If you can change the way law school is run from all standpoints, how would you change it? Forum

[Blueberrypie]

I would get rid of the whole institution and start apprenticeships. Law schools would turn to semi-recruiting agencies and you would submit your resume academic transcripts, recommendations, the LSAT and a personal statement. You would select a maximum of two concentrations of law you are interested in. You will be matched up with attorneys in your interested fields and study under them for 1-2 years. Then you take a standard focusing on general law and focusing on your concentration. The tuition would be much cheaper and you learn by doing, which is beautiful. You will be assessed by your teacher through evaluation. This evaluation and final test score will be used to aid in job search. Yo'ull also make a lo of connections through interacting with other lawyers, judges etc on a daily basis.

So who wants to join my "law school"? lol

[POTUSorSCOTUS]

re: my last post in your previous thread, I believe you are happy

[thenorth]

I believe that if OP's reformed law school system were to become widespread (an enormous and distant if), it would greatly reduce the traditional prestige and distinctions associated with the legal profession and lawyers. In general salaries would probably decline because new lawyers would have narrower skill-sets (maybe pushing would-be lawyers to other fields), or alternatively there might emerge a huge disparity between a an even smaller elite of top lawyers/firms and average ones -- those who command the resources and talent to the point that average firms and lawyers become far less useful (automate-able?). Then there may also be some issues with training new judges and the potential need for more of them, or a special system of judge-specific training as exists in some European countries, if they have more limited expertise.

[rinkrat19]

I would get rid of all the casebook bullshit in doctrinal subjects. If it's really possible to learn conlaw from Chemerinsky in 7 hours of barbri lecture, there's no need to painfully extract snippets of evolving precedent from 800 pages of caselaw. Just fucking teach law to law students like any other normal fucking school subject; don't make it a goddam treasure hunt. It's useless and pointless and excruciating and a complete waste of time.

[thenorth]

Rinkrat are you a law student currently? What you're saying depends a lot on what one hopes to do with a JD. I think many people agree that law school at a certain level offers instruction in analytical thinking and application of principles, required by some professionals but not all. The suggestion that legal training should become more specialized early on will hugely benefit some and not others.

[rinkrat19]

Rinkrat are you a law student currently? What you're saying depends a lot on what one hopes to do with a JD. I think many people agree that law school at a certain level offers instruction in analytical thinking and application of principles, required by some professionals but not all. The suggestion that legal training should become more specialized early on will hugely benefit some and not others.

Just graduated, just started studying for the bar.
You might learn analytical thinking in clinic and application of principles in legal writing, but anything you get out of the doctrinal classes could easily be condensed and taught like a normal school subject instead of the current masturbatory treasure hunt.

[thenorth]

Rinkrat are you a law student currently? What you're saying depends a lot on what one hopes to do with a JD. I think many people agree that law school at a certain level offers instruction in analytical thinking and application of principles, required by some professionals but not all. The suggestion that legal training should become more specialized early on will hugely benefit some and not others.

Just graduated, just started studying for the bar.
You might learn analytical thinking in clinic and application of principles in legal writing, but anything you get out of the doctrinal classes could easily be condensed and taught like a normal school subject instead of the current masturbatory treasure hunt.

I see. OL here. So then does one's ability to do well in law school, at least in doctrinal classes, depend on how well they are able to condense all of it (and to organize in an outline)? Makes sense.

[rinkrat19]

Rinkrat are you a law student currently? What you're saying depends a lot on what one hopes to do with a JD. I think many people agree that law school at a certain level offers instruction in analytical thinking and application of principles, required by some professionals but not all. The suggestion that legal training should become more specialized early on will hugely benefit some and not others.

Just graduated, just started studying for the bar.
You might learn analytical thinking in clinic and application of principles in legal writing, but anything you get out of the doctrinal classes could easily be condensed and taught like a normal school subject instead of the current masturbatory treasure hunt.

I see. OL here. So then does one's ability to do well in law school, at least in doctrinal classes, depend on how well they are able to condense all of it (and to organize in an outline)? Makes sense.

Now you're asking an entirely different question (and one which I can't answer all that well).
You asked how I would change law school. I'd change doctrinal classes so you are taught some stuff and then you apply that stuff to a fact pattern. I wouldn't bury the stuff you're supposed to learn under so much bullshit that you forget what it was. It should not take three days to pick out a 2-sentence holding about when a federal court has to apply state law. Just fucking TELL us when a federal court has to apply state law. Then we write it down and remember it and didn't just waste three days and don't spend the rest of our lives getting PTSD flashbacks whenever someone mentions Erie.
You'll realize how pointless it all was when you sit down to watch your Barbri lectures. "Holy shit, this entire subject can be covered in 7 hours? What the fuck have I been doing for three years?" (I knew it was coming, but I didn't expect it to be this much of a shock.)

[thenorth]

I'm trying to detect some way in which you think nuance has a place in these sorts of legal subjects. I know LS increasingly gets a bad wrap about this sort of thing (time, $$, ultimate value), but geez.

[starry eyed]

if your plan works, then we will really have too many lawyers

did it occur to anyone that law schools raise tuition bc TOO MANY FUCKERS were enrolling in them (besides the scams that sprouted up in the near past-they were just wrong on the speculation that it would continue) it's supply and demand. this 'law school is evil gig' i think has run its course. We should be thankful that tuition is as outrageous as it is bc it keeps most people from coming in the first place.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Law schools raise tuition because the ease of getting federal loans means they can do so without serious consequences, not as a way to keep people out. Numbers haven't gone down because of tuition increases and increases in tuition don't keep people from going to law school when they can easily get federal loans to pay tuition; people just pay more.

(FWIW, doing Barbri didn't make me feel like I could have learned in 7 hours what we got out of a semester of con law; it made me feel like I learned how to take a particular test. I wouldn't consider Barbri at all sufficient for actual prep for being lawyer - not that law school teaches you how to practice, but I do buy the cliched "think like a lawyer thing," to some extent. I don't think 3 years is necessarily required to get there, but I didn't have the same reaction to Barbri.)

[thenorth]

Law schools raise tuition because the ease of getting federal loans means they can do so without serious consequences, not as a way to keep people out. Numbers haven't gone down because of tuition increases and increases in tuition don't keep people from going to law school when they can easily get federal loans to pay tuition; people just pay more.

I suspect this is mostly true, although it appears some schools are "struggling," even with their massive endowments -- but they are able to get away with charging at the upper end of what the market will tolerate. But this issue is not limited to law schools. The consensus is that the US is already glutted with lawyers (and college grads generally).

[Serett]

I'd buy the Quick Stop and reopen it myself!

[071816]

masturbatory treasure hunt.

if I had to summarize law school (especially 1L) in three words this is how I'd do it.

[POTUSorSCOTUS]

masturbatory treasure hunt.

if I had to summarize law school (especially 1L) in three words this is how I'd do it.

sticky this

[haus]

I would get rid of all the casebook bullshit in doctrinal subjects. If it's really possible to learn conlaw from Chemerinsky in 7 hours of barbri lecture, there's no need to painfully extract snippets of evolving precedent from 800 pages of caselaw. Just fucking teach law to law students like any other normal fucking school subject; don't make it a goddam treasure hunt. It's useless and pointless and excruciating and a complete waste of time.

Do you think that law school could reasonably be reduced from the three year model to a two year model?

[rinkrat19]

I would get rid of all the casebook bullshit in doctrinal subjects. If it's really possible to learn conlaw from Chemerinsky in 7 hours of barbri lecture, there's no need to painfully extract snippets of evolving precedent from 800 pages of caselaw. Just fucking teach law to law students like any other normal fucking school subject; don't make it a goddam treasure hunt. It's useless and pointless and excruciating and a complete waste of time.

Do you think that law school could reasonably be reduced from the three year model to a two year model?

If you changed how the doctrinal subjects are taught, you could cram it all into one year like a paralegal course or something.

If you don't change how the doctrinal subjects are taught, law school could still easily fit in 2 years. You'd just reduce the number of non-doctrinal classes and clinics students take. Unfortunately, clinics and externships are the only useful shit you do in law school, and seminars are the interesting shit.

I don't think there's a person alive (outside of the administration of every law school) who thinks 3L year is vital to a lawyer's education.

[PennBull]

2 years

[jbagelboy]

One simple, reasonable change: ABA approved law school tuition should be capped at tuition of the parent undergraduate institution. For example, tuition and fees at UCLA is $13,806 in-state per year, or $37,830 for out of state, for 2015-2016. Why is law school tuition more than triple, at $45,226 in-state ($51,720 OOS)! Harvard College is $45,278 year round, or $60,600 est total, whereas the law school is $85,580 per year! Why! An undergraduate education is far more valuable than a law school one. The sheer abusive profit motive is the only explanation, and that should not be legitimated.

[rpupkin]

One simple, reasonable change: ABA approved law school tuition should be capped at tuition of the parent undergraduate institution. For example, tuition and fees at UCLA is $13,806 in-state per year, or $37,830 for out of state, for 2015-2016. Why is law school tuition more than triple, at $45,226 in-state ($51,720 OOS)!

With respect to in-state tuition, the answer to your question is that the state of California decided several years ago to drastically reduce state funding for professional schools. In the 1990s, Boalt, UCLA, and Hastings were close to free for law students. But then the state concluded (not unreasonably, in my opinion) that professional students should fund their own education.

[rpupkin]

(FWIW, doing Barbri didn't make me feel like I could have learned in 7 hours what we got out of a semester of con law; it made me feel like I learned how to take a particular test. I wouldn't consider Barbri at all sufficient for actual prep for being lawyer - not that law school teaches you how to practice, but I do buy the cliched "think like a lawyer thing," to some extent. I don't think 3 years is necessarily required to get there, but I didn't have the same reaction to Barbri.)

I completely agree with this. For what it's worth, it took me a couple of years of practice to appreciate The Value of Law School. I'm a litigator, though.

[rinkrat19]

One simple, reasonable change: ABA approved law school tuition should be capped at tuition of the parent undergraduate institution. For example, tuition and fees at UCLA is $13,806 in-state per year, or $37,830 for out of state, for 2015-2016. Why is law school tuition more than triple, at $45,226 in-state ($51,720 OOS)! Harvard College is $45,278 year round, or $60,600 est total, whereas the law school is $85,580 per year! Why! An undergraduate education is far more valuable than a law school one. The sheer abusive profit motive is the only explanation, and that should not be legitimated.

Northwestern Law tuition: $56,134
Northwestern UG tuition: $48,642

Both are ungodly expensive. A cap would only help a little.

[MousAnony]

Anyone ever read the ABA's 1992 MacCrate Report?

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf

[blsingindisguise]

I think there's actually some benefit to the caselaw method, IF you are actually going to be litigating, just probably not enough to be worth three years of it. You need to be reasonably good at the treasure hunt when you're doing your legal research for briefs.

[rinkrat19]

I think there's actually some benefit to the caselaw method, IF you are actually going to be litigating, just probably not enough to be worth three years of it. You need to be reasonably good at the treasure hunt when you're doing your legal research for briefs.

I completely suck at the caselaw method of learning...and my clinic prof called me his "most efficient and effective researcher." So, ymmv.