Just as Michigan was the epicenter of the debate about affirmative action in public education at the turn of the Millenium, Michigan now is assuming a central position in the ongoing debate about the future of legal education. In case you have any doubts, read this article from The Chronicle, "As Top Law Schools Trim Enrollments, the Biggest One Expands." The story details how Cooley Law School's new Tampa Bay campus is defying this year's trend of lower law school enrollments by enrolling twice as many students as originally projected. While the arguments about the cost/benefit of a legal education fly around the blogosphere, the new students interviewed for the story are not deterred by an average $110,000 debt. A 1L with a real estate license explained:
"There's no doubt it's a risk," he says of his decision. "But let's face it, it's tough all over, and this seemed like a good opportunity for a switch."
He says he was reassured by references on Cooley's Web site to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It estimates unemployment among lawyers at 1.5 percent in 2010, "far below the national unemployment rate of 9.6%," according to the law school's summary. (Skeptics of Cooley's interpretation point out that it is unclear how many of the employed lawyers are working in fields that don't require a law degree.)
The law school went on to dismiss reports questioning the value of a legal education today as "anecdotal, unbalanced, and lacking in factual support."
A counterpoint of sorts is offered by former Wayne Law School dean and Michigan Law grad Frank Wu. Wu is now chancellor and dean of the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, who has announced plans to cut his school's enrollment by 20% over the next three years. " We need to reboot legal education," he told The Chronicle.
As The Chronicle story points out, Cooley accepts 80-90% of its applicant pool, and its avowed mission is based on inclusiveness and practical experience. Those goals are not unfamiliar to the University of Michigan Law School, at the other end of the selectivity index. Among its responses to the changing legal education market, Michigan Law has been positioning itself, successfully, as a leader in "law school transparency." In that regard, University of Michigan Law School senior assistant dean for admissions Sarah Zearfoss, talking in her blog about Michigan Law School's policy on making its data public, makes a salient point:
One thing I have learned in discussing these issues is that the data we on the inside think are interesting and significant may not be the data the observers on the outside think are interesting and significant.
Meanwhile, in East Lansing, the Michigan State University College of Law is establishing a national future-of-the-profession presence with symposia such as Lawyers As Conservators and programs like the 21st Century Law Practice Program in London. UDM Law has been a leader in clinical programs, and is tackling immediate, practical problems with creative collaborations such as the Urban Farming Symposium. And at Wayne Law, whose new Damon Keith Center showcases the school's heritage of commitment to equal justice, Dean Robert Ackerman demonstrates the law school's futures orientation with his own blog, in which he tackles the lawyer employment question:
I would rather see the problem in simple economic terms — as a market failure. Willing sellers of legal services have failed to attract the attention of potential buyers of these services. Our profession is capable of addressing this market failure: by easing barriers to entry, by establishing law practice incubators (much as the medical profession provides residencies for newly-minted doctors), by better informing the public about the value and availability of legal services, by considering ways we can create marriages between consumers and providers of legal services. Several law schools, including Wayne, have begun to think about the role we might play in this regard. It is a challenging time for law schools and the legal profession, but not one without its opportunities.
