Skelly, over at Arbitrary & Capricious, informs us that kids don’t want to be criminal defenders anymore. He learned about this from a first year law student at myspace called PaperChaser, who thinks the outlook is bleak for today’s law students filling the spots of today’s defense lawyers.
The inductive reasoning aside, he’s probably got a point. Consider that the typical law student is between 23 and 25 years old, and was born between 1982 and 1985. The nation was led by President Ronald Reagan for the eight years following his election in 1984. The Bush I. Of course, there was Clinton, who was a Republican light when it came to law enforcement and crime. And now eight years of Bush II. Notice a theme developing?
The United States has been in a perpetual “war” against crime of one sort or another for the entire lives of these students, making the prosecution of others heroic and the protection of constitutional rights the last refuge of “fringe elements.”
So it comes as no surprise to me that law students want to spend their legal careers “helping” others by prosecuting others. It’s all they’ve ever heard. When you pound a message into the minds of our youth, day after day, year after year, don’t be surprised that they heard it.
But I don’t really fear that there won’t be enough lawyers willing to defend. The many prosecution offices across the country can’t absorb all the young lawyers who want to put people in jail in the name of freedom. There’s just not enough jobs. So those students who have decided that criminal law is the niche for them will have to find a job somewhere, and the alternative of necessity is the defense.
Once they become a PD, they will do what all young people do: Associate themselves with their reference group. They will absorb the new message that defending people is not treason or heresy, but a vital part of our system. They will learn from those who came ahead of them about the worthiness of their work, and will pass along their youthful exuberance to their peers and, later, their disciples. It’s a natural progression.
But what of the fear that the prosecution will get first dibs, picking out the best and brightest and leaving the second-stringers to defend the bad guys? I can’t get too worked up about that possibility either. The “best and brightest” coming out of law school does not necessarily correlate to the best and brightest in the courtroom. Indeed, it’s been my experience that many of law school’s shining stars don’t turn out to be very good lawyers. Great law clerks. Lousy lawyers. That’s the current nature of law school.
Moreover, learning our craft doesn’t end with passage of the bar exam. Indeed, that’s a transition where we stop learning book law and start learning real law. The learning process continues, and unless you’re just a total blockhead, continues throughout your career. I’ve watched many young PDs develop into formidable lawyers after a few years in the trenches. Prosecutors as well, but my point is that everyone starts fresh once they leave the ivory tower, and nobody on the jury ever asks what grade they got in torts.
Will we have the competition and zeal to defend that existed in the glory days of 1968, when young lawyers like Jerry Lefcourt were ready to go to jail to face down Judge Hoffman? Perhaps not, but then those were unusual times. My greatest fear for the future of criminal defense is not that there will be too few lawyers willing to represent the accused, but that there will be too little money to pay for the representation of defendants, and even public defenders have to feed their families. The greatest threat to Gideon is not the will, but the pay.
The inductive reasoning aside, he’s probably got a point. Consider that the typical law student is between 23 and 25 years old, and was born between 1982 and 1985. The nation was led by President Ronald Reagan for the eight years following his election in 1984. The Bush I. Of course, there was Clinton, who was a Republican light when it came to law enforcement and crime. And now eight years of Bush II. Notice a theme developing?
The United States has been in a perpetual “war” against crime of one sort or another for the entire lives of these students, making the prosecution of others heroic and the protection of constitutional rights the last refuge of “fringe elements.”
So it comes as no surprise to me that law students want to spend their legal careers “helping” others by prosecuting others. It’s all they’ve ever heard. When you pound a message into the minds of our youth, day after day, year after year, don’t be surprised that they heard it.
But I don’t really fear that there won’t be enough lawyers willing to defend. The many prosecution offices across the country can’t absorb all the young lawyers who want to put people in jail in the name of freedom. There’s just not enough jobs. So those students who have decided that criminal law is the niche for them will have to find a job somewhere, and the alternative of necessity is the defense.
Once they become a PD, they will do what all young people do: Associate themselves with their reference group. They will absorb the new message that defending people is not treason or heresy, but a vital part of our system. They will learn from those who came ahead of them about the worthiness of their work, and will pass along their youthful exuberance to their peers and, later, their disciples. It’s a natural progression.
But what of the fear that the prosecution will get first dibs, picking out the best and brightest and leaving the second-stringers to defend the bad guys? I can’t get too worked up about that possibility either. The “best and brightest” coming out of law school does not necessarily correlate to the best and brightest in the courtroom. Indeed, it’s been my experience that many of law school’s shining stars don’t turn out to be very good lawyers. Great law clerks. Lousy lawyers. That’s the current nature of law school.
Moreover, learning our craft doesn’t end with passage of the bar exam. Indeed, that’s a transition where we stop learning book law and start learning real law. The learning process continues, and unless you’re just a total blockhead, continues throughout your career. I’ve watched many young PDs develop into formidable lawyers after a few years in the trenches. Prosecutors as well, but my point is that everyone starts fresh once they leave the ivory tower, and nobody on the jury ever asks what grade they got in torts.
Will we have the competition and zeal to defend that existed in the glory days of 1968, when young lawyers like Jerry Lefcourt were ready to go to jail to face down Judge Hoffman? Perhaps not, but then those were unusual times. My greatest fear for the future of criminal defense is not that there will be too few lawyers willing to represent the accused, but that there will be too little money to pay for the representation of defendants, and even public defenders have to feed their families. The greatest threat to Gideon is not the will, but the pay.
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