While it’s become painfully clear to practitioners, and even more clear to the public, that the good ol’ US of A is awash in nice men and women with law degrees without enough to keep their idle hands occupied, the Legal Academy, much like a good trade union, sees the situation differently. From the Faculty Lounge, via Volokh, we get a view of their inner thoughts, uttered between sips of sherry in leaded crystal stemware.
If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that lots of colleges and universities covet a law school. The reasons vary. For research universities, a law school serves to complete a portfolio. For smaller schools, it can place them on the map. And finally, there are a few schools that are simply built to make money. At the moment an institution decides to start down the law school path, it has to face a crucial choice: start-up or merger. For-profits and smaller non-profit schools usually have little choice but to start fresh; few existing law school see a benefit from linking up with these smaller fish. I want to focus a bit on bigger institutions: private research universities and state universities. They can choose to build or merge.
Ah, a law school of your very own. Every cool university needs one. To an academic, it’s the jewel in the University crown. To the practitioner, it can be the turd in the porcelain bowl. How can something so clear to academics be so similarly clear to practitioners, if only at the polar extreme?
It would seem that the numbers speak loudly. American law schools are producing warm bodies at the rate of 45,000 per year, when there are only 30,000 jobs. Of course, that doesn’t include those who fly solo or use their degree for something more productive, But it also doesn’t account for all those solos and small firm lawyers staring at the telephone, praying it comes to life with something that can make it past Rule 11 sanctions. Or the small army of Biglaw partner wannabes who are told to turn in their Oxfords for flip-flops.
Dan Filler’s attempt at compare and contrast in his post offers even more insight into the faculty mindset:
It would seem that the numbers speak loudly. American law schools are producing warm bodies at the rate of 45,000 per year, when there are only 30,000 jobs. Of course, that doesn’t include those who fly solo or use their degree for something more productive, But it also doesn’t account for all those solos and small firm lawyers staring at the telephone, praying it comes to life with something that can make it past Rule 11 sanctions. Or the small army of Biglaw partner wannabes who are told to turn in their Oxfords for flip-flops.
Dan Filler’s attempt at compare and contrast in his post offers even more insight into the faculty mindset:
The biggest advantage to a start-up is faculty quality.
Jobs. Not just jobs, but jobs alongside those with whom you feel comfortable, happy, mutual admiration and, dare I say it, a camaraderie. Some might respond that if the faculty were any good, they would already have jobs elsewhere, meaning that the start-up law school would be staffed by those who were otherwise unemployable or unable to make the cut. But since no one in academia is allowed to say anything aloud questioning the scholarship or virtue of another, all faculty are quality. Some more so than others.
Another big plus for a start-up is the ability to create both an agenda and a culture.
You thought we were talking about law schools, didn’t you? To the outside world, that’s how it would appear, but to the new faculty (oops, to the new quality faculty), each wheel gets to be reinvented with its own agenda and culture. Apparently, training young men and women to be lawyers is not a sufficient agenda. I shudder to think where the concept of culture applies. Maybe training them to be honest, ethical, hard-working lawyers?
Nowhere in this discussion does a consideration appear about swamping the nation with yet more lawyers to serve in the devil’s workshop. Of course, if universities in desperate need of a law school were to merge with existing schools, at least we would be saved from yet more deeply indebted, grossly unneeded, men and women being sent out into the legal world primarily due to their inability to stomach the sight of blood (in which case they would have gone to medical school) if they just merged with an existing factory. What does Filler find to be the main virtues of merger?
While the fine academics who sit alongside Dan Filler in the Faculty Lounge drinking sherry from leaded crystal stemware are certainly brilliant people and scholars, the disconnect between their self-interest and the nasty reality of too many lawyers is hard to comprehend. Do they concern themselves with how many lawyers per capita we have? Will they be satisfied when there’s a lawyer for every man, woman and child in America? Will it end when a law degree becomes de rigueur for every public sector job, from sanitation worker to traffic cop?
Not as long as there are jobs to be created and agendas and cultures to create, as would be the position of any self-respecting guild.
Nowhere in this discussion does a consideration appear about swamping the nation with yet more lawyers to serve in the devil’s workshop. Of course, if universities in desperate need of a law school were to merge with existing schools, at least we would be saved from yet more deeply indebted, grossly unneeded, men and women being sent out into the legal world primarily due to their inability to stomach the sight of blood (in which case they would have gone to medical school) if they just merged with an existing factory. What does Filler find to be the main virtues of merger?
Why might a school choose to merge? The first obvious answer is lower front-end transaction costs. You already have an administration. Starting a new law school is incredibly time consuming for both faculty and administrators, and inevitably involves driving through a lot of potholes. You also already have a faculty, which means you don’t need to spend five years in endless job talks.Lower transaction costs and no new jobs. Talk about making merger look sexy. Who doesn’t have a soft spot for lower transaction costs, especially when compared to the ability to “create both an agenda and a culture?” Plus, they would have to come up with a mascot, and everyone knows what a minefield that can be.
While the fine academics who sit alongside Dan Filler in the Faculty Lounge drinking sherry from leaded crystal stemware are certainly brilliant people and scholars, the disconnect between their self-interest and the nasty reality of too many lawyers is hard to comprehend. Do they concern themselves with how many lawyers per capita we have? Will they be satisfied when there’s a lawyer for every man, woman and child in America? Will it end when a law degree becomes de rigueur for every public sector job, from sanitation worker to traffic cop?
Not as long as there are jobs to be created and agendas and cultures to create, as would be the position of any self-respecting guild.
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