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.

When I read a the United States Government Accountability Office Report to Congressional Committees on HIGHER EDUCATION Issues Related to Law School Cost and Access October 2009, I was not impressed. Those drafting the report seemed to simply accept the statements of law school officials that ABA accreditation has no affect on the cost of law school but the change to a more hands-on resource-intensive approach to legal education has affected cost. The law school officials also said that competition among schools for higher rankings reportedly have affected costs. Admitting that they strive for high ranking in this defective and highly criticized magazine's attempt to compare law schools is hard to believe.

After I read the report I drafted this Memorandum which has been forwarded by my Congressman to the above committees.

MEMORANDUM

TO: U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor
FROM: Ronald W. Fox, Esq. admin@ronaldwfox.com
Career Planning for Lawyers - Lawyer Satisfaction Blog
DATE: November 2, 2009
RE: Issues Related to the Dramatic Increase in the Cost of Law School

The impetus for my writing this was the New GAO Report, "Higher Education Issues Related to Law School Cost and Access" and briefings made to your committees.

The purpose of this Memorandum is to encourage your committees to solicit the views and opinions of others who can present to you a more in-depth analysis of the reasons why the rate of increase of the cost of law school has been so much higher than the rate of inflation and the cost of living over the last two decades.

There has been criticism of legal education in the traditional law schools ever since the day when Christopher Langdell instituted the case method at Harvard law School over 100 years ago but it reached its peak in 1992.

In that year, the MacCrate Report, also known as the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap - Legal Education and Professional Development - An Educational Continuum was published. The task force, composed of prominent lawyers, judges and law professors, strongly criticized law schools for failing to teach eight of the ten fundamental skills needed to practice law and for not stressing the four fundamental values of the legal profession including the promotion of justice and the importance of taking positions consistent with one's personal values. The report also described as inadequate the traditional method of teaching the two skills it does teach in that it does not allow for the students to perform and be evaluated to ascertain the extent to which the students understand the concept presented .

The same ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (which has been designated as the agency that accredits law schools) recently issued a Bar Report of the Outcome Measures Committee in which it says law schools should shift in assessment from the conceptual knowledge accumulated by students to the assessment of practical competencies (professional skills) and that law schools should incorporate ongoing assessments and other formative techniques to encourage and evaluate a student's development of tasks

Innumerable articles prior to and during this current economic downturn have been written demanding that law schools do more to prepare their students for the practice of law.

Tying together this failure to teach with the increase in the cost of law schools is Rethinking Legal Education in Hard Times: The Recession, Practical Legal Education, and the New Job Market a thoughtful paper by Daniel Thies, a student at Harvard Law School and the law student member of the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar submitted for the Council's June 2009 retreat. After describing the law schools' tepid actions in offering skills courses but stubbornly refusing to reduce the emphasis on academic research (see B. Barriers to Reform and C. Rethinking Priorities: The Questionable Value of Legal Scholarship Today, pages 18-22) concludes:

The economic recession presents a unique opportunity for legal education to shift its priorities. Rather than using student money to subsidize academic research from full-time professors, successful schools will need to seek new ways to train students in practical skills. Only then will schools continue to be able to attract qualified students. There are many different ways that a school can achieve this end, and no two schools' solution will look the same. As long as prospective students have sufficient information and schools have the flexibility to try different solutions, however, the law schools with the best programs will begin to rise to the top. Legal educators have spent much of the last century thinking about how to integrate practical training into the law school curriculum. To echo the MacCrate Report, "[i]n sum . . . the time has come to put the pieces together."

Another source of helpful information on how and why law school costs have risen unnecessarily can be found in The Deeply Unsatisfactory Nature of Legal Education Today - A Self Study Report On The Problems Of Legal Education And On The Steps The Massachusetts School of Law Has Taken To Overcome Them published by the Massachusetts School of Law, Lawrence Velvel, Founder and Dean. While I am not at all aware of what is needed in a law library, the report looks at the how outdated views of what should be in a law library (perhaps pursuant to ABA accreditation requirements) increase law school costs. The most significant point in the report related to costs is the systematic withdrawal of law school faculty into academic research and scholarship. Not only is it of little educational value to students, it also means that the faculty is unavailable for administrative duties which would be a benefit to students such as career counseling, course advice, admissions, etc. That translates into the need to hire more and more staff to take over duties that faculty have taken in the past.

I have been deeply concerned about the defects in legal education from the day I started as the Public Interest Adviser at Harvard Law School in 1984. I graduated from that school in 1963 and spent the next 20 years practicing law and designing programs aimed at delivering legal services to the public. There is another negative consequence of diverting funds to academic scholarship and failing to prepare students for the practice of law. In a deadly serious satire requesting that I be appointed law school industry czar, I point out how law schools have failed not only their students but also the public as in selective schools 95% of the graduates take positions representing the wealthiest 1% of the society while the 45,000,000 least wealthy of us cannot retain the services of a lawyer for 80% of their legal problems.

Most of the posts in my blog are directed at the defects in legal education and the diversion of law students by law schools to positions in large law firms. The cause of this misplacement are widely known: the failure of the law schools to teach skills or values or the existence of small law firms combined with the huge debt load taken by so many students,

Here is a post I wrote a few months ago, a simple way to reduce law school costs and debt by one-third entitled Envisioning Law Students Eliminating the Wasted Third Year of Law School In it I propose:

There is one significant aspect of legal education that CAN be significantly improved overnight; i.e., the extraordinarily high tuition that law schools charge. The resulting high debt load has, in the past, pressured students to take positions in large law firms that held no appeal to many of them except for the salary. Today even many of those with offers do not expect to have enough income from their positions to live on. What is the solution? Eliminate the third year of law school and roll-back, just like Wal-Mart might do, the expected debt by 33%. Over the years I have often talked to students, faculty and staff. In addition many articles have been written on the subject. Rarely has anyone come up with a justification for law students staying in law school for the third year. With general agreement that the law schools take three years NOT to prepare students for the practice of law, it hardly seems that law students or their careers would be negatively affected if they only devoted two years to NOT being prepared to practice law. Estimates vary about how much time would be required to teach students how to think like a lawyer. One semester may not be sufficient but a more reasonable estimate would be 2-4 semesters.

In addition, there is a reason why universities can refer to their law schools as "cash cows". One of the arguments in favor of establishing a public law school in Massachusetts has been that it would boost the state's revenues. Here is my post on why we don't need a public law school.

Many others write often and well about the defects of legal education including the greed and self-interest of the law schools that are behind their consistent increases in tuition and related costs.

Chuck Newton, a lawyer in Huston, writes often about the failings of law school Here is just one of his posts on his blog The Law School Tuition Bubble. Has Logical Reasoning Abandoned Our Law Schools?

Here is a related article by John DiPippa, Dean William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock A Change - in Legal Education - is Gonna Come (with apologies to Sam Cook) where he refers to the current education forces: i.e, calls for fundamental legal education reform gaining momentum, the ABA moving toward outcome-based accreditation standards and students demanding different approaches and wanting to see value for their tuition dollars. He concludes that the "salad days" for law faculties may be over.

Law schools have in many ways failed their students and the public. One and only one aspect has been the runaway and unrestrained raises in tuition over the last two decades. Much of the increase has been unnecessary. As noted above, I suggest that if you would like to investigate further the topic of why law school costs have risen so dramatically, you review the sources above and contact some of the writers and scholars involved. Should anyone want to discuss any of the issues raised in this Memorandum further with me (or any lawyer career related topic), as noted above, I can be reached at admin@ronaldwfox.com..

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

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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 .

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.

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.

As many of you may know, in July 1992 the ABA's Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap issued what came to be called the "MacCrate Report", a withering critique of traditional law schools. In substance, the task force compiled a list of the 10 fundamental skills and the 4 fundamental values needed to be taught in order to be a trained member of the legal profession. It found that law schools teach only 2 of the skills and not well at that.

 

While it did not make specific findings about the deficiencies in teaching the values, it suggested more emphasis on them including a recommendation that law schools should be concerned to convey to students that the professional value of the need to "promote justice fairness and morality" is an essential ingredient of the legal profession. .

 

At the heart of the report is its "demand" that: law schools affirm that "education in lawyering skills and profesional values is central to the mission of law schools"; they should use effective teaching methods, and they should make students aware of the full range of opportunity for professional development in the rich variety of private practice settings.  

 

The response to the issuance of the report was immediate. Some law school deans opposed the findings of the report. The basic argument of the deans was that the report looked at legal education from the point of view of practitioners. There has been opposition from law school faculty for years of anything that smacks of turning their institutions into "trade schools".

 

However, there was a flurry of activity in support of the report. A task force was formed within the AALS to implement the MacCrate Report. Within the ABA, in February, 1994. a resolution proposed by the Illinois and Iowa state bars asking the ABA House of Delegates to support of some of the recommendations of the report passed. The ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar sent the resolution to the deans of all the ABA approved law schools and was scheduled to report to the House of Delegates at its next annual meeting. The Commission on Legal Education of the State Bar of Wisconsin proposed reforms of legal education based on the recommendations of the MacCrate Report.

 

All of that was in 1994. For the last 15 years, other than when I write an occasional article in praise of it, there seems to be scarce mention of the MacCrate Report.    Now while I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, I do have to mention that about 1994 the ABA decided for the first time to hire an Executive Director and the person chosen for the position was prior to that a dean of a law school who had written and spoken out against the MacCrate Report.

 

Even if you have not read the entire 414(!) page report, you will still be able to recognize how comprehensive the recommendations are, and how the adoption of these, 25 recommendations (which can be found on pages 330-334) would fundamentally change the way in which legal education is delivered.

 

As usual, comments are invited and welcome.

 

 

 

C.  Enhancing Professional Development During the Law School Years

 

1. Law schools and the practicing bar should look upon the development of lawyers as a common enterprise, recognizing that legal educators and practicing lawyers have different capacities and opportunities to impart to future lawyers the skills and values required for the competent and responsible practice of law. (Introduction, Chapter 4.D, Chapter 5.C, Chapter 7.A, Chapter 7.B, Chapter 7D, Chapter 8.E and Chapter 9)

 

2.  Standard 301(a) regarding a law school's educational program should be amended to clarify its reference to qualifying "graduates for admission to the bar" by adding: ". . . and 40 prepare them to participate effectively in the legal profession." This would affirm that education in.lawyering skills and professional values is central to the mission of law schools and recognize the current stature of skills and values instruction. (Chapter 7.C and Chapter 7.B)

 

3. It is time for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to revisit generally the treatment of skills and values 4instrüction in the accreditation process in recognition of the skills and values identified in the Statement of Fundamental Lawyering Skills and Professional Values as those with which a lawyer should be familiar before assuming ultimate responsibility for a client. (Chapter 7.C, Chapter 4.D, Chapter 5.C, Chapter 7.A and Chapter 7.B)

 

4. In light of developments in skills instruction and the Task Force's Statement of Skills and Values, the interaction between core subjects, treated in Standard 302(a)(i), and professional skills, treated In Standard 302(a)(iii), should be revisited and clarified. The interpretation of Standard 302(a)(iii) should expressly recognize that students who expect to enter practice in a relatively unsupervised practice setting have a special need for opportunities to obtain skills instruction. (Chapter 7.C, Chapter 7.A, Chapter 7.B, Chapter 4.D and Chapter 5.C)

 

5. Each law school faculty should determine how its school can best help its students to begin the process of acquiring the skills and values that are important in the practice of law, keeping in mind not only the resources presently available at the school, but the characteristics of effective skills instruction. (Chapter 7.3, Chapter 4.D and Chapter 5.C)

 

6.  To be effective, the teaching of lawyering skills and professional values should ordinarily have the following characteristics:  development of concepts and theories underlying the skills and values being taught; opportunity for student& to perform lawyering tasks with appropriate feedback and self-evaluation; reflective evaluation of the students' performance by a qualified assessor. (Chapter 7.3 and Chapter 4.D)

 

7.  The Interpretation to Standard 201(a) relating to the self-study process should require law schools to evaluate their programs in the light of Standard 301(a) and (c) and should refer to the Task Force's Statement of Skills and Values and the literature analyzing the roles and competencies of lawyers, (Chapter 7.C, Chapter 7.8 and Chapter 4.D)

 

8.  Each law school should undertake a study to determine which of the skills and values described in the Task Force's Statement of Skills and Values are presently being taught in its curriculum and develop a coherent agenda of skills instruction not limited to the skills of "legal analysis and reasoning," "legal research," "writing" and "litigation." (Chapter 7.3, Chapter 7.C and Chapter 4.D)

 

9. Law schools should identify and describe in their course catalogs the skills and values content of their courses and make this information available to students for use in selecting courses. (Chapter 7.8, Chapter 6.8 and Chapter 4.D)

 

10, The Task Force's Statement of Skills and Values should be made available to all entering law students to inform them about the skills and values they will be expected to possess as lawyers and to help them seek appropriate educational opportunities in law school, in work experience and in continuing legal education. (Chapter 4.D, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6,8)

 

11. Law students should be advised with respect to course selection to consider what opportunities may or may not be available to them after law school to develop the skills and competencies they will need in practice. (Chapter 2, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.8)

 

12. Law schools should continue to emphasize the teaching of the skills of "legal analysis and reasoning" and "legal research," as described in the Statement of Skills and Values, through a wide variety of instructional modes, including well-structured clinical programs. (Chapter 7.3 and Chapter 4.D)

 

13. Law schools should be encouraged to develop or expand instruction in such areas as "problem solving," "factual investigation," "communication," "counseling," "negotiation" and "litigation," recognizing that methods have been developed for teaching law students skills previously considered learnable only through post-graduation experience in practice. (Chapter 7.A, Chapter 7,8 and Chapter 5.C)

 

14.  In view of the widely held perception that new lawyers today are deficient in writing skills, further concerted effort should be made in law schools and in programs of transition education after law school to teach writing at a better level than is now generally done. (Chapter 7.8, Chapter 7.C, Chapter 8.E and Appendix B)

 

15.  Law schools through well-structured clinical programs should help students understand the importance of the skill of "organization and management of legal work," although it will remain for the first employer or mentor to translate that awareness into a functioning reality through providing supervised practice experience. (Chapter 7.8, Chapter 7.D, Chapter 8.E and Chapter SC)

 

 16.  Law schools should play an important role in developing the skill of "recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas" and in placing these issues in an organized conceptual framework, although the exposure in law school clinical programs or classrooms is necessarily very limited compared to the variety and complexity of the dilemmas presented in practice. (Chapter 7.8, Chapter 7.D, Chapter S.E and Chapter 5.C)

 

17. Law schools should stress in their teaching that examination of the fundamental values of the profession" is as important in preparing for professional practice as acquisition of substantive knowledge. (Chapter 7.A and Chapter 5.C)

 

18. The practicing bar should be assiduous in discharging its responsibilities for inculcating professional values through contact with students in part-time work and summer jobs and as colleagues or mentors in the early years of practice. (Chapter 7.A, Chapter 7.D and Chapter 5.0)

 

19. Law.school deans, professors, administrators and staff should be concerned to. convey to students that the professional value of the need to "promote justice, fairness and morality" is an essential ingredient of the legal profession; the practicing bar should be concerned to impress on students that success in the practice of law is not measured by financial rewards alone, but by a lawyer's commitment to a just, fair and moral society. (Chapter 7.A, Chapter 7.D and Chapter 5.C)

 

20.  Law schools and the organized bar should work together to make law students aware of the full range of opportunity for professional development in the rich variety of private practice settings, in panels for prepaid and group legal services, in positions in the public, sector, in staff counsel's offices in corporations and other organizations, and in the practice of public interest law in all its dimensions, as well as of the profession's expectation that all lawyers will fulfill their responsibilities to the public and support pro bono legal services for those who cannot afford a lawyer. (Chapter 2, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6.8)

 

21.  Law schools and employers of law students should work together to inject educational value into any work experience during the law school years, developing models for strengthening the educational content of part-time employment and developing workshops offered at the beginning of the summer clerkship season to support the educational aspects of summer employment. (Chapter 7.D)

 

22.  Since the employment marketplace is a crucial forum in which the practicing bar transmits its values to law students, members of the bar who recruit, interview, and hire should convey to students, both by words and by their decisions, the importance they place on a student's having had exposure to a broad range of skills and values instruction, including clinical courses, (Chapter 7.A, Chapter 7.D and Appendix B)

 

 23. The National Association of Law Placement (NALP) should be asked by the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to add to NALP's annual employer questionnaire questions designed to elicit information  pertaining to the educational quality of law office summer programs. (Chapter 7.D)

 

24.  Law schools should assign primary responsibility for instruction in professional skills and values to permanent full-time faculty who can devote the time and expertise to teaching and developing new methods of teaching skills to law students. In addition, law schools should continue to make appropriate use of skilled and experienced practicing lawyers and judges in professional skills and values instruction with guidance, structure, supervision and evaluation of these adjunct faculty by full-time teachers. (Chapter 7.8)

 

25.  There should be faculty involvement in the design, supervision and evaluation of every program of extern experience, and accreditation standards should emphasize the critical importance of faculty responsibility for overseeing extern programs. (Chapter 7.B and Chapter 8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since in so much I have written I have taken quotes from the ABA's MacCrate Report and one issued by the Mass School of Law, both in 1992, I decided to publish (in three parts) a handout I distributed at a panel I moderated for the National Lawyers Guild in 1993 which  is primarily quotes from both.

 

Aspects of the Traditional Law School Experience Which Inhibit or Divert Law Students From Careers Serving the Legal Needs of the Public.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Law school will give new meaning to the word challenge. From the law school you attend, to your class rank, to your extra-curricular activities, to your work experience, everything and everyone will seem to conspire to stand between you and the job you want." Munneke p. 78

 

(T)he problems besetting academia - problems such as excess costs, lack of sufficient work by professors, exclusive concentration by professors on research with resulting inattention to teaching and administrative tasks, an ever increasing spiral of tuition resulting from the foregoing phenomena, and failure by law, engineering and business schools to teach students the skills they need in the professions they have been trained for. MSL p. 459

 

 

1. THE CURRICULUM FAILS TO TEACH STUDENTS MANY OF THE SKILLS NEEDED TO BE A COMPETENT LAWYER - PROBLEM SOLVING, FACTUAL INVESTIGATION, COMMUNICATION, COUNSELING, NEGOTIATION,  MANAGING LEGAL WORK EFFECTIVELY AND RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

 

Ask any practicing lawyer: "Is a new law school graduate ready to practice law?" The answer will invariably be an emphatic "No!" Most of us readily accept the seeming inconsistency between the notion that when we take the bar examination, we know more law than we have ever known before or will know again, and that we know frightfully little about being a lawyer. Munneke p. 20

 

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

 

2. THE TEACHING METHOD PROVIDES   TOO FEW SUPERVISED CLINICAL EXPERIENCES AND TOO FEW  SIMULATION AND ROLE PLAYING, COMPUTER-ASSISTED LEARNING, PLANNING AND WRITING EXERCISES.

 

 ...If the students intend to become experts in, say,  contract law, they will likely be taught contracts by a  professor who has üever sat across from a living client,  who has never considered the grave, long-lasting  personal and social consequences of the agreement he is to write. Generally the students will never draft a  contract themselves, or likely ever see one in law school. ... The professors were not training young attorneys to represent people. They were teaching their students only what they themselves knew. The art of studying law." MSL p. 146 quoting trial lawyer Gerry Spence

 

Law professors .,..could not impart the professional techniques needed at the bar and the mores and habits of the profession ... (or) be the instruments for students' necessary socialization to the profession,...(and) results ..in less capable teaching even in "academic subjects"  For the best theoretical instruction, as is well known to students of pedagogy and learning theory, is instruction which illustrates the theoretical by the practical.  MSL p. 132

 

"What would we say of a medical school where students were taught surgery solely from the printed page? No one, if he could do otherwise, would teach the art of playing golf by having the teacher talk about golf to the Prospective player and having the latter read a book relating to the subject." MSL p. 166 quoting Judge Prank

 

(R)elatively few law students have exposure to the full range of professional skills offerings. The Task force found that the majority of graduating law students had four or fewer skills  experiences" (simulated skills, clinics, externships or others) while in law school. When classes of first year "Introduction to Lawyering'.... legal writing and research...trial advocacy.., and moot court were removed from the list, the majority of graduating students had only one., or no... additional exposures to professions skills instruction ...professional skills training occupies only nine (9%) percent of the total instructional time available to law schools. MacCrate p. 240

 

3. STUDENTS LACKING KNOWLEDGE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION AND THE SKILLS NECESSARY TO PRACTICE COMPETENTLY CANNOT MAKE AN  INFORMED CAREER DECISION AND DEVELOP A HIGHLY IMPAIRED SENSE OF SELF.WORTH.

 

The statement, "You are unique," may not strike you as particularly profound ... Your many accomplishments set you apart from the crowd.  Unfortunately, many law students lose their  confidence in their own uniqueness as soon as they begin to look for a job. They act like they are fungible. They talk like they have no special skills. Part of the reason lies in the law school  experience itself:,., During your first year, you learn that you are almost never right. By your senior year, you discover that despite years of studying theory and black letter law, you know little about practicing law..,.Munneke p. 133

 

Alan Stone, a psychiatrist (and former head of the American Psychiatric Association) who is on the faculty of the Harvard Law School. "The faculty make themselves relatively inaccessible to students in order to gain time to do their own highly theoretical work" ..The crucial human attribute which the law school ignores, and indeed in many cases defeats" says Stone, "is the student's sense of self esteem" The lack of concern for such esteem ...results in "ever increasing disengagement from the formal educational process (and) ..,is to be contrasted with the  experience of the medical students, who, during his last two years, is given increasing professional responsibility in the clinic and ward." MSL p. 154

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

The Deeply Unsatisfactory Nature of Legal Education Today - A Self Study Report on the Problems of Legal Education and on the Steps The Massachusetts School of Law Has Taken to Overcome Them, Massachusetts School of Law, 1992 (MSL)

 

Munneke, Gary; The Legal Career Guide: From Law Student to Lawyer, American Bar Association Career Series, 1992 (Munneke)

 

Legal Education and Professional Development - An Educational Continuum - Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap. The American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, 1992, "The MacCrate Report" (MacCrate)

 

Edwards, Harry T; The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and The Legal Profession. 91 Michigan Law Review 8478, Oct 1992 (Edwards)

I recently read about the gathering of law students from a number of law schools that are difficult to get into who have joined together to form Building a Better Legal Profession, (BBLP) which, according to its mission state, is "a national grassroots movement that seeks market-based workplace reforms in large private law firms".

I do not know whether this messsage was ever received by BBLP since as of this moment I have not received a response

I welcome your comments.

Ron

  

Hi

As a regular contributor to twitter, a blogger and one who has followed and commented on the activities of the BBLP, I suppose that qualifies me as one doing a story on BBLP.

During my five years (1984-89) as the public interest advisor at Harvard Law School and thereafter, I have observed the close working relationship between the selective law schools and BigLaw. I know how the law schools' deficiencies and defects work to, as I refer to it, "funnel" their students to BigLaw.  If you would like to read a few things I have written on this subject, you can go to Overcoming Law Schools Defects (original title in 1996 "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places: Choosing the Best Law School") and any of the posts on my blog such as Request of Ronald W. Fox to be Appointed Law School Industry Czar.

During my 5 years at Harvard I watched as a majority of each class indicated an interest in serving individuals, the public, non-profits, small businesses and/or being an entrepreneur but 95% ended up in BigLaw and, based on my experience advising lawyers and keeping up with news and surveys, the level of dissatisfaction among lawyers has been higher than most other occupations for decades. The economic downturn will certainly have an effect on the class of 2009 but I wonder how different the figures of those starting their careers in BigLaw were for the class of 2007.

One topic that I don't think gets enough attention is the unmet legal needs of the public. That was my focus early on in the 70's. Every area that I looked at there were not enough lawyers so I began to create and implement lawyer referral projects, divorce mediation, an association of law clinics and other legal delivery systems. My original interest in becoming the public interest advisor at Harvard Law School in 1983 was to increase the access of the underserved to lawyers who entered law school hoping to represent them. In 1981 Lloyd Cutler said that 95% of lawyers time is devoted to the 1% wealthiest of our society, 5% of our time goes to represent the poorest and the rest of society gets virtually none of our time. I recently read statistics indicating that there is still an extraordinarily high percentage of the public unable to secure the services of a lawyer for the majority of the serious legal issues they have (something like only 20% of the legal needs of the poorest 45,000,000 in this country are met).

Have you read the MacCrate Report? How about Larry Velvel's "The Deeply Unsatisfactory Nature of Legal Education Today"? and what about Ron Fox's Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law?

There is a such a great need for a better legal profession!

There may be a wide range of other committees of your organization looking at other aspects of reform of the legal profession so I apologize for being unaware of the breadth of the organization's mission, goals and activities but I have only read the story about BBPL's effort to change BigLaw.

So, I would like to know:

Does BBLP have as its primary focus changing BigLaw? BigLaw is such a small percentage of the legal profession.

Does BBLP you plan to search for, provide support for and encourage law students to seek positions with high quality superlawyers in Small/Law?

Does BBLP support the elimination of on-campus interviewing so that the law schools could begin to provide genuine career planning services?

Does BBLP support demanding that the law schools reduce the cost of attending law school by eliminating the useless third year?

Does BBLP support demanding that the law schools teach the fundamental skills and fundamental values to their students so that when they graduate, they have the confidence, as one of my students once put it, "to BE good, rather than feeling the need to go someplace they think is good".

Does BBLP support demanding that the law schools breathe life into this fundamental value of the legal profession - the commitment of our profession to promote justice and serve the public and work to insure that its students have a realistic opportunity to do so upon graduation?

Would BBLP's goals be met if 95% of the graduates of the "selective" law schools became associates at kindler, gentler BigLaw providing legal services to 1% of society?

I invite you to contact me if you would like to discuss any of this further.

Ron Fox

 

Becoming a Lawyer without Needing to Attend Law School

 

The background of this letter is that there are seven states which permit apprenticeship (working for a lawyer and studying the law) as a road to becoming a lawyer there. The states are Vermont, New York, Washington, Virginia, California, Maine and Wyoming. A few years ago as Massachusetts considered buying an existing law school and making it a public law school, I wrote to a state legislator I have known for years with my suggestion, attaching an excerpt of a 1996 article about apprenticeship in the Boston Globe and my response to it.

 

The apprenticeship program has two potentially great advantages over the traditional law school. The first is its pragmatic emphasis on learning how to practice law. That benefit, of course, is dependent on how qualified and how willing the mentor is to guide and teach the apprentice. It is also limited to the skills of the particular context within which one finds an apprenticeship. The second is the cost of obtaining the degree. Even if the apprentice must volunteer his or her time, there is no need to pay tuition. Apprenticeships run into some problems, however, when it comes to learning fundamental values of the profession, and to learning about the range and diversity of practice options. Again, the particularity of the setting can be enlarging or limiting. One's access to a wide legal community, if only through vicarious knowledge, may be limited compared to what, ideally, is available in a law school. "Alternatives to Law School for Those who Want to be a Lawyers"

 

LETTER TO MASSACHUSETTS STATE LEGISLATOR

 

Dear _____

 

I have not forgotten our conversation about a new public law school. I thought my proposal might be more timely if, as may be the case, the University of Massachusetts does not take over the Southern New England School of Law.

 

I strongly believe that law school legal education in most of today's law schools simply fails to adequately prepare law students to be lawyers. Law students are not taught either the skills or the values they need in order to be competent lawyers. Support for this can be found: in my book, "Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law" and the MacCrate Report, both published by the American Bar Association; "The Deeply Unsatisfactory Nature of Legal Education Today" published by the Massachusetts School of Law; and my article on the internet column of which I am a co-author entitled Overcoming Law School Defects (formerly titled "Looking For Law in All the Wrong Places? Choosing the Best Law School"

 

Worse yet, the law schools divert (either intentionally or through gross negligence) law students away from representing 95% of the public.

 

My proposal is simple. The state should adopt a law which would allow residents to take the bar examination after a prescribed apprenticeship without having to attend law school. The Univeristy of Massachusetts would establish a law department which would provide support, guidance and assistance to those wishing to undertake an apprenticeship in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and any other states where apprenticeships are authorized.

 

I have attached excerpts from a 1996 Boston Globe article and my letter to the reporter giving some reasons for my suggestion. More appears in another of my articles entitled "Alternatives to Law School for Those Who Want to Be Lawyers"   

 

Please contact me if you would like to meet to discuss this further. In the meantime feel free to forward this to anyone who you think might be interested. Should you have a need for it, I have also attached my bio at the end of this message.

 

Cordially

 

Ron

 

EXCERPT FROM ARTICLE IN THE OCTOBER 20, 1996, BOSTON GLOBE "VT BARRISTERS BYPASS SCHOOL - RELIC OF DAYS PAST ALLOWS SELF-TAUGHT LAWYERS TO BE SWORN IN" BY KATHLEEN BURGE 

 

Three of Vermont's state judges never graduated from law school. Neither did the defender general, Robert Appell, a former auto mechanic. Nor did dozens of lawyers like Randall Gilmour, one of the newest batch of attorneys who will be sworn in by the state next week. Instead of being grilled by law school professors on torts and rules of evidence, these lawyers and judges studied on their own while working as paid clerks in law firms.

 

Vermont and seven other states have an unusual rule, a relic of the days when most layers were self-taught: People who have not attended law school can take the bar exam. Two who passed will be sworn in as lawyers on Thursday.

 

Vermont, which had no law school until 1972, has few requirements for those who learn the law outside a classroom. They must study four years under a sponsoring attorney, and file progress reports with the Board of Bar Examiners twice a year.

 

EXCERPT FROM OCTOBER 23, 1996 LETTER FROM RONALD FOX TO MS. KATHLEEN BURGE

 

You wrote an excellent article in the Sunday Globe, October 30, 1996, on lawyers bypassing law school but their approach, rather than being a "relic of days past", may be the wave of the future.

 

The crisis in the legal system today is that while we graduate 35,000 lawyers a year, only an incredibly small percentage of individuals have access to lawyers, Many law schools report that upwards of 40% of their students would like careers serving law and middle income people but very few graduates take such positions, a predictable result of the traditional law school experience which incredibly allows them to graduate without knowing how to practice law. For 100 years law schools have limited their role to the first stage of legal education - learning to think like a lawyer.

 

As a result few students leave law school with the confidence to undertake individual representation. In addition, law schools offer little awareness of the range of options for practice leaving graduates who want to help women suffering in abusive marital situations unaware that small firms exist that limit themselves to family and domestic relations work. Finally, law schools charge an exorbitant amount for the services they provide and bring intense pressure on their students to consider only high paying positions contrary to many of their personal values and professional goals to increase the law school's prestige and to pay off the high debt they incurred to pay law school salaries and expenses.

 

"Reading the law" has much to be said in its favor. Those following this path are likely to learn how to practice law, learn about a wide range of settings and fields in which lawyers use their training, and learn how to look for position. The lessening and, for many, the elimination of the profound and devastating effect that debt has on career choice will significantly increase the number of lawyers that will take positions serving the legal needs of the public.

 

 States should be encouraged to consider adopting this approach as one way to live up to our oft-stated  societal promise of equal access to the justice system. 

 

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.

 

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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."

 

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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.

 

   

In a previous post requesting that I be appointed law school industry czar, I noted that recent graduates had testified about

"how their experience in law school had destroyed their self-confidence, their self-esteem and their sense of self-worth"

That statement is based on my personal twenty-five years experience advising law students and lawyers. When asked what it is that I do, I always say that one of the most significant aspects of my advising is helping clients rebuild or gain self-confidence and self-esteem. I am not a therapist. I have NO training in that field. What I do know is that my clients are basically intelligent creative thoughtful individuals. What I also know is what has caused them to feel the way they do - attending law school, especially the highly selective ones.

As I wrote elsewhere

"I often remind clients about the role that Noah Wyle played on ER, Dr. John Carter. When he began, he was an insecure medical student. At the end of his medical training, in his residency, he is a capable, competent, confident physician. The opposite occurs in the case of lawyers as they work they way through law school and the practice of law. Capable men and women who did well in college, wrote creatively, were active socially, started businesses and traveled, entered law school feeling good about themselves. The law schools then failed to teach them what they need to know to practice law and failed to teach them how to plan their career. At the same time, through the on-campus placement system, law students are often funneled to large firms to do work that never held their interest and, in addition they often find the work boring and meaningless. They feel trapped because they do not know any options and, therefore, do not know how to make a transition. No wonder so many are bored, unhappy, dissatisfied, miserable, frustrated and depressed!"

I had nearly forgotten about a Harvard Law Review Article entitled Making Docile Lawyers: An Essay on the Pacification of Law Students, Vol. 111, No. 7 (May, 1998, pp. 2027-2044) I don't have a copy of the article but the introduction can be found here. I was certainly not surprised to read this,

"Given this status (Harvard Law School's) one would expect to find HLS full of confident, enthusiastic optimistic students who are thoroughly comfortable with themselves and fully prepared upon graduation to take on the world. In fact, one finds quite the opposite. Far from brimming over with personal and intellectual self-confidence, by the second (2L) year a surprising number of Harvard law students come to resemble what one professor has called "the walking wounded" demoralized, dispirited, and profoundly disengaged from the law school experience. What's more, by third (3L) year, a disturbingly high number of students come to convey a strong sense of impotence and little inclination or enthusiasm for metting the world's challenges head on. How are we to explain this "pacification of law students"? ... become subdued, withdrawn, and uncertain of their own self-worth over the course of their legal education."

I was not unaware of the 'lemming" effect that law school attendance had on students. When I was offered the position of Public Interest Career Adviser at Harvard Law School beginning in September, 1984, I accepted conditional upon being approved to offer a six session workshop (once a week for an hour) to the entering first year students, an introduction to be given the day they registered, the first session one week later. Five years later, that introductory program was attended by 200 newly registered students.

Each session began with a Harry Chapin song. For the first, I played Flowers are Red. Do you know the song? Here are the lyrics. (I am not sure that everyone who heard it knew what they were up against.)

Your son marches to the beat of a different drummer. But don't worry. We'll
have him joining the parade by the end of the term

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw

And the teacher said..
What you doin' young man
I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red

There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower
and I see every one

Well the teacher said..
You're sassy There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me.....

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said..
It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should

Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said

.. and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found

The teacher there was smilin'
She said...
Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said..

and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

But there still must be a way to have our children say . . .
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Welcome to law school!!!

For the last ten years since the law review article was written my focus has been on advising lawyers and not students nor have I presented workshops or seminars at any law schools during that time. I still, however, observe the same negative characteristics in my clients but I wonder if there have been any changes in law schools since then; i.e.,

Has there been a follow-up study of the students at Harvard Law School?

Has there been a study of the students at any other law school? (I recall reading about a psychological study of law students at a law school but have been unable to find it)?

Are there selective law schools which recognize this problem?

Are there selective law schools doing something about it?

Are there any law schools recognizing and doing something about it?

What are the implications of having many law school graduates with little self-confidence going to work in some of the largest law firms in the world?

What are the implications of having many law school graduates with little self-confidence not taking positions with small law firms representing individuals and not going out on their own?

As I noted in Only 4 out of 2500 only 4 students out of the 2500 in the Harvard Law School Classes of 1984-1988 had NOT become employees and taken jobs upon graduation. Two started City Year and two started a legal services program.

Anyone know how we can get our law school graduates to say "there are so many colors in the rainbow and I see every one?"

Here's excerpts from a message I sent last December responding to a CNNMoney.com article about the difficulty law school graduates are having finding a job.

Hi Jessica Dickler,

As you read what I have written, consider that for decades the percentage of those who are dissatisfied with their careers in the law has been extremely high - higher than that of most occupations.

SOME ISSUES RAISED BY THE STORY

There are SO many other stories contained within your article about the tightening of the legal job market; for example:

"Employment opportunities for legal professionals have traditionally been plentiful - and lucrative." To what extent did these legal professionals want this employment? What did these positions offer other than being "lucrative"?

"And last year was the sector's strongest showing in 20 years, with 92% of graduates finding jobs in their field, according to the National Association for Law Placement. But that's beginning to change." What does it mean that 92% found jobs "in their field"? Are there majors in law school? Do law schools prepare their graduates to practice in a field? What do law school surveys show about what law students want to do when they graduate?

"Which means the 150,031 students who were in enrolled in law school last year face a job market that is contracting for the first time in recent history." Most lawyers practice in firms of 5 or less lawyers. Do we know that that market is contracting or is it primarily in the large law firms?

"That means recent graduates not only face experienced competition for limited jobs." There may be limited "jobs". What are the law schools doing about that? Did their graduates want "jobs"? Don't they want to be on their own? Will law schools begin to train lawyers to practice law so they can represent clients upon graduation?

"but also hefty student loan bills. Recent grads are going to have a hard time," What are law schools going to do about these hefty student loans? What are the law schools doing to reduce the cost of law school? Why is the cost increasing? What are the additional services being provided that justify the increases? Why don't they simply eliminate the wasted third year and reduce the cost by one-third?

"Every day I send out resumes, both electronically and through the mail, and every day I receive responses that the law firms are not currently hiring, ..Roughly 300 resumes have landed me one job interview." Where did he learn that the way to find a position is by sending out mass mailings?

" 'I do think the jobs are out there, you just have to look harder for them. You have to dig,' she said." Is that what is known as career planning? "Dig"? Is that the same thing as reviewing your history, your goals and your values, looking at your options, narrowing down to the one that will give you the most satisfaction, finding out who practices in that area, marketing and promoting yourself to that network and accepting a position whether that is a"job" or a position as an independent contractor or sole practitioner?

HOW LAW SCHOOLS FAIL THEIR STUDENTS

After practicing law for 20 years representing individuals and developing programs to deliver legal services to low and middle income people, in 1984 I became the public interest advisor at Harvard Law School. While there and while working with career staff at law schools around the country, I came to the conclusion that traditional law schools provided a service to large law firms and the law schools while ignoring the needs of its students and the public. From surveys I learned that few law students entered law school hoping to be associates at large law firms but year after year law schools "funneled" their graduates to these law firms. The law schools accomplished this by:

Failing to teach law students the skills they needed to practice law (the MacCrate report says that lawyers need 10 skills and law schools teach only 2 and don't teach them that well);

Failing to teach them the values of the legal profession; i.e., the obligation to promote justice and the obligation to take positions consistent with their personal values and professional goals;

Failing to teach them the wide range of options they had in the practice of law; i.e., not letting them know that over 66% of all practicing lawyers were in firms of 5 or less lawyers;

Selling the job placement system to large law firms through the highly negative on-campus interview program while at the same time;

Failing to teach them career planning: the process whereby students look at their goals and their values, explore their options, make a decision and then look for appropriate positions where they are likely to find career satisfaction; and

Charging exorbitant amounts for tuition for minimal services (recognizing that they do not teach their students what they need to practice law) and continuing to increase tuition (while most agree that the cost of law school could immediately be reduced by one-third by getting rid of the useless third year of law school.)

So we have an "educational" system that starts with at least half of its students interested in representing individuals or representing small businesses or hoping to be entrepreneurs. Through a three year program, it fails to teach its students what they need to know, puts them heavily in debt, pressures them to take positions in large law firms that for many are boring, meaningless and incredibly time-consuming. The law firms are happy because they get laborers. The law schools are happy because the loans get paid. The graduates are unhappy and the middle and low income members of the public get no one to help them with their personal plight issues.

Have you ever looked at the annual ranking of law schools by the US News and World Report? If you do, it will take no time to realize that there is NO category - NO column ranking a law school based on which one best prepares its students to practice law!!!!

Since I left Harvard Law School in 1990, I have been an adviser to thousands of law students and unhappy and dissatisfied graduates. The one characteristic most of them share is a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. Their "expertise" is narrow and they know of no options. They feel trapped.

I invite you to contact me if you would like to discuss any professional development issue relating to lawyers.

Thank you for your attention to these issues.

Ron Fox

Ronald W. Fox, Esquire
Career Planning for Lawyers
(781) 639-2322