FROM THE LAID OFF DIARY

Apple
It's so easy to have taken the path we did. Major in some bullshit liberal arts degree, whack through the LSAT for a few hours, get into a good law school, study two weeks before each final for an OPEN BOOK final, be wined and dined for two summers, wear nice suits and have the little numbers in our bank account go up and up.... but through all of this, did most of us actually stop and think about what we WANT to do? what our GOAL is?

Falling Forward
We are all entrepreneurs of life in some sense trying to find the idea that is a home run... Sure, there are some formula one race car drivers that were groomed from the age of 4 or gymnasts whose parents sent them to gymnastics training at the age of 6 but not all of us had our paths laid out in front of us like that. Moreover, even laid out paths might end up like the roll over bar and be a bust even though it seemed like a golden fail proof idea. For some, BigLaw seemed like a pig-in-shit perfect path for them but at the end of the day, it might just be the shit without the pig (er...well, you get the idea). Sure, our endeavor into BigLaw was costly (student loans, time spent and brain cells killed studying for the bar, and self-esteem and dignity lost through working in BigLaw), but let's try to learn from this lesson, move on, and fall forward

Valuation Model
It's simple logic. If you sacrifice X for Y, make sure Y is more valuable than X. It might be that BigLaw is your dream job, it is what gets you going in the morning, and it is more important to you than family (I'd hate to be you). But if it's not, make sure you know that. Make sure during the valuation of your life and the things in it, your model correctly reflects the true value of your job. And don't just use the blue book value or the value that other people tell you it has, be honest with yourself and use the value that correctly reflects whether it is a mint condition Maybach 57 or a beat up rusty piece of shit with rips in the sticky nylon seats that smells oddly of cat piss and cotton candy.

Laying Seeds
But everything I'm doing now makes me think about these damn bean stalks. I've called every partner, senior associate, recruiter, or professional contact that I've made since I've been laid off. They've all tried to help and give me advice but nothing has come to fruition. I've been following leads, trying to branch out, making new contacts, etc. Sometimes when I see a job opportunity, I work myself up over it and get the feeling "this is the job! this is it! I'm made!" but I either don't get the job or it turns out to be b.s.

Benefit
I will admit that I was able to benefit from my time in the slammer doing hard legal labor, which consisted of 60-70 hours of busy boring and unchallenging work, and that I am much more competent than most people I meet. I won't claim that I'm more competent than my peers who worked in TinyLaw because they may have an expertise that I do not have because they worked in TinyLaw (e.g. a trial lawyer at a plaintiff's firm has much more trial experience than most BigLaw trial lawyer) but I do believe that I at least sound pretty damn sophisticated and it comes from 1) being able to talk out of my ass flawlessly, and 2) working on sophisticated deals in BigLaw.

Journey
When I first started writing to you, I did it because I was 1) fed up with BigLaw; 2) bored; 3) enjoy bitching and thought you'd like to hear about it; and 4) wanted to tell people about the "real" truth about BigLaw (or at least as I perceived it). But I've discovered that this has now become a diary of my journey and transformation as just another "lawyer" into... I'd like to cross over to business and do something creative but I have to admit, it's difficult not to just fall back into being a "lawyer" because that's what I know and that's how the world sees me. But now I have to break through that image and reinvent myself that is both in the legal world and in the business/entrepreneurial world. Will this diary be as moving as the Motorcycle Diaries? I don't presume to think I can move the world the same way Che has, but I hope I can at least shift my career and hopefully business people will stop thinking of us as boring losers. and besides, all I have is a scooter. The journey begins

Networking, Not Netwhoring
We know why networking is important-only 5-10% of jobs are advertised, it never hurts to have someone higher up pull strings for you, and blah blah blah But, it's HOW you network.

Let's Do Lunch
At associate development lunches at the firm, we were told to find a niche practice which most of the time resulted from happening upon an assignment that required us to do about 30 hours of mind numbing research on a boring or obscure part of the law and then being the "go to" person every time that issue came up. We were actually encouraged to seek out mind-numbing work and "fall" into that niche practice instead of CHOOSING a practice area or niche that made us tick. Not very encouraging. Shouldn't we first find out what makes us tick and then seek out a position or build one around what we are interested in? Are lawyers that afraid to go after what they want that they are willing to hang their hat on any random ass nail they happen to find sticking out of a wall and 30 years later, still hang on that same damn rusty nail?

Bid-ness Development
how am I getting all these CEOs and managing directors and founders to meet with me or invite me to lunch (and more than once) or coffee or to their offices or call me or give me a standing invite to lunch if I'm ever in their city? I can't teach you. Either you're social or you're not. Either your extroverted or you're not. Either you can sell yourself as someone interesting enough that someone will want to talk to you or you can't. Either you're creative on how to reach out to these people and get in front of them or you're not. But I can say that it gets easier as your Rolodex expands because then people start introducing you to their network.

 For information on the genesis of these posts and on who "Debra" is, click here and read the intro to "Debra and Ron Post 1."

 

Ron: When I began to work as the public interest adviser at Harvard Law School in 1983, I knew that there were thousands of capable lawyers who represented those truly needing legal services, what we referred to as the underrepresented in society. Students had no way of knowing that this was the case. What I did was to create a new public interest category "private public interest law firms", contacted hundreds of such lawyers across the country, and list them in the Public Interest Directory I edited in 1986.Quite soon, Harvard law School students were choosing summer positions with them and eventually taking permanent positions.

 

The reason so many law students at selective law schools take positions with BigLaw is not that it is a more satisfying option for them. It is simply that BigLaw has convinced the law schools to take your position that it is just too difficult to find better placements for their students (of course it helps that the recruiters for BigLaw wine and dine and provide great resorts for lovely social events for law school career planning staff at the annual NALP conferences).

 

Debra: All true, but I continue to dispute the "shunted" theory, and I continue to be certain that law students without the gumption to resist wining, dining and social events as they seek to make career decisions are highly unlikely ever to make good lawyers - particularly in the public interest arena.  I also wonder how many better or more satisfying options there are - truly - for rookie lawyers.  There are plenty of rookie MBAs, college grads and other entrants to the work force also on the hunt for careers and, as we've discussed above, very few companies and even fewer nonprofits are actually hiring untrained beginners.

 

I don't think the fundamental educational question is what law students envision and want.  That's a personal question each individual has the right to answer for himself, but I think the fundamental educational question is what do we need, as a society, from our lawyers.

 

Ron: I agree.  I agree. I agree.

 

Debra: In my view, Karl Llewellyn had the right answer to this question.  In a 1942 speech given in the context of there being little call for lawyers and "no pervading appreciation that law skills can be mobilized to serve" in the war effort, Llewellyn spoke of the special skills of lawyers and the risks of viewing lawyering as "mere monopoly of the knowledge of law" rather than as "vision and sense of the whole, and skills in finding ways, smoothing friction, handling men in any situation, with speed, with sureness. . . .a craft of doing and getting things done with the law."  That's what I think society should demand of lawyers and what law schools should prepare lawyers to offer.

 

Ron: That may take only one year of law school. Take a look at the mission statement of Stanford Law School and perhaps a number of other law schools. What is a fundamental provision and one of the fundamental values of the legal profession - serve the legal needs of the public. We have had twenty years of "selective" law schools funneling 95% of their graduates to BigLaw to represent the 1% of the wealthiest of our society. I believe that is contrary to the public interest. In fact, I wonder if the government should guarantee or provide any benefit for loans that go to those attending a law school that permits that distribution of its graduates. The fact that 80% or more of those attending these law schools do not envision working for BigLaw is just an added bonus ( - :

 

You and I differ here on a fundamental point. You suggest that each individual is free to make his or her own choice and is solely responsible for that decision. That ignores so many of the factors that pressure law students. We all know (I think) that law schools have never tried to control their costs which have far outstripped the rise in the cost of living. We also know (I think) that the cost could immediately be reduced by one-third by eliminating the useless third year. We know that it is only BigLaw that is given access to law students as the only game that can make (or was able to make) commitments 18 months in advance. We also know that the debt burden on law students when combined with the offers of BigPay from BigLaw leads many of them to believe that BigLaw is the only "reasonable" choice. In so many ways the law school "educated" law students that BigLaw was the place to go (in part because of the indifference of faculty.

 

Debra:  I must argue with the notion of "funneling."  Again, anyone who allows himself to be funneled into a career option he considers unacceptable is not someone I'd bet on to be a capable, zealous advocate - in any setting.  Starting one's legal career in BigLaw is a proven method for gaining experience and developing and honing practical skills and work habits.  For some, it's a career; for others, it's a useful first step; for still others, it's no doubt a bad fit.

 

I remain staunch in believing that it is up to each individual to choose for himself.  I was not funneled into BigLaw by the University of Chicago Law School or by anything or anyone else.  I made a conscious, informed choice, based on my interests and skills, to be a business lawyer.  Call me coldhearted if you like, but I have no sympathy for anyone who lets himself be funneled into doing something he does not want to do.  We are in charge of our careers, our happiness and our choices; it's short-sighted and adolescent to attempt to blame someone or something else when we choose poorly.

 

If 80% don't want to join BigLaw, then they shouldn't.  Not only would they presumably be happier elsewhere, BigLaw would have to make some needed structural changes if the well dried up and firms actually had to work to attract new grads.

 

Furthermore, neither I nor my firms represented only the top 1% of the wealthiest in our society.  Our clients ran the gamut from big to small to individual, and the businesses I helped clients take public, buy, sell, expand & finance created jobs and opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people.  This is clearly in the public interest.  The law firms I worked for as a lawyer, and with as a client, also funneled (to use that term more acceptably) millions of dollars, in time & money, to a huge variety of charities and pro bono causes.  I think it is just as misguided to suggest business and the lawyers who support it are contrary to the public interest as it would be to assert that all solo practitioners are saints dedicated to furthering the public interest.

 

Ron:  I realize that I have made some negative generalizations about BigLaw and that there are cases where they are incorrect but I think it is fair to say that BigLaw represents BigBusiness and many small firms represent LittleIndividuals. My worldview, of course, is that it is more important to take on the cases of those with claims for violations of their human and civil rights than to work to help form successful businesses but we need both and I am simply trying to level the playing field. I appreciate that BigLaw and BigBusiness contribute to charitable causes but prefer that lawyers who wish to have the opportunity to devote 100%of their time to such efforts. (I don't need to get into the stories of BigLaw associates who described being told they could not appear at a critical hearing for a pro bono clients because of what seemed to them a meaningless chore demanded of them by a partner.)

 

Debra:  There are certainly partners who make pro bono involvement difficult (just as there are multitudinous associates with no interest whatsoever in pro bono work), but all of the firms I've worked for as a lawyer or with as a client have healthy pro bono programs and are, in fact, casting about for associates willing to devote time to NPO boards, fund-raising efforts, case administration, etc.  We are totally in agreement, however, that lawyers who wish to have the opportunity to devote 100% of their time to such efforts do not belong in BigLaw.

For information on the genesis of these posts and on who "Debra" is, click here and read the intro to "Debra and Ron Post 1."

 

Ron: As I have mentioned often, 95% of the women (and the men) who have graduated from "selective" law schools (not the best, just the ones difficult to get into) start out overrepresenting the 1% wealthiest of society while most of society has no access to lawyers.

 

Debra:  I'd like to see the data supporting that statement, which seems unlikely to me.  Even if you're correct about that, however, there are plenty of lawyers in the US and plenty of law students in US law schools.  Different societal incentives - like decent paychecks, prestige, availability of training, etc. - would benefit public interest law positions just as they would benefit teachers, social workers, day care workers, nurses and every other underappreciated career in our overly money-focused society.  But the choice of where to devote one's career efforts remains, thankfully, a personal one.  Requiring anyone to pursue a career path he does not want to pursue is as wrong and short-sighted as barring him from going after one he does want to pursue.

 

Ron: I think that the law students/lawyers that I know most intimately are those that graduated from law school since 1986. From 1984 to 1994 I spoke to individual students, made presentations to classes of students, spoke at student conferences, worked with NALP career planners and spoke to faculty at law schools. There is no doubt in my mind that upwards of 80% of law students at the selective law schools had no interest in working in BigLaw.  Much of what you criticize associates for can be attributed to the reality that so many of them never wanted to be there in the first place.

 

Debra:  Then what on earth were they doing there?  Who held a gun to their heads?  If they didn't want to be there, it was incumbent on them to be elsewhere or to make the best of the situation in which they put themselves, not to whine about having made a poor choice.  (I feel compelled to note as well that they were happy enough to collect their outsized paychecks.)

 

Why would BigLaw have any responsibility whatsoever to tailor itself to the whims of a bunch of highly paid whiners without either the long-term commitment to the practice or the brains, courage and initiative to choose what they actually wanted in the first place?

 

Ron: That is the subject of my book and many others. The fault begins with the deficient education system (public primarily) which has failed miserable in teaching critical thinking but has done a magnificent job in training kids to be lemmings. Just do what you are told to do to get to the best college, do the best to get to the best law school, do the best to get to the best law firm. Hold on, I hate it here, what happened?

 

Debra: All I can say here - and I say it with all due respect - is baloney.  I remain certain that anyone without the strength of character, initiative, critical thinking skills and balls to make his or her own decisions will never make a good lawyer - regardless of where he or she starts out after law school.  My law school classmates seemed to have no trouble thinking for themselves 30 years ago, and I have reason to believe (based on my own two 20-something children and the majority of their friends) that young people are no less capable of doing so today.

 

Ron:  My book, Lawful Pursuit, Careers in Public Interest Law, is a guide on how to avoid those aspects of law school that will pressure you into a job in BigLaw and divert you from what you hoped to do when you entered law school. Those aspects include no mission of the law school, no teaching of skills, no teaching of values, no teaching of career planning, a massive on-campus interview program, no feedback about the dissatisfaction of alumni/ae in BigLaw and high debt.

 

Debra: This is great.  I'm sure your book is very helpful.  To suggest, however, that the current system is some sort of evil cabal seeking to swallow innocents who have no opportunity to escape its clutches is disrespectful to the intelligence and free will of law students.

 

Obviously, the BigLaw approach is not for everyone, but it's specious, I think, for anyone to slam BigLaw for its failure to babysit with people unwilling to do what it takes to succeed there.  And, honestly?  It wasn't that hard.  With a true interest in the work and a zeal to learn, improve and excel, it was quite doable, as well as highly rewarding and satisfying, even for a woman like me who was (and is) also a wife and the mother of two kids.

 

Ron: While there were some for which this was a good choice, over the years there were surveys and articles about the extraordinary high degree of dissatisfaction of associates in BigLaw.

 

Debra:  You know the media - it loves a negative story more than a positive story every time.  In addition, survey results can easily be skewed by the nature of the questions asked.  There is always room for improvement in any institutional setting.

 

It is also a characteristic of post-baby-boomer generations that they are not willing to work as hard as baby boomers.  This is a healthy thing in many ways, but the generational differences in BigLaw between management and new hires remain large and largely unresolved.  I've worked with hundreds of people who, all things considered, were - and are - content with their BigLaw choice.  The overall discontent may well be overstated, however virulent in any individual person.  Even if it's not overstated, it would hardly be surprising, would it, if you're correct about 80% of post-86 LS grads not wanting to be in big firms in the first place (and, I guess, there just for the money).

 

Ron: I am confident restating that the percentage of those deeply unhappy at BigLaw has been extraordinarily high over the last two decades (and probably higher today during the current economic downturn.) I also agree with you that there are probably many who are content at BigLaw but, as you have said, it's not about them. It's about the needs of society. Fortunately, there is a coincidence and overlap of those who are dissatisfied and those who want to help deliver legal services to the public.

 

I spoke to the entering class at Notre Dame Law School. I asked about their career plans. The plurality wanted to represent women and children. Does any law school ask them (or the men)? Does any law school care? What if the answer is that a majority want to represent women, children and men in human and civil rights areas such as housing, education, family, healthcare, environmental, employment discrimination, plaintiff injury and gay rights?

 

Debra: I question the notion that a plurality of law students have the career goals you've described.  They may say they want to represent women and children (although that surprises me too), but I doubt they mean in the direct representation way you've outlined.  If they do, they're not likely to find satisfaction because that's a very romantic - and quixotic - notion of how to improve the lot of women and children in the world.

 

Ron: And yet that's the career path that thousands of lawyers around the country have followed. In fact, I was a divorce lawyer from 1970 to 1990 but thought that the adversary system was a totally inappropriate way of handling a divorce so in the mid-70's we started something called divorce mediation. Others in legal services and in organizations have taken on major reform in areas such as gay marriage.

 

Debra:  It's a fine career path for people who have developed the necessary judgment, perspective and experience to do it capably.  My question is where you think new lawyers will develop those qualities and gain that experience.  On the job without supervision?  Yikes!

 

The creation of jobs, the formulation and implementation of sensible and beneficial education, healthcare, housing, daycare, environmental and other policies, and the zealous representation of victims of civil rights abuses cannot be effectively undertaken by green law school grads with no experience of business, economics, the means of production or the mechanics of capital.

 

Moreover, while many of the lawyers who have followed this career path have undoubtedly helped individuals, which is great, I am certain that to effect lasting reform, it's necessary to have lawyers working systemically in addition to one plaintiff/client at a time.

 

Ron: That is correct so much of what I have written is focused on the deficiencies of legal education.  I urge is the restructuring of legal education so that students are taught by qualified instructors and perform the skills they need during law school. With that training, they will have the confidence (that few graduates have) to enable them to begin to look for mentors and support to represent individuals on graduation.

 

Debra:  No disagreement here.  Law schools could do a much better job.  But whether it's apprenticeship of the kind you describe or of the BigLaw variety, new grads must still be exposed to a variety of clients, colleagues, cases, opinions & practical experiences in order to develop the judgment that characterizes all capable practitioners.

 

BigLaw is an obvious and proven place to gain this exposure, as we've discussed.  With initiative and patience, new grads could, I'm sure, also develop it elsewhere.  I have my doubts, however, that new grads without enough initiative to make good choices for themselves or to take advantage of what BigLaw has to offer them in this regard will somehow manage to do what it takes to research, identify, seek and find it in the big outside world.

 

Law schools could do a much better job of grounding students with this sort of knowledge, but they can't provide the perspective and judgment that come from practical experience with a variety of business clients and legal and financial colleagues.  Neither can practicing solo.  Small firms that do sophisticated legal work and large firms are the only places I know of where this kind of experience is readily available to anyone who wants - and is willing to do what it takes - to grab it.

 

Ron:  With the media laser focus on what happens in BigLaw, what do we really know about the abilities of the hundreds of thousands who practice in firms of 5 or less lawyers?

 

Debra:  Speaking from the standpoint of a business client, we have neither the time nor the money nor the inclination to interview, discern the relative skills of, or try out any of these thousands.  If they can find a way to demonstrate their fitness and suitability to handle our matters - as the "BigLaw refugee" firms can and do - we'll hire them, but otherwise we don't need them.  Even if they're superior to BigLaw, which has not been my experience, the cost-benefit ratio of determining that is out of whack for a business client.  Going with BigLaw's proven track record for delivering results and negotiating mutually beneficial cost & service arrangements with them is the efficient, cost-effective choice, as well as the path of least resistance.

 

From the standpoint of a new LS grad, how is he going to determine outside the ranks of BigLaw where the mentoring and training will be first-rate and where it will falter?  Say what you will about BigLaw, virtually no one who succeeds and remains in that environment is a poor lawyer with only one area of experience.  The same cannot be said of every lawyer practicing on his own.  It would be a craps shoot to pick a mentor from among those ranks.

 

Let's not forget, too, that slick ambulance chasers do as much to harm the reputation of the profession as smug BigLaw fatcats - and there are more of the former.  A knee-jerk bias against BigLaw is as flawed as a knee-jerk bias for it.

 

QUOTES FROM THE REINVENTION OF WORK by MATTHEW FOX 

 

         Spirit means life, and both life and livelihood are about living in depth, living with meaning, purpose, joy and a sense of contributing to the greater community. A spirituality of work is about bringing life and livelihood back together again. Page 2

 

         All work worthy of being called spiritual and worthy of being called human is in some way prophetic work. It contributes to the growth of justice and compassion in the world; it contributes to social transformation, not for its own sake but for the sake of increasing justice. Page 13

 

         If we are not being served truth and justice as regular fare at work, then no matter how well we are fed materially, we will starve spiritually. Or work must make way for the heart, that is, for truth and justice to play an ever-increasing role in our professional lives. Page 26

 

         How do we prepare young people for the future world of work? ... We should prepare them to be able to distinguish between good work and bad work and encourage them not to accept the latter. That is to say, they should be encouraged to reject meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-wracking work in which a (person) is made the servant of a machine or a system. They should be taught that work is the joy of life and is needed for our development, but that meaningless work is an abomination. Page 30, quoting E. F. Schumacher, Good Work, 118,119

 

         We must become truly critical of the systems that keep so many out of touch with justice and economic fairness. Healthy work lies at the heart of the remedy for this failed promise. Page 45

 

         Wherever there are people, there are needs to be met and thus work to be done. Page 59

 

         Here we come face-to-face with the mystery of vocation, or calling...we find our calling by our natural inclinations, by that which we enjoy doing, are equipped to do, and feel joy in doing.....In our times, we workers are being called to reexamine out work: how we do it; whom it is helping or hurting; what it is we do; and what we might be doing if we were to let go of our present work and follow a deeper calling. Page 103

 

          I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people....Paul when he says that truly the only sin in life is our refusal to do the work we have been called to do. Page 104

 

          All our work worlds, from so-called blue collar to professional, have been tainted by the limits of our civilization's philosophy of work....We can be sure that a paradigm shift will occur whenever the necessities of life are beyond the reach of most citizens. This is happening in our culture today. Health care, education, law, business, economics, politics, and religion are not reaching the people who need them the most. .. We can realize that we are not isolated in our work dreams, that we are not alone in our deepest desires to make our professional life again and be true to their deepest moral and spiritual potentials. The word community, after all, means "to work on a common task together." Page 135

 

          The task needed in every profession, and indeed by every citizen today, is to return wisdom to our work. We do this by returning to the essential meaning of our profession - a meaning that originally had to do with serving others......Is it controversial to suggest that our professions have in great part lost their enchantment? How happy are people at their work? The dean of a law school recently confessed that only 6 percent of his graduates will find a job in law this year. Is the real reason that we do not need more lawyers? Might it be instead that we do not need more of the kind of lawyers practicing the kind of law that we are accustomed to? We do need laws to defend the environment, to defend our children, to defend the poor instead of lobbying for the powerful. Perhaps the crisis lies in the kind of work our society is offering its workers. Page 137

 

          All the professions, no matter how far they may have strayed from their original purpose, were rooted at their origins in the inner life of the community. They began as expressions of the spiritual and corporal works of compassion that the prophets wrote about. We can redeem the professions by returning to the best hopes they hold out for serving others. .. We can be in our professions without being of them, that is, without selling our souls to them. Indeed, that is how we must operate if our work worlds are to help solve the problems of our advanced industrial society.  Page 138

 

           Justice making and other types of healing are forms or compassion because we all live in human societies that yearn for healing from many kinds of injustice.  Page 174

 

           Individuals have values but are often told on coming to work to leave their values at the door. Page 231

 

           The growing desire that workers have to be in control over their own livelihoods, and to be able to create a harmony between their values and their working lives. Page 235

 

           The problem is that our civilization has settled for such a narrow and restrictive definition of work that we are trying to pour human energy into a skinny little funnel that in turn pours into a puny little machine called "industry" or jobs available......those who have jobs are so squeezed in the process of getting them that when they do finally arrive at the workplace they have lost their sense of wonder and amazement and their capacity for grief. Their inner life has been squeezed out of them; their work is too small. They have no energy to create good work and thereby help others join the work world and thus participate in the Great Work. Page 301

 

 

For many years I have taken excerpts and quotes from the powerful devastating criticism of legal education called The MacCrate Report.

 

The official name for it is Legal Education and Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, Report of The Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap, American Bar Associatioin, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, July, 1992.

 

While the report is 414 pages long, one way to summarize it is by saying that the task force stated that there are ten fundamental skills that a lawyer needs to practice law and that the law schools teach two of them poorly. There are four fundamental values of the legal profession and while the report does not analyze the performance of the law schools, there is evidence that the law schools do not teach them well either.

 

Today, I scanned in the section entitled "The Need for Informed Choice" and am posting it here. 

 

If you are considering attending law school or if you are planning to start law school in the fall, you must read this.

 

If you are in law school, if you are faculty and staff at a law school, if you graduated from a law school and if you care about the future of the legal profession, it is important that you read this.

 

Realize that this was written in 1992 long before the current economic downturn.

 

Your comments are invited and welcome.

 

Ron  

 

  

B. The Need for Informed Choice

 

There are three critical stages of decision-making en route to becoming a lawyer: 1) Perhaps the most significant, whether to enter the legal profession at all; 2) which law school to choose; and 3) what career path to enter after law school. Each occasion should be a time for careful reflection and self-assessment based upon sufficient information to make an informed choice. Far too often these decisions are made without sufficient information or thought. Many common factors affect each of these decisions. The three stages of decision-making are parts of an ongoing process of self-development.

 

Many factors influence each individual's decision. When exploring the possibility of becoming a lawyer, choosing a law school, and finding a practice niche, individuals pursue and rely on a variety of information. They may seek advice from friends, relatives, guidance counselors, professors, lawyers, the popular press, career guidebooks, magazine articles, law school bulletins, and other sources. The consequences flowing from their decisions are important to their career satisfaction, to the legal profession, and to society. Timely and accurate information about the legal profession and the function of law schools as the gateway to the profession helps prepare prospective applicants for a future in law and may help prevent some from becoming locked into a career from which they draw no real satisfaction, for which they are poorly suited, and in which they perform marginally. Such individuals need access to comprehensive and objective information.

 

The 1990 Report on the State of the Legal Profession, issued by the ABA Young Lawyers Division, presents evidence suggesting that many may have entered the profession with inadequate information regarding a life in the law. While interest in law is at a peak, the survey found that lawyer dissatisfaction had risen.6  It was noted that, since 1984, "across the board, regardless of job setting, there has been a dramatic 20% reduction in the number of lawyers indi-

 

5. See BYERS, SAMUELSON & WILLIAMSON, LAWYERS IN TRANSITION-PLANNING A  LIFE IN THE LAW 1988).

6. Career dissatisfaction may not be a new phenomenon. The 1986 Vogt study, supra note 3, at 10, found that many lawyers who had received their degrees several years prior to the study were no longer practicing law. It may be inferred that career dissatisfaction was a factor in some cases. see also, Kaye, Free of the Law, HARVARD MAGAZINE (Jan. . Feb. 1992), at 60.

 

Page 2

 

cating that they are very satisfied, accompanied by an increase in dissatisfaction." The report also shed light on how expectations had changed between entering law school and graduation.

 

Career dissatisfaction is not exclusive to law; much is heard about unhappiness in medicine, accounting, teaching, and other professions. Many law school applicants are seeking career changes from other professions because their initial professional pursuits have not met their expectations. It seems clear that better information about career characteristics is needed at the beginning.

 

Prospective law students generally are not knowledgeable about the profession: what certain jobs entail; what different paths for entry into the profession may be; how students should prepare for their careers; and how law schools may differ in the preparation they offer. Law students tend to be passive consumers of legal education; they simply assume that the law school experience adequately prepares them for practice. To the extent that this is not accurate, efforts should be made to inform students how to identify the skills they will need to be competent attorneys, and how to enable themselves to take an active role in their education by seeking appropriate training for those skills.

 

Law school administrators know the strengths and weaknesses of their own institutions and should be candid in discussing them with applicants. Catalogs and application materials should provide the kinds of information that will enable candidates to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. It has become routine, for example, to talk about skills training and clinical opportunities, but there may be no mention of enrollment restrictions nor of the chances of being accepted into these courses. Information may also be incomplete with regard to writing  opportunities, seminars, and courses that are likely to be of particular interest to certain groups of students. Schools could be the source of considerable information about such concerns, about the pressures of law school and practice, about the kinds of work their graduates do, and about the financial and personal implications of different legal careers.

 

A review of catalogs and entries in the Official Guide to U.S. Law Schools, published by the Law School Admission Council in cooperation with the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools, provides evidence that schools are not doing a good job distinguishing themselves from one another. Many appear to be all things to all people. This is unfortunate,  ecause it prevents law school applicants from making intelligent and informed choices as to which law schools would be good matches for them.

 

Page 3

 

The provision of high-quality information at an early stage would be a significant step in this  direction.

 

The perceived lack of adequate information coming from law schools themselves has resulted in a plethora of materials purporting to fill the vacuum. These include articles, books, and a variety of law school ratings which have attracted considerable attention. Many legal educators have commented on the defects in these materials, especially the ratings, but little has been done to  address the underlying problem. It is now time to do so.

 

With regard to the selection of a law school, the following kinds of information would be helpful to a prospective student:

   a   Admissions data

   b.  Tuition, costs, and financial aid data

   c.  Enrollment and graduation data

   d.  Composition of faculty and administration

   e.  Curricular offerings and class sizes

   f.  Library resources

   g.  Physical plant

   h.  Housing availability

   i.  Financial resources available to support educational program

j.        Placement and bar passage data7

 

This list is not exhaustive; there is much more information that one could seek in selecting a law school. A good deal of that data is submitted annually to the ABA Consultant on Legal Education's office by every law school approved by the American Bar Association. It is considered confidential and is not released. The Task Force recommends that, to the extent that such information is  relevant, accurate, and useful in decision-making, the current policy of absolute confidentiality should be reconsidered.

 

Other steps could include:

   * Distributing to all LSAT registrants a statement indicating that there are differences between law schools, describing broadly what those differences are, explaining that schools' reputations do differ, and providing relevant information from the front of the Official Guide to U.S. Law Schools.

·         Sending to each LSAT registrant a letter from the ABA and/or AALS and/or LSAC outlining the kinds of ques

 

7. This list is taken from a February 1992 draft interpretation of a proposed ABA

Standard for Approval of Law Schools, which would require the release by a law

school of "basic consumer information."

 

Page 4

 

tions an applicant should ask admissions personnel in order to obtain the kinds of information upon which to base a decision.

 

Expanding the ABA's Annual Review of Legal Education  and the Official Guide's key facts, providing some of the information listed above. These materials might be mailed to LSAT registrants.

 

With regard to career path information, there are various helpful sources of information on the legal profession which identify key factors that should be considered by prospective law students when making the decision to become a lawyer.8 Such books profile attorney lifestyles in different practice settings and generally describe law school and the nature of legal education, but the  subject matter today is so immense that any one of these books can serve only as a starting point in one's exploration of law as a career. There is clear need for a more comprehensive way in which to address today's diverse and changing legal profession and the practice of law in its myriad settings. This suggests that the ABA give consideration to producing a regularly updated volume of  materials on careers in the law. Such information, augmented by current data available from law school placement professionals, could be extreLmely helpful to those considering law as a career.

 

Most prelaw counseling takes place only after in dividuals have already decided to become lawyers and are seeking information to assist them in selecting the law schools to which to apply. The need  for advice at an earlier time in the decision-making process is apparent.

 

The organized bar's programs in primary and secondary school of law-related education provide useful instruction at an early stage of choosing one's career direction; but greater attention should be given by the bar to providing guidance during the undergraduate years on the factors to be considered in selecting law as a career.

 

We suggest that during undergraduate years the following considerations should be brought to the attention of prospective law students:

              * prelegal education is crucial to the development of future

 

8. See, for example, Susan J. Bell, Full Disclosure: Do You Really Want to Be A awyer?, ABA Young Lawyers Division (1989); V. Countryman, T. Finman, & T.J. Schneyer, The Lawyer in Modern Society, 2nd Ed. (1976); T. Ehrlich & 0. Hazard, Going to Law School? Readings on a Legal Career (1975); Eve Spangler, Lawyers for Hire, Salaried Professionals at Work (1986). Cf. F. UTLEY & GA. MUNNEKE, FROM LAW STUDENT TO LAWYER (1984), from the ABA Career Series, which is published as A Career Planning Manual" for students while in law school.

 

 

 

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lawyers, As early as 1953, the AALS issued a Statement on Prelegal Education, calling attention to the quality of undergraduate instruction that AALS believed fundamental to the later attainment of legal competence, and to the fact that quality of prelaw education was important to the development of basic skills and insights needed in the study and practice of law. The Statement pointed to the importance of:

         * comprehension;

         * oral and written expression;

         * critical understanding of the human institutions and values with which the law deals;

         * creative power in thinking.

 

The AALS Statement's emphasis on communication, oral and written, is underlined by the recent ABF survey on legal education and the profession, "Assessing the New Generation of Lawyers,"       Appendix B. The two most important skills as defined by beginning practitioners are oral and written communication, but most of these practitioners do not believe that they learned these skills primarily in law school. Jt is important for them to come to law school as prepared as possible in these skills. Prospective law students should be encouraged to review the AALS Statement when planning their undergraduate studies.

 

In addition, we point out that the ABA Special Committee for a Study of Legal Education identified in 1980 some specific areas of the undergraduate curriculum which can be helpful to would-be       lawyers. It is also important that undergraduates know that selection of a law school can significantly impact one's career options. For example, attendance at a "national" school may enhance one's chances of entering large firm practice, but may discourage entering practice in other settings.

 

Course selection in law school may be important to certain law firm interviewers, but generally does not open or foreclose later opportunities. Students may make curriculum choices with an eye   toward honing particular skills, producing the best possible gradepoint average, passing a bar examination, coming into contact with the best teachers, or pleasing potential future employers. These different goals are likely to require somewhat different approaches to curriculum planning.

 

Finally, the Task Force recommends that its Statement of Fundamental Lawycring Skills and Professional Values be made available to prospective and entering law students to inform them  about the skills and values they will be expected to possess as lawyers.  This will help them to seek appropriate educational opportunities both in law school and beyond to develop these skills and values.

                         

With all that is happening today, I thought back to an article I wrote shortly after the August, 1997, release of the Boston Bar Association's (BBA) Report of Professional Fulfillment and the subsequent press conference. I wonder to what extent the article describes the current state of the legal profession in Boston and nationally. I would appreciate your comments. 

 

Failing the Bar Examination:

The Disintegration of the Legal Profession

 

       On the surface, the Boston Bar Association's (BBA) Report of Professional Fulfillment describes a few of the most egregious causes of the lawyer dissatisfaction lawyers raised and studied more in depth over the last fifteen years. For example the concerns of law school faculty "about whether the law school curriculum adequately prepares law students for the growing challenges of practice" is overshadowed by the 1992 American Bar Association's MacCrate Report which, after noting the "troubling fact" that "so many young lawyers are seen as lacking the required skills and values at the time the lawyer assumes fall responsibility for handling a client's legal affairs", found that the law schools primarily teach only two of the ten fundamental skills needed by a lawyer. Commentators have criticized law schools for most of this century for being graduate schools of thinking rather than professional training facilities, like medical schools.

 

       But after reading the quote in the Boston Globe from a member of the task force - "The Profession is becoming a business ... It's not a calling any more" - I realized that, in fact, the BBA Report offers much insight into the decline and disintegration of this occupation into a business. The key to understanding the present plight of the profession comes not from the BBA Report's description of the concerns of lawyers but from its "recommendations". There seems to be no meaningful attempt to provide suggestions which would remedy the problems raised by the students and the lawyers. At first blush, this might seem incomprehensible to the casual reader.

 

       For example, the BBA Report refers to the effect on careers of the high cost of law school: "Because of this substantial debt burden, law students feel that their career options are severely limited. While many students entering law school because of their interest in public service, after financing their education, most students pursue employment in the private sector, particularly large law firms, in order to begin to repay their debt. (During the last fifteen years, at many highly selective law schools, while 40% of those entering wanted to serve the legal needs of the public, as many as 95% of the graduates began their careers working for commercial interests in large law firms.) It is insufficient to simply suggest that the BBA "encourage a national organization, such as the American Bar Association, to conduct a comprehensive study of the student debt issue."? Why not pursue the suggestions of the recent graduates who questioned the cost of a legal        education and felt that law school was not worth its high price and design some less expensive alternatives to the three-year legal education including a two-year academic program followed by an apprenticeship?

 

       When faced with evidence that those who graduate from law school are unable to undertake competent representation of a client, it is not sufficient for the BBA to simply recommend that law schools "be encouraged to examine their curriculum"? Why not follow the lead of the ABA and require the law schools to prepare its graduates to participate effectively in the legal profession and to affirm that education in lawyering skills and professional values is central to the mission of law schools. Why not offer the BBA's vast knowledge of its members and put it at the disposal of the law schools to teach faculty and students about the practice of law?

 

       In response to the complaints by associates about the lack of training given to them, it is inadequate to simply recommend that "law firms attempt to ensure that associates have appropriate work experience with assignments which expose them to the spectrum of skills appropriate to their level. Why not require that law firms prepare their associates so they can competently represent a client?

 

       By far the most damaging allegation appears on page 10 of the BBA Report: "Associates believe that firms will tolerate a substantial amount of abuse of associates by a partner who is perceived to be economically valuable to the firm." It is not enough to suggest as a remedy for the abuse of associates that firms train partners to be managers and allow associates to evaluate the partners skills? Why doesn't the BBA demand that the abuse end and establish procedures to stop it?

 

      The reason for the BBA Report's missing sense of outrage and its weak suggestions follows from its stated assumption that professional fulfillment is first and foremost the responsibility of the lawyer, not the institutions; and its request that the reader not return to the past, be realistic and recognize that many of the negative changes such as the commercialization of the practice of law are permanent.

 

      We should not allow the institutions to abdicate their responsibilites and we should not accept any "reality" that justifies actions or practices inconsistent with the fundamental values of the legal profession. In the past there was a respected profession - independent lawyers serving the public - a profession which offered the promises of knowledge of a craft, intellectual stimulation, autonomy, respect, a reasonable income and the opportunity to provide a meaningful service to the public.

 

      The law school that allows its students to graduate with inadequate training and pressures them through debt into positions where the promises of the profession are not met, is no longer entitled to call itself a professional school.

 

      The law firm that fails to train its associates, that allows them to be abused should not be accorded respect within the legal profession.

 

      The bar association that stands by and allows this to continue can call itself a trade group but may have lost its right to refer to itself as a professional organization.

 

      The reduced sense of fulfillment of so many lawyers is a justified reaction to their failure to achieve the goals they had a reason to expect when they entered law school but which have been denied to them.

 

      My nearly forty years in the legal profession has reluctantly convinced me that the solutions to the ills of the profession are not likely to be generated from within the legal community. Changes and reforms will have to come from those most harmed when lawyering is a business and when there is less emphasis on the teaching of competence and the value  of promoting justice, fairness and morality at all levels of our society.

 

      Seventeen years ago, Lloyd Cutler, former president of the ABA, observed that 95% of lawyers time was devoted to the legal issues of the 1% wealthiest members of our society. As law school graduates take positions they do not desire in large firms, the more than 200,000,000 members of our society with legitimate claims in areas such as housing, healthcare, education and employment have no access to the  legal system or these lawyers who hoped to represent them.

 

      Change will come only if those considering entering the profession, law students and lawyers, those who guide and advise them, the public and its representatives in non-profit organizations and in government not only look to the institutions of the legal community for solutions but demand that the institutions take action to recognize, teach, preserve, uphold, police, and enforce compliance with the fundamental values of the legal profession.

 

      If we begin, then perhaps some day we will be able to once again look at this occupation and proudly call it a calling and a profession.

 

   

 

What has been a consistent ingredient of my 25 years advising lawyers is the continuing and lasting effect of the failure of legal education to prepare law students for the practice of law - a lack of self-confidence and its companion, a lack of self-worth.

 

That is one of the primary reasons that I have agreed to accept a position as a career resource for the lawyers/students enrolled in the Solo Practice University.  

 

A distinguished ABA committee composed of judges, lawyers and law professors in 1992 issued a scathing indictment of law school education since referred to as the "MacCrate Report" finding that law schools failed to teach eight of the ten fundamental skills needed to practice law competently and poorly taught the other two.

 

Law schools were also criticized for not instilling in students the four fundamental values of the legal profession, including the obligation to provide competent representation. (The law schools' failure to prepare its students to do so seems to me to be a violation of this value.)

 

"If professional competence is the goal, the fact is troubling that so many young lawyers are seen as lacking the required sills and values at the time the lawyer assumes full responsibility for handling a client's legal affairs.  Much remains to be done to improve the preparation of new lawyers for practice." MacCrate p. 266

 

The law schools must have pressured the ABA to bury the extensive recommendations of the MacCrate Report since little has been heard about it since the mid-90's.

 

As a consequence, many selective law schools continued to fail to prepare their students to practice law and to funnel them to BigLaw (contrary to the career desires of most) with the faulty assurance they will be trained there. (A more likely motivation of the law schools was dreams of huge salaries used first to repay loans and then by huge donations to the schools). In doing so, the law schools pressured the students to violate another value of the profession - the obligation of lawyers to take positions consistent with their professional goals and personal values.

 

Another significant factor was the law schools' failure to make students aware of their options, including the reality that more than two-thirds of all lawyers practiced in firms of five or less lawyers with half of all private practitioners being solos.

 

As a result, over the last 25 years, many graduates, when they became dissatisfied, having little training or knowledge of their options or how to plan a career, felt trapped and paralyzed. Some stayed. Others made a rash jump to another dissatisfying job. For those laid off, the search was often nothing less than chaotic.

 

Those fortunate (?) enough not to have been placed by the on-campus interviewing funnel entered the legal community without adequate preparation to represent clients. With hard work and much effort, some found mentors, took courses and became highly competent and successful practitioners.

 

But many within and outside BigLaw have not fared as well.

 

"One frequently heard plaint is that law schools in preparing students for practice give greater attention to the needs of those lawyers entering practices in which they will serve the business community than to the needs of those entering practices in which they will provide legal services to individual clients.  The transition from law school into individual practice or relatively unsupervised positions in small offices, both public and private, presents problems which the law schools and the organized bar must address." MacCrate p.47

 

When I read about the Solo Practice University, it appealed to me. Here might be a place where those who feel trapped in BigLaw might be able to learn a broad range of skills (and values) not conveniently offered by separate CLE programs and begin to acquire sufficient confidence to consider making a transition to solo practice or a small firm. In addition, how much more valuable and timely might Solo Practice University be for those who have no choice to stay because of having been laid off or been given notice that it will happen soon.

 

The same could also be said for those already in small firms or on their own looking for a more comfortable and satisfying place within the legal community.  Skills training could help them grow their practice in areas they never would previously have considered.

 

What I hope to be able to add is advice and guidance about how to go about using the skills gained.  Career planning requires deciding, among many options, in what setting the lawyer wants to practice- who he or she wants to represent in what kinds of cases.  When that decision is made, some who want to eventually want to go solo may want to start out by associating and working with or for current practitioners. To find a suitable position, they will want to learn how to promote and market themselves.

 

I am looking forward to a long and rewarding association with Solo Practice University. I encourage you to review the material on its site and consider participating as either a student or as a member of the faculty.

Below are excerpts from a Memorandum which I sent last year to the Professor at Stanford Law School who was heading up the search committee for an Executive Director for its Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest.

_______________________

(O)ver the last 44 years since I graduated law school in 1963, I have continued to be concerned about whom graduating law students represent. As critical social issues continued to come to the attention of the public (poverty, health, housing, education, the environment, as well as the rights or women, children, minorities and gays), as many as 95% of those graduating from law schools, especially the highly selective ones, took positions in the largest law firms representing the largest corporations and the wealthiest 1% of our citizens.

I am not writing this because of any specific knowledge I have of Stanford Law School other than reading a press release entitled "Stanford, Harvard Plan Ambitious Curriculum Changes" nor have I written a letter like this to any other law school. For all I know recent graduates from Stanford Law School are taking positions that reflect the hopes and concerns of the law school, its students and the larger community. If not, what I am suggesting is that the hiring of an executive director of the public interest law center be put on hold while a one year study is undertaken aimed at developing a comprehensive strategy meant to implement the law school's mission found on its website:

"Despite these differences, Stanford Law School's basic mission has not changed since Nathan Abbott's day: dedication to the highest standards of excellence in legal scholarship and to the training of lawyers equipped diligently, imaginatively, and honorably to serve their clients and the public; to lead our profession; and to help solve the problems of our nation and our world."

After a number of years founding law firms representing individuals, creating lawyer referral programs, developing the field of divorce mediation and an advocacy training institute, I began to work in 1983 at Harvard Law School as the Public Interest Advisor, continuing the pioneering work of Doug Phelps, the first to hold such a position in a law school.

From then until 1989 when Bob Clark temporarily closed the office, I worked with about 40% of all students. There were workshops, speakers panels, mentoring with alumni/ae, job fairs and individual counseling sessions.

For the next five years after I left Harvard, I presented programs and consulted to twenty five law schools and law related associations. Through these programs and in my book,

Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law published in 1994 by the ABA Law Student Division, I warned law students about the ways in which law schools divert them from careers serving the legal needs of the public and advised them on how to overcome these barriers and find satisfying positions in the law.

Some of my conclusions, based on my personal experience and involvement with career planners at other law schools, are: at least 40% of those entering law school planned to use their legal degree to serve the legal needs of the public; very few were interested in practicing commercial law as an employee of a large law firm; and the highly selective law schools "funneled" their students into large law firms because they:failed to implement a mission of serving the legal needs of the public; failed to teach the fundamental skills of the profession; failed to teach the fundamental values of the legal profession; failed to make students aware of the wide range of options in the practice of law; permitted large law firms to have operated for their benefit, an on-campus hiring program; and charged exorbitant amounts for the services they provide.

The predicable result of this diversion was the extraordinarily high job and career dissatisfaction found not only in law firm associates but also in the legal profession as a whole.

The underlying questions are: what does the law school believe its graduates should do with their degrees; what do the students want to do with their degrees; are a high percentage of its graduates going to work for large law firms; is this what the law school wants; is this what the students want; and is this in the best interests of our society?

The urgent need for lawyers to represent the public should be a primary mission of the law school not a separate subsidiary "office". The creation of public interest offices was a positive step in the 80's but many law schools staffed the offices with low level administrators with little law practice experience whose role was to familiarize students with a few well-known organizations (ACLU, NAACP, NRDC) with few openings (as opposed to providing awareness of the thousands of individual practitioners representing those with personal plight issues) resulting in those students taking fallback positions with large firms through on-campus interviewing. Moreover, the establishment of what began to be referred to as "loan repayment" programs were ineffective since the high cost of law school, as noted above, is only one of many factors diverting law students from their intended career paths.

On campus interviewing, of course, should be eliminated. At one annual NALP conference session in 1992 when I recommended this, the moderator asked for a show of hands and close to 80% of the placement staff attending from many law schools voted in favor of ending OCI. When asked why it exists, one placement staffer said her dean insisted on it because of its importance to the ratings in the US News and World Report which rewarded the law schools which sent the most students the quickest for the highest salaries to the biggest law firms and had no category for the best teaching of skills and values.

My suggestions are not simply relevant to those seeking to represent individuals. The MacCrate Report contains many of the solutions on how the law school curriculum should be revised so that graduates and be confident enough to go out on their own and represent any clients, including businesses. (In 1988, I compiled and analyzed the list of positions taken by the last 2500 graduates of the most recent 5 classes at Harvard Law School. One astonishing finding was that only 4 had NOT taken positions as an employee of some institution - two had started CityYear and two had started a legal services program.)

There is such an urgent need for service to so many members of the public. Hopefully, the implementation of well thought out proposals would be that careers in public interest and social justice would become a realistic option for those attending the law school.

Should anyone want to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me by e-mail or telephone.

Ron Fox

Ronald W. Fox, Esquire

Center for Professional Development in the Law

 

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500
January 1, 2011

 

Dear President Obama,

We all knew it was coming!

 

On December 3, 2008, an article appeared in CNNMoney.com "Verdict is in: Legal job market tightens" The article said "Employment opportunities for legal professionals have traditionally been plentiful - and lucrative. But as the economy has dried up, so too have those jobs.... (This) is a job market that is contracting for the first time in recent history....(R)ecent graduates not only face experienced competition for limited jobs but also hefty student loan bills. 'Recent grads are going to have a hard time'".

The lead story of the December 10, 2008, Boston Globe "Harvard Curtails Tenure Searches" began, "Harvard University officials said yesterday that they will postpone nearly all searches for tenure-track professors in the school's largest academic body, a sobering indication of how the economic crisis has hit the world's wealthiest university."

 

What followed was: a sharp decrease in the number of applications for admission to law schools in the fall of 2009; dissolution and failures of hundreds of large law firms; an increase in the number of bankruptcies filed by law school graduates of the classes of 2006, 2007 and 2008. By October, 2010, deans of most of the ABA accredited law schools in the country, accompanied by thousands of their most prominent alumni/ae descended upon the nation's capitol to plead for a $3 billion bailout to save their industry. In their impassioned testimony they urged Congress to act, pointing out how the failure of the law school industry could have widespread negative repercussions throughout the country:

   Large law firms who represented the biggest corporations in the world would have to lay off thousands if the law schools were unable to "funnel" unwilling law students to their firms;
   Large corporations would suffer: i.e., a large corporation producing Hummers unable to retain lawyers to plead the case against higher fuel efficiency standards; coal companies unable to obtain permits for strip-mining; tobacco companies unable to prevent the distribution of material warning about the dangers of smoking; oil companies unable to lobby to "drill, drill, drill";
   Law schools, with their graduates unable to repay the extraordinary amount of the loans that they have incurred, would have to reduce salaries of professors and lay off thousands of staff; and
   Even the universities to which the law schools are a department would suffer as the law schools, affectionately referred to as "cash cows", no longer infuse the colleges with needed subsidies. Some universities would, in order to survive, have to extend the winter recess from October 12 to April 14 in order to continue to pay professors their full salaries.

Congress also heard from others, however, who emphasized how out-of-touch the management of the law school industry is and how they industry has failed for decades to produce a product needed or desired by the American public. One witness read this 1980 quote from Lloyd Cutler (legal adviser to Presidents Carter and Clinton: "The rich who pay our (lawyer) fees are less than 1% of our fellow citizens, but they get at least 95% of our time. The disadvantaged we serve for nothing are perhaps 20-25% of the population and get at most 5% of our time. The remaining 75% cannot afford to consult us and get virtually none of our time." And provided statistics from the National Association of Law Placement which indicated that at most of the "select" law schools (that doesn't mean they are good, just that they are hard to get into) until recently, upwards of 95% of their graduates took jobs with large law firms.

Others from non-select law schools testified that their vision was to emulate the select law schools and find all their graduates jobs in large firms so that they could make a lot of money and pay back the loans taken to attend law school and donate lots of money to pay the high salaries of the professors who devote most of their time to making appearances on TV and writing arcane papers.

A member of a consumer group reported that responses from law schools indicated that not one of the law schools had surveyed its students as they registered at their school or at any time during the first year to find out who they wanted to represent (individuals, small businesses, public interest organizations, large corporations) and how many want to start their own firms rather than being an employee at a large law firm.

Another witness was a member of the highly regarded committee that released the MacCrate Report (the chair of the committee was Robert MacCrate, former President of the American Bar Association 1987-88). The MacCrate report found that there were ten fundamental skills needed by a lawyer to competently practice law and the law schools only taught two (and did that poorly.) It also compiled a list of four fundamental values of the legal profession required to be taught by law schools. One of them is: "Striving to Promote Justice, Fairness and Morality. ... As a member of a profession that bears special responsibilities for the quality of justice, a lawyer should be committed to the values of: 2.1 Promoting Justice, Fairness and Morality in One's Own Daily Practice; 2.2 Contributing to the Profession's Fulfillment of its Responsibility to ensure that adequate legal services are provided to those who cannot afford to pay for them; 2.3 Contributing to the profession's fulfillment of its responsibility to enhance the capacity of law and legal institutions to do justice."

As the ABA began to take serious action to implement the recommendations of the MacCrate Report, a law school dean who was a leader in the opposition became a leader of the ABA and the MacCrate Report was relegated to what is commonly referred to as the "dustbin of history".

A second year student recalled reading the annual rating of law schools in the US News & World Report to decide which was the best law school. Only recently did she realize that the criteria used by the magazine were useless in that not one evaluated law schools based on the extent to which they provided the skills and values needed to practice law competently.

 

Recent graduates testified about: not being taught the value of promoting justice in any course except that "silly" professional responsibility course that the law school was required to have but everyone knew was irrelevant;" not being taught how to practice law; the on-campus interview program and the negative effect it had on them and their classmates; not knowing what their options are for practicing law or anything about the demographics of the legal profession, thinking that everyone practiced in large law firms, not knowing that 66% of the profession practices in firms of 5 lawyers and that over 50% are sole practitioners; never having been exposed to career planning (what are your interests, your vision, your goals, your options, your preference, how to promote and market yourself); how their experience in law school had destroyed their self-confidence, their self-esteem and their sense of self-worth;
with tears in their eyes, how they hated the boring meaningless work they were doing in the large law firm; being over their heads in debt; being so dissatisfied with their career path but having no idea of what to do except apply along with thousands of others to the few advertised jobs; and wistfully recalling they had gone to law school so that they could continue to assist women and children as they had done while in college.

Videos compiled by over one hundred consumer organizations were shown. In each one of them individuals from all walks of life testified about how they were unable to find a lawyer to represent them in a wide variety of cases including sickness caused by pollution, evictions from homes being foreclosed, insurance claims for hurricane damage, discrimination against gays, discrimination in employment of women, injuries to veterans, abused children, claims for injury from toys, denial of insurance, inadequate public education, access to public buildings for the disabled and abuse of the elderly.

I appreciated the opportunity I had to testify before the committee first quoting my warning from an article I posted on FindLaw about fifteen years ago entitled "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places: Choosing the Best Law School":

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