Lee Pacchia of  Bloomberg Law interviews New York Times reporter David Segal, the guy whose feature articles caused more lawprofs to put fingers to keyboard than any other, not to mention spittle to screen.

There are things he says (and he’s written) that strike me as accurate, and things that strike me as just plain wrong, as interpreted from the outside without much of a grasp of the inner workings. 

One argument Segal makes, where he applies basic economics of supply and demand to the availability of reasonably priced legal services, seems particularly misguided, ignoring the costs (whether too high or not), both out of pocket as well as opportunity, that somehow have to be repaid.  As much as lawyers might want to put their services to use for the poor and downtrodden, they still have mouths to feed and debts to pay.
 
On the other hand, his point about “gold-standard” legal services being unnecessary for some of the services lawyers now provide is similar to the arguments I’ve made here.

The aspect of Segal’s argument that seems most significant is that the ABA, responsible for accrediting law schools, accepts no responsibility for any of this.  And, since Segal apparently doesn’t realize this, the ABA doesn’t speak for all lawyers.  Just saying.

Interesting stuff.

H/T Volokh Conspiracy