Welcome! Formerly known as Libertas et Memoria, this is my blog on law, politics, faith, culture and the joys of the Inland Northwest.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Could legal education improve with a moneyball approach?
The TaxProf law blog raises that question and provides some very interesting analysis on the subject. The simple fact is, legal education and the lawyer marketplace has taken a huge hit since the downturn of 2008, and the old model of both is in need of some adjustment. I don't know if the moneyball approach is the way to go, but I'm glad to see that people are talking about how to reinvigorate the profession and its educational system in an inventive way.
Labels:
education,
ideas,
lawyers and legal practice
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2 comments:
I have long thought that many of our problems stem from having too many lawyers because when the private market gets saturated they migrate to the permanent bureaucracy. As time has moved along some of them inevitably start feeling like they have to do something useful, like blooming where they are planted, and thus the regulatory machinery gets even more onerous.
I'm not sure the rest of us would care to increase the effectiveness of the many lawyers we already have at the trough, so suggestions for improving legal education turn us off.
An interesting observation. I think that the relationship between lawyers and the regulatory state is the opposite of what you pose, though. It isn't lawyers who create the regulations, its the massive regulatory environment that caused more lawyers to arrive. It created a demand for lawyers that then boosted the supply. The sheer difficulty of navigating the regulatory apparatus of the modern state fueled the rise in the number of lawyers. What's happened since 2008 is the increase in cost pressures on law firms, as clients either disappeared or refused to pay high bills. This has lead to downward pressure on wages, on hiring, and an increase in the use of contract attorneys and outsourcing of legal services overseas.
There is still a huge demand for legal services in this society -- we could easily double the size of our current legal profession. The problem is cost. The people who often need lawyers the most simply can't afford them.
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