So says Detroiter Frank Wu, the former Wayne Law dean, now dean of Hastings College of Law, as quoted by legal journalist Lincoln Caplan. Caplan's "An Existential Crisis for Law Schools" in this Saturday's New York Times lays down the usual case for change -- law schools are too expensive for today's legal market -- then voices a deeper complaint:
But in some ways the crisis of law schools goes well beyond the unsustainable economics. Their missions have become muddled, with a widening gap between their lofty claims about the profession’s civic responsibility and their failure to train lawyers for public service or provide them with sufficient preparation for practical work.
