Last week's op-ed "Law School is Worth The Money" has been greeted with huzzahs from many law school deans and bar leaders at cocktail parties and at dinner tables, but the blogosphere is largely another story. TaxProf Blog's Paul Caron has rounded up the critics. Here's a gross compilation:
- ABA Journal, Law Dean Criticizes ‘Overwrought Atmosphere’ Discouraging Prospective Students
- Above the Law, Law Dean Takes to the New York Times Op-Ed Page to Blame Media for Declining Law School Applications
- Craig Calcaterra, The Shady Economics of Law School
- Paul Campos, Too Many Lawyers? Says Who?
- Comedians at Law, Is Law School Worth It – Not When You Can Own a Subway Franchise
- Legal Ethics Form, Two Arguments in Favor of Law School Debt
- Matt Leichter, If Law School Is Worth the Money, Why Subsidize It?
- Bernard Burk (North Carolina), More On What Matters Most (Or, Paging Dr. Pangloss)
- Craig Calcaterra, The Shady Economics of Law School
- Paul Campos (Colorado), Too Many Lawyers? Says Who?
- Paul Campos (ITLSS), Response to Larry Mitchell's New York Times editorial
- Cleveland Plain Dealer, CWRU Law Dean Says Law School Is Bargain, Jobs Are Available; Lots of Other People Disagree
- Scott Fruehwald, "Law School is Worth the Money" in N.Y. Times
- Stephanie Giancristofaro-Partyka, Is It Worth It?
- Scott Greenfield, Law Porn in the New York Times
- Law Prof Blawg, Law School Is, Like, TOTALLY Worth It!
- Renee Knake, Entrepreneurial Lawyering - one way to help make law school worth the money
- Keith Lee, Young Lawyer: Are You Really A Failure?
- Matt Leichter, If Law School Is Worth the Money, Why Subsidize It?
- Graham Martin, Law Dean: Law School is Worth the Money
- Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State), Scholarshame
- Alison Monahan, Law School Deans, You Are the Problem
- Elie Mystal, Students and Recent Graduates Speak Out About Dean Mitchell’s Defense of Law School
- Nando, Profiles in Vile Academic Self Interest: Lawrence Mitchell, Dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law
- Hamilton Nolan, Second-Tier Law School Dean Desperately Assures You That Law School Is Still a Great Buy
- Nancy Rapoport (Interim Dean, UNLV), Is Dean Lawrence Mitchell Right About Law Schools?
- Abby Rogers, Outspoken Dean Is Making His Students Sick by Defending Law School
- Jake Seliger, The Specious reasoning in Lawrence M. Mitchell's "Law School is Worth the Money"
A comment to Caron's roundup asks a good question:
Who is the good Dean's audience? The media? The legal academy? Practicing lawyers? Current or potential students? If it's the media, I've yet to see someone win a fight against media "hysteria" and "nonsense" in the Age of the Internet. If it's the academy, he'll get a few pats on the back at next year's AALS conference (assuming travel stipends aren't cut by then). If it's practicing lawyers, the op-ed will reconfirm their belief that academics have no clue about what's actually been happening in the profession since the '80s (e.g., bimodel salary distribution, electronic discovery, outsourcing, etc). If it's student, he has a real problem. Dean Mitchell makes a system argument about what the profession should look like--the typical the best and brightest promoting access to justice and the rule of law stuff--and then argues applicants a not properly valuing a law degree's worth. His best and strongest arguments seem to be: (1) other professions are struggling too; (2) you can get jobs other than being a lawyer; (3) tuition and debt are not so bad relatively speaking; and (4) the baby boomers will die and you can take their jobs. But potential law students, not the practicing bar or legal academics, make the choice about whether to debt-finance the academy's tuition bills. And they make that choice based on what's in their own self-interest, not on what will achieve the academy's idealized version of the profession. If the Dean can't make better arguments about why attending law school is in an applicant's self interest, the decline in applications will likely continue unabated.
This comment to a post at Legal Skills Prof Blog suggests that the prior commenter's observation is on target:
As a current 3L at CWRU, where Lawrence Mitchell is dean, I can tell everyone that this article upset most everyone at the law school. The most upsetting point, to me, is that the focus on your first job is misplaced and over-hyped. I am not asking for a dream job. I am asking for a job to pay the bills. However, at this junction, is is HIGHLY likely that I will be unmployed at this time next year. Despite having spent the time and money to pursue a legal career (one that I have focused on assisting low-income people w/ legal issues), where I feel that I have done everything "right," still, if I am not employed as an attorney next year, I could fall back on my family's small business making $10 an hour and qualifying for food stamps. I'm not suggesting that I deserve a job merely by virtue of having attended school....I'm suggesting that there is a problem when law schools are churning out grads and NO ONE is hiring.
No one seems to disagree that in good times or bad, the law is a noble profession with the potential for doing good and doing well. But for how many? For the foreseeable future, prospective law students surveying the market seem to be saying, understandably, "Show me the money."
