God this is difficult to believe a person actually thinks.

Lemon difficult.

Trolling?

I hate passing judgment on people I don't know but I'm making an exception. You. I don't like you.

Really? And I'm thinking about half of America thinks the same way I do. Maybe you should start getting exposed to ideas which disagree with your own.

Some of you are hilarious. An entity requiring individuals who wish to enter a certain profession complete a period of residency through PI work does not amount to slavery. Just as anyone given a choice between becoming a businessman and a doctor might decide that residency requirements are too much of a deterrence and thus choose business, so could all of you recalculate the costs and benefits of pursuing a career in law. In slavery, you can't simply calculate the costs and benefits and decide, nah, I ain't gonna do that. Furthermore, because the costs of attending law school would effectively go up, private firms would likely be forced to raise market pay in order incentivize prospective law students to enter the profession.

This is not an argument in favor of the proposal. Just an argument in favor of truthful dialogue.

Really? And I'm thinking about half of America thinks the same way I do. Maybe you should start getting exposed to ideas which disagree with your own.

I wouldn't call it slavery

Yes, notice how liberals dislike people for having contrary opinions.

There was a study recently which found that liberals are twice as likely as conservative to "unfriend" someone for their political views.

Talk about creating a culture for healthy discourse.

Lol. So much to say to that comment, but yet I hope most people get the irony in that segment.

(1) too much of a PI background can sink you in biglaw interviews. There are not enough people or desks to supervise all the new grads doing their work. Law isn't like hospitals which are large organizations already set up to train people.

(2) Why should PI groups with the least resources be the people training new associates?

(1') Shouldn't we wonder why that is? The best lawyers care about humanity and carry that empathy into each and every endeavor. You would think that corporations and major firms would appreciate this quality in attorneys. It would help them prepare better for challenges because they would see all sides of issues. Even when ripping off the public or another company, that trait can be helpful, no? One would be much better at predicting potential obstacles or objections to land use, destruction of parks, etc. Many of the skills required to succeed in PI would make a corporate lawyer much better at his craft, and my proposal only involves 2-3 years post-grad, not am lifetime. PI is probably the best training a lawyer can receive for all types of law.

(2')To answer your question about training, law firms complain that attorneys have no idea of how to organize their day or function within a corporate law environment when they arrive. PI organizations can train attorneys because they would provide legal aid to underserved groups of prople. There's more work to be done, and the issues new attorneys would confront do not typically involve multimillion-dollar issues. They would cut their teeth and make less expensive mistakes before entering the corporate world.

Besides that, your comments are not on-point: we are discussing what ought to be, not the current state of affairs.

-- (Obama Voter)

Are you going to suspend my loan payments AND stop them from accruing interest during those 2-3 years while I'm making $35K a year (or whatever PI jobs pay)?

Response: Yes

For that matter, where are these courts and PI organizations going to get the money to fund this?

Response: How do government officials waste money on wars?

From speaking with my friends who want to do PI, it seems like they don't have enough money to hire people who actually want to do PI as it is.

Response: Your sample is unrepresentative, which renders your logic flawed.

Even if you do get funding and you do suspend the program, that means I'm going to earn about $250K to $375K less during my lifetime than I would have if I went right to work at a traditional firm (knock on wood) and did some pro bono work on the side.

Response: Isn't that a potential downfall of the current system, which asks inexperienced lawyers to simply sink or swim without having a clue as to what they're getting into?

That's a big deal, especially if you're a student who has a family to support.

Response: Agreed.

You mentioned weeding out "the suckers who don't really want to be lawyers"...what about those of us who do want to be lawyers but just have 0 interest in doing PI work?

Response: There's no such person, and that is the point. If you are in the field simply for the money, and never want to give anything back to society, you are nothing more than a parasite who doesn't belong in the field. Providing care to those who need it most is the core foundation of the legal and medical professions. We have gotten away from that. What if all doctors simply wanted to help the rich, and you, upon graduating from law school, need medical care but cannot afford it? Do you not deserve help? A lawyer is first and above all else a public servant, and PI work prepares one for any other type of law.

I have no interest in it, and I have done a decent amount of volunteer work in the past, including two years for an AmeriCorps program.

Response: A nice start, but that's childs play! Try defending an indigent grandmother about to lose her home through no fault of her own, or a wrongfully convicted felon who was framed by the police...then come and talk to me.

I think compulsory volunteer work programs can also do a disservice to organizations, because then volunteer work is seen (at least by some people) as something you "have" to do rather than as something you should want to do.

Response: I suppose, then, that medical residents do not appreciate the valuable experience they're getting and the advantage it gives them in their careers...how it reduces the likelihood that they will lose lives or be sued during their careers. Nobody is talking about slave labor here. I would suggest generous loan deferments and/or forgiveness (depending), a housing and transportation stipend, a guaranteed $65K salary, and guaranteed medical benefits paid for by the government. If we could afford Iraq and Afghanistan, our government can afford it.

Again, you want to force law students to work at a low paying job for 3 years. Because it will help society that they are providing expensive services without being properly compensated.

I have a much better idea. Why don't we just take a random 20% of the population, and make them and their kids slaves. This will help society, since we will be able to get expensive services from them without compensating them. The 80% of the population will be much better off.
In fact, why make it random? We don't want to just do a lottery. So we can choose a discrete group of people.
How about all the doctors? No, they'll just stop being doctors.
How about all the engineers? no, they'll stop being engineers
So it should probably be race based, and that way it will also be easier to identify them if they run away. This is a great idea. I'm astounded we haven't thought of this yet. I bet the ABA will be all over it, after I write my student note advocating it.

...the upsides are multifold. For society, we all benefit from a large perpetual cohort of physicians to care for them in hospitals and clinics throughout the country. For practices, who don't have to pay to train physicians, which would cost a ton and the "education" would not be standardized to ensure comprehensive training.

After all, if you were to undergo a residency-type training program as a newly minted lawyer, you would likely learn a TON because the educational programs would be designed to give you a breadth of experiences and likely give you MUCH more supervised autonomy than many newly minted lawyers currently get. And, thus, trainees also benefit from the residency training despite the financial downsides.

I can't imagine how many diagnoses I would have missed or screwed up without 3 years of residency training. Sure, I would have started making more money from the get-go but my confidence would have been much lower and the pressure would have been much higher. Of course, there are things about medicine that are not similar to law... like, you can kill someone with a poor decision in medicine. But, you can really screw up someone's life in the law with a poor decision... so, it still matters. I love the above proposal!

Though, I can tell you , I would NOT be going back to law school right now if I knew I would have to go through another EFFING residency program afterward! That is FOR SURE! So, I am thankful the above proposal will not apply to me.

Really interesting interchange. Shows fundamental flaws in both liberal and conservative discourse. Liberals are closed off to all ideas except those that they or other liberals accept. Conservatives are so ambivalent to the prudence of some political correctness that they will argue for intellectually honest, good ideas and evil ideas and not be able to differentiate them. It is funny that in a way conservatives have become liberal in terms of their support for critical/intellectually honest thought, while liberals have embraced uncritical homogeneity of thought. It is a pity that conservatives can't be more prudent

I just dont think PI 0Ls are rational. They don't realize how crappy PI is to work in, and how much personal sacrifice it will require of them (eg. not being able to support a family, working with under qualified and bad people daily, not being appreciated and marginalized by many, having a horrible stigma with your work product, uneven training, and closing off all real other opportunities like government and firm work for an indeterminate chance at making a difference.

God this is difficult to believe a person actually thinks.

Lemon difficult.

Oh good! Thought that might have gone unnoticed.