A Modest Proposal Forum

[Veyron]

The ABA should act like the AMA errr... the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). and severely restrict the schools that it accredits. States should be aloud one law school with an enrollment cap of 1500-2000 for every 2.5 million of population. Half of the people who apply to law school should be rejected everywhere they apply (as is the case with med school). This would have several positive effects:

Many unqualified people use law school as a fallback option wasting 3 years and 200k on a useless degree. This will increase the caliber of lawyers and the public's perception of them generally.

Since this would mean that the country now had less lawyers of a higher average quality, there would be upward pressure on salaries.

More people would go into economically productive professions instead of law.

Thoughts

edit: I understand that this is not a new idea but I still want to see if there is some way of justifying our current system which appears unsustainable to me. Literally everyone I know is either applying or planning on applying to LS.

[Renzo]

The ABA should act like the AMA and severely restrict the schools that it accredits. States should be aloud one law school with an enrollment cap of 1500-2000 for every 2.5 million of population. Half of the people who apply to law school should be rejected everywhere they apply (as is the case with med school). This would have several positive effects:

Many unqualified people use law school as a fallback option wasting 3 years and 200k on a useless degree. This will increase the caliber of lawyers and the public's perception of them generally.

Since this would mean that the country now had less lawyers of a higher average quality, there would be upward pressure on salaries.

More people would go into economically productive professions instead of law.

Thoughts

Thoughts? I think you have no idea what you are talking about. First, the AMA doesn't accredit medical schools. Second, the ABA does everything it legally can to restrict new schools. In fact, it has done illegal things to restrict entry--it has already settled one anti-competitve practices case with the DOJ in the past

[SAE]

I wonder how hard it would be to take away accreditations? Ideally, it should happen to the entire T4.

[Veyron]

Ok, not the AMA, the "Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)." Still, my point remains, if med school accreditation is so tight, why not law school?

edit: It wouldn't be that hard to revoke accreditation without running afoul of anti trust. Just immediately revoke the accreditation of any school that generates faulty employment stats and watch lower ranked schools either exit the market of hurt for students. Either way, the effect is to create scarcity and raise standards.

[Sangiovese]

So you're going into law because math isn't your strong suit?

US population: 308 million

You propose 1500 - 2000 enrollment limit per 2.5 million.

308 / 2.5 = 123.2 (We'll round it down to 123)

Using the low end of your proposal.... 1500 * 123 = 184,500 baby lawyers enrolled in school.

184,500 / 3 = 61,500 graduating per year.

The current number graduating per year is 40,000.

So you want to increase the number of new lawyers?

[Renzo]

Ok, not the AMA, the "Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)." Still, my point remains, if med school accreditation is so tight, why not law school?

Medical school accreditation is waaaaaay different than law school accreditation. It actually takes a lot of resources to train doctors, while lawyers need an auditorium and internet access.The reason you see far more new law schools than medical schools is because the profit margin for law schools is high, and basically zero for medical schools. Further, there is no systematic attempt to reduce the number of doctors, the way there is with lawyers. In fact, the government provides huge incentives to get more doctors trained, so if you could possibly find the resources to open a medical school it would be welcomed.

Then there is the whole antitrust problem. You can't have an association of lawyers telling the US economy they aren't going to allow any new lawyers, because they want to enrich themselves. It's illegal.

[vespertiliovir]

So this isn't a thread about eating babies...?

Disappointing

[SAE]

Producing under qualified doctors is a lot worse than a training worthless lawyers.

But don't get me wrong - I'm still on the OP's side.

[avacado111]

This thread is a total waste of time.

[Trifles]

Since this would mean that the country now had less lawyers of a higher average quality, there would be upward pressure on salaries.

This is a BAD THING. That means that less people have access to the court system. It is not your god given right to make 160k for a liberal arts degree and 3 years of reading and bar review when there are people willing to do it for cheaper. Stop acting like a selfish child and realize the world doesn't owe you a favor because you don't want to find a different career path when you know this market is collapsing.

[prezidentv8]

Since this would mean that the country now had less lawyers of a higher average quality, there would be upward pressure on salaries.

This is a BAD THING. That means that less people have access to the court system.

Not necessarily.

[Veyron]

"there is no systematic attempt to reduce the number of doctors, the way there is with lawyers."

Yes there is - Med school admissions as well as pre-med requirements wash out those who are unqualified to be Drs. Those unqualified to be lawyers go to tier 2, 3, and 4 schools. Now would everyone in the gvmt love it if there were more people qualified to be Drs who wanted to go to med school. Yes. But since this is not the case, many aspiring Drs end up having their dreams crushed and have to pick a new profession.

As for my numbers - you are of course correct, try to look past my error to the point that I was trying to make.

[Trifles]

"there is no systematic attempt to reduce the number of doctors, the way there is with lawyers."

Yes there is - Med school admissions as well as pre-med requirements wash out those who are unqualified to be Drs. Those unqualified to be lawyers go to tier 2, 3, and 4 schools. Now would everyone in the gvmt love it if there were more people qualified to be Drs who wanted to go to med school. Yes. But since this is not the case, many aspiring Drs end up having their dreams crushed and have to pick a new profession.

As for my numbers - you are of course correct, try to look past my error to the point that I was trying to make.

Those people are not unqualified just because they went to lower ranked schools. Learning the law is not hard, it is just time-consuming. They still pass the bar exam, they still know about torts and writing briefs, etc. They are not unqualified just because you are an elitist.

[Veyron]

Yes, I am an unrepentant elitist. If what we are doing is critical to the functioning of society (and I think that it is), why would we allow anyone not of the best and brightest into our profession? If we say that the only requirement of a lawyer is that they have a rote knowledge of the law, we've transitioned from being guardians of personal and corporate rights to glorified clerks. Remember, law school doesn't teach you to practice law but to "think like a lawyer". Some stuff like real estate transactions and divorces don't require a law school education to do (and my state allows these things to be done by those who are not a graduate of a law school).

[Trifles]

Its pretty hard to protect personal rights when most of the country can't afford to hire you. Corporate rights, I'll believe that. And law schools don't accept the best and brightest, they accept the people who wern't out partying when they were young and stupid college kids, or didn't withdraw and get a semester of F's or something.

[dresden doll]

Ok, not the AMA, the "Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)." Still, my point remains, if med school accreditation is so tight, why not law school?

Because standards for opening a med school are higher due to the very nature of med profession. A med school must have labs and expensive equipment. All you need for law school is a classroom with a professor.

[Veyron]

Well, of the two, corporate rights are more under siege anyway Besides, do you hire an incompetent mechanic to fix your car just because you don't want to pay for a better mechanic. Besides a better lawyer will work more efficiently saving time and money - or incurring higher fees but winning your case where others would have lost.

Oh hai dresden doll, I think we have spoken under other monikers (on my part). What ever ended up happening with your cycle?

[dresden doll]

Well, of the two, corporate rights are more under siege anyway Besides, do you hire an incompetent mechanic to fix your car just because you don't want to pay for a better mechanic. Besides a better lawyer will work more efficiently saving time and money - or incurring higher fees but winning your case where others would have lost.

Oh hai dresden doll, I think we have spoken under other monikers (on my part). What ever ended up happening with your cycle?

I wound up at Chicago and I'm kinda loving it.

[Veyron]

Awesome, glad to see all went well for you.

However, I've spoken to several Chicago educated lawyers and they all got a 100 yard stare when I asked them about law school. Since I may have to choose between Chi and NYU, may I ask why you like it?

[Sogui]

States should be aloud one law school with an enrollment cap of 1500-2000 for every 2.5 million of population.

be aloud one law school

aloud

aloud

Err anyway, this doesn't seem like a good idea because the field of law isn't like medicine. Doctors are required to be universally proficient, because no matter what field you take, people are entrusting you with their health and their lives. Meanwhile there are actually jobs out there designed for TTT lawyers because T14/T1 lawyers would never take them. They'd feel too entitled based on the prestige of their school and the debt that they took on to grab some $60k shitlaw firm job. Believe it or not there is a sector out there for mediocre lawyers that needs to be filled.

It makes no sense to arbitrarily cap the population of any one profession, especially one as important as lawyers. Let the free market determine just how many lawyers we need, and even though there will be flaws, and some of the "fringe" schools may misrepresent their numbers, I think society would much rather have a supply problem with lawyers than a demand problem. In time things will work themselves out, schools cannot misrepresent themselves forever, if that is what they are really doing. People on JDUnderground tend to be drama queens anyway and act like shit schools polishing themselves up is some new phenomenon that is going to tear apart the legal world as we know it.

[Sogui]

Yes, I am an unrepentant elitist.

States should be aloud one law school

Several posts filled with terrible, cringe-inducing logic

If our system ever changed into some highly regulated elite collection of law schools, I have a feeling you'd be one of those "unqualified" lawyers out looking for work elsewhere.

I also love some of the other replies, great points all around. Except for OP.

[antonin]

Well, of the two, corporate rights are more under siege anyway Besides, do you hire an incompetent mechanic to fix your car just because you don't want to pay for a better mechanic. Besides a better lawyer will work more efficiently saving time and money - or incurring higher fees but winning your case where others would have lost.

Oh hai dresden doll, I think we have spoken under other monikers (on my part). What ever ended up happening with your cycle?

My 2 cents on the proposal.
1)TTT Lawyers are not incompetent mechanics or incompetent lawyers. That is why they pass the bar exam. The lawyers, or want-to-be lawyers that are incompetent are the ones who cannot pass the bar examination.
2) There is not an over-abundance of lawyers, but there is an over-abundance of twenty-something as*holes who would not settle for anything less than 160K even though the market dictates that they should be making much less. In an internship that I participated at a state supreme court, the problem was that there were not enough lawyers to take cases of people accused of criminal charges but could not afford to pay for a lawyer.
3) It is counter-productive if you limit the amount of lawyers considering that there are some structural shortages, example mentioned above. What must be considered however, in my humble opinion, is a lowering of the prices of law schools. To become a lawyer costs as much as to become a doctor, yet as previous posters mentioned you do not need a lab, just a professor+books+internet. I also thought schools were supposed to be non-profit organizations. By lowering prices, then many bright people might choose to do less lucrative, but more socially meaningful law for forty hours a week (do the type of work i mention above), and thus having time for other things, rather than work excessive amounts and make excessive money. I do think that some people do not go into LAW for the money, but are forced towards it because of crushing debt.
This way we might even have less schools since their incentive is somewhat limited if they do not charge 50k.
4) Your whole premise seems kind of biased. So, you are a law school applicant, that has read that the market is not that good, so you would like to fix it by limiting your competition. Kind of like, mom they are too many good students in this class, wouldn't it better if I was the only student. Yeah, well the law school profession is based on competition, and if you are as bright as you are an elitist, then probably you should do well in the competition. Looking at some of your math abilities, and your "modest proposal," you will probably need to work a lot on the brightness part.

[Veyron]

I don't want to limit competition so much as I want only a very small number of lawyers to be certified by the AMA. Like I said, I highly approve of the more rote work in law being done by non-lawyers.

Personally, I'd rather the government not regulate much of the economy at all but that doesn't mean that the private organization that accredits lawyers needs to stamp its seal of approval on every TTT grad with a pulse.

The best comment so far is that the bar exam provides a sort of quality control. However, it seems as if the only state where a significant number of ppl fail is California. Perhaps other states should make the exam harder to compensate.

[Veyron]

No More Room at the Bench

Highlight:

The American Bar Assn. allows unneeded new law schools to open and refuses to regulate them. The government should consider taking steps to stop the flow of attorneys into a saturated marketplace...

Part of the problem can be traced to the American Bar Assn., which continues to allow unneeded new schools to open and refuses to properly regulate the schools, many of which release numbers that paint an overly rosy picture of employment prospects for their recent graduates. There is a finite number of jobs for lawyers, and this continual flood of graduates only suppresses wages. Because the ABA has repeatedly signaled its unwillingness to adapt to this changing reality, the federal government should consider taking steps to stop the rapid flow of attorneys into a marketplace that cannot sustain them...

The U.S. Department of Education should strip the ABA of its accreditor status and give the authority to an organization that is free of conflicts of interest, such as the Assn. of American Law Schools or a new group. Although the AALS is made up of law schools, it is an independent, nonprofit, academic -- not professional -- group, which could be expected to maintain the viability and status of the profession, properly regulate law schools, curtail the opening of new programs and perhaps even shut down unneeded schools. The AALS has cast a very skeptical eye on for-profit schools, compared with the ABA's weak hands-off accreditation policies.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- ... ?track=rss

[Kohinoor]

The ABA should act like the AMA errr... the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). and severely restrict the schools that it accredits. States should be aloud

I think we're done here.