"For Law Schools, a Price to Play," in Sunday's New York Times examines the question focusing on a new barebones law school in Tennessee that is intentionally keeping things simple in order to hold down the cost of tuition, which is still pushing $30K per year. And the story draws a straight-line between the costs of law school and the availability of affordable legal services:
It’s not just that many lawyers are prohibitively expensive. It is that when it comes to legal expertise, there are not a lot of cheaper alternatives — not in the United States, anyway. Britain, on the other hand, has a long menu of options, including a tier of professionals called legal executives, who are licensed after getting the equivalent of a community college degree. Counsel is also available from nonlawyers at a variety of nonprofits. And you can buy a simple divorce over the Internet for a set fee, or pay for customized legal advice, online or by phone.
“In the U.S., people and businesses have only one place to go for all their legal help — lawyers who graduated from an A.B.A.-approved law school and who follow mostly A.B.A. rules about how they run their practice,” says Gillian Hadfield, a professor at the Gould School of Law of the University of Southern California. “Everyone else who offers legal advice is engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.”
The ABA's accreditation of law schools, of course, has long been a source of criticism and irritation. Close to home, there are some who view the Cooley Law School's provocative ranking of law schools, (supposedly a catalyst for the blogger being sued for defamation by Cooley) as a clever send-up of the ABA criteria for accreditation.
