Who holds the biggest impact in "correcting" LS process? Forum

[things fall apart]

Excuse [possible] incorrect grammar in topic. I tried to word it to be comprehensible while within the word limit.

This is not meant to be of these which should, but rather which will hold edge in correcting the law school process?

[Fresh]

ABA?

[Bildungsroman]

Not sure why "LSAC (i.e. monitoring LS expansion)" is on there. LSAC doesn't regulate law schools. They design and administer the LSAT and they are a venue for submitting apps to law schools. Did you mean the ABA?

[things fall apart]

Not sure why "LSAC (i.e. monitoring LS expansion)" is on there. LSAC doesn't regulate law schools. They design and administer the LSAT and they are a venue for submitting apps to law schools. Did you mean the ABA?

Ah thank you, quick brain fart

[CanadianWolf]

ABA will not limit expansion; already went through one lawsuit regarding "for profit" law schools & lost. On what grounds could the ABA deny future law schools from being accredited if they comply with all requirements ?
One option is to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy so that lenders will be tighter with student loan money. This, in turn, should cause law schools to limit increased costs & , possibly, to lower tuition. With law schools generating less money fewer will open & some may close.

[MattThiessen]

Voted for other. I don't think any of the ones on your list will make any substantive changes.

If anything changes the game, it will be the people lending the money. Once they realize they are literally never going to get paid back by the majority of TTTT's/TTT a lot of T2 and some T1 graduates, maybe they will get smart and actually make getting the loans harder? I don't see it happening anytime soon, but anyway, that's the only way I can see any real change.

[CanadianWolf]

Additionally, individual states may lower bar exam pass rates to restrict the number entering the legal field, but I am unsure as to what grounds would justify such a move. Perhaps the Ohio Supreme Court started the process by denying C&F clearance for a law graduate deemed too deep in debt from law school loans to be certified as fit to join the Ohio State Bar.

[txadv11]

I think students and alumni without jerbs will 'drive' the correction, and schools will have to be the ones to facilitate the correction or not.

[CanadianWolf]

Another method would be to require additional qualifications to be eligible to sit for any bar exam. One such hurdle could be requiring a two year internship in a law firm or government agency--much like a doctor's residency--after law school before being eligible to apply to take a state's bar exam.

[RPK34]

I think students and alumni without jerbs will 'drive' the correction, and schools will have to be the ones to facilitate the correction or not.

I bet over half of most TTT don't have legal jobs (and I may be generous there), and I bet some TTT or fourth tier schools have 80% struggling to make student loan payments. Doesn't mean they're going to struggle with getting more students next year though.

[rman1201]

There won't be uniform movement amongst schools/students without executive (ABA/Gov't/etc) action. The only viable option is ABA from the choices.
It all follows game theory. If there is a movement among students that law school isn't a good idea it would behoove you to be one of the few students that does stick around and thus have less competition, more opportunities and reap giant rewards. So therefore it can't work, there's too much incentive to be one of the ones sticking around should everyone else leave.
Same with schools. If most schools start reporting more reliable/accurate information, the ones that maintain deceiving info would have the greatest rewards.
There'd have to be an external influence.

[things fall apart]

Another methed would be to require additional qualifications to be eligible to sit for any bar exam. One such hurdle could be requiring a two year internship in a law firm or government agency--much like a doctor's residency--after law school before being eligible to apply to take a state's bar exam.

While noble, I think this is entirely impossible. Though it seems beneficial to drown out some redundant TTTT choices, a 5 year track is impossible. This means at the earliest a standard applicant graduates at 27. While this is common in other fields, those are usually sciences which have a higher value for fresh faces.

Additionally this shift would require more government/institutional money in form of grants and I think that has 0% chance of passing in American society going forward. LS costs wont go down, which means if a kid takes a loan out in UG, he would most likely not be able to pay it off for a decade, and for LS he would have to wait 5 years with interest on that 180k. This does happen in the sciences, but as I said science graduates are a bit different.

Finally, while the country is churning out far too many lawyers at the moment this is actually in my opinion not necessary. Lawyers are needed in the public sector in a pretty substantial number(and to a lesser degree in the private) and the this requirement I actually think would put lawyers in the red after a decade. You dont need 5 years of post grad lawyer training to try a gangbanger for possession of a controlled substance or a 40 year old for speeding.

[things fall apart]

There won't be uniform movement amongst schools/students without executive (ABA/Gov't/etc) action. The only viable option is ABA from the choices.
It all follows game theory. If there is a movement among students that law school isn't a good idea it would behoove you to be one of the few students that does stick around and thus have less competition, more opportunities and reap giant rewards. So therefore it can't work, there's too much incentive to be one of the ones sticking around should everyone else leave.
Same with schools. If most schools start reporting more reliable/accurate information, the ones that maintain deceiving info would have the greatest rewards.
There'd have to be an external influence.

This is following the assumption that only students currently in LS are following this "game theory". If I'm a senior in high school, I could easily decide against being a poli sci major and instead go on to business/psychology/whatever and do a different career track. I think almost everyone here knows that in the next 5 years, even if any significant change comes we wont see the results.

Additionally, reporting accurate info is not the only thing schools can do, it was just an example. The could limit class sizes, have different/stricter graduating requirements, change cirriculums, engage alumni more. Whatever I'm not the one to figure this out for them, what Im saying is there is much more they can do outside of reporting starting salary better.

[cinephile]

I chose "other," but by other I meant that nothing will correct LS process.

[Jack Smirks]

Why do you assume the legal hiring/economic model will be corrected? I think most experts have agreed on the fact that even after the economy bounces back the old model will not revive itself. So are you asking which institution will help to limit the saturation of the market?

If that's the question I think the answer will be a combination of all of the above. The ABA is beginning to help in being (more so but not perfectly) transparent about the risks of attending law school and the dismal state of the profession. I think law schools will also begin to buckle under the pressure to be more transparent and honest in their publishing of job outlook statistics. However, I don't see either of these two taking drastic measures to correct the problem. I don't think we will see the ABA stop accrediting schools or limiting the bar passage rate. I also don't think schools will begin limiting or cutting back on enrollment, as long as they're seeing money rolling in it's not in their best interest to do so. I think they will continue to maintain the status quo while taking small measures to "save face" under growing criticism of how they're handling the problem.

Prospective students will begin to be turned off at the idea of attending law schools as the field continues to get nationwide press attention and the knowledge that attending law school is a risky business becomes more commonplace (this already seems to happening see this article http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... ions-fall/). I can't imagine that the numbers will ever drop drastically enough to be below 2005 levels and I think a lot of this depends on what the general economy does over the next couple years.

As far as the "legal field" I really don't think we're going to see much overall growth. I read all the time about non-lawyers having access to cheap legal services like online forms and do-it-yourself sites that used to require the services of a lawyer. Also, many people are now hiring lawyers on a piecemeal basis for stuff like divorces and real estate transactions. This, and the added presence of legal outsourcing to qualified attorneys in other countries who are willing to work at a much less expensive rate is sure to hamper any effort of this country's legal field to place the overabundance of attorneys.

So overall I don't anticipate much of a change and if we do see anything that resembles a "correction" it will take an effort from three of the players you mentioned (with exclusion to the "legal field" which is going to shrink if anything) and it will be incremental and take some time.

[glitched]

What's wrong with it? Lol

[General Tso]

I think we are still 10+ years away from students (and the public at large) realizing that a legal degree is not worth 200k

[Jack Smirks]

I think we are still 10+ years away from students (and the public at large) realizing that a legal degree is not worth 200k

I'm really hoping it's more like 2 years.

[starrydreamz3]

Supply follows demand, not the other way around. Those demanding a legal education hold the reins. Though in this case, its really those willing to forgoe a JD who will help the most. Low enrollment will cause the low tier schools to shut down. Then again, many of those schools shouldn't have been approved by the ABA in the first place, but I digress.

[DeeCee]

I chose students because until we show that we are smart consumers and we will not pay crazy amounts of money to go to sub-par schools, the current LS structure will stay in place.

[glitched]

Supply follows demand, not the other way around. Those demanding a legal education hold the reins. Though in this case, its really those willing to forgoe a JD who will help the most. Low enrollment will cause the low tier schools to shut down. Then again, many of those schools shouldn't have been approved by the ABA in the first place, but I digress.

sometimes supply creates demand. less people will want to go to law school if less people had a good chance of going to a law school.

[General Tso]

I chose students because until we show that we are smart consumers and we will not pay crazy amounts of money to go to sub-par schools, the current LS structure will stay in place.

the problem is that 22 year olds who have no career prospects and who have been told over the course of their entire lives that education is the answer to all their wildest dreams are not smart consumers.

[txadv11]

I chose students because until we show that we are smart consumers and we will not pay crazy amounts of money to go to sub-par schools, the current LS structure will stay in place.

the problem is that 22 year olds who have no career prospects and who have been told over the course of their entire lives that education is the answer to all their wildest dreams are not smart consumers.

I'm 23

[DeeCee]

I chose students because until we show that we are smart consumers and we will not pay crazy amounts of money to go to sub-par schools, the current LS structure will stay in place.

the problem is that 22 year olds who have no career prospects and who have been told over the course of their entire lives that education is the answer to all their wildest dreams are not smart consumers.

I have to agree with how very true this is (as a 23 yr old finishing a masters). My father is under the impression that the more education you have, the better. He is always up my ass to "continue my education" as if being a lifelong student will get me somewhere. He was disappointed when I told him a JD would be my last degree, and that having a stack of degrees does not guarantee a good life. After he hassled me about this I finally asked him if he planned on paying the 100,000+ dollars of debt I might acquire in LS, and he stopped bothering me.

[niederbomb]

I'm not sure anything will happen.

I chose "other" because I think only government action could overcome the institutional inertia necessary to make significant changes of this or any other nature. Highly unlikely in any case.

Universities have been pumping out useless doctorates and liberal arts UG's for some time, and the market hasn't changed this state of affairs on its own. There's no reason to believe law schools will be any different. Someday, the world will wake up to the idea that modern "education" means learning science, math, and computers, and those not so inclined had better learn a trade.