Friday, August 2, 2013

ABA Task Force releases Working Paper on the Future of Legal Education

Cross-Posted from TaxProf:

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/08/aba-task-force.html

A quick summary: An ABA Task Force focused on the future of legal education has been studying the crisis featuring legal education and have released a "working paper" that so far serve to introduce their preliminary findings, with the finished product and recommendations to be made a few months from now.

As AboveTheLaw noted, "Essentially, the document says, 'Wow, the scam blogs were totally right.'" http://abovethelaw.com/2013/08/aba-finally-states-the-problem-now-will-they-do-anything-about-it/

For instance, the working paper describes the perverse "Reverse Robin Hood" policy surrounding "merit" scholarships perfectly on page one (I'd copy and paste it but the format isn't conducive to that).

Here is the link to the working paper.  Have a good weekend everybody!

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/taskforcecomments/aba_task_force_working_paper_august_2013.authcheckdam.pdf

8 comments:

  1. Maybe this will be great moment in the history of legal education. Leave behind a 19th century method to let innovation change Law Schools. Or greed will win out and status quo wins.

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  2. Talk talk talk. We won't see any of these changes before law schools close and the profession implodes. At least most of us are used to living within minimal means...the future will shock many of the ancients.

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  3. This is one of my favorite scamblog posts. Thanks stranger. I am with you. I will revel in these fucks going down in flames. And thanks to you all for hostIng this site. It gives everyone a sounding board where Campos led off. Someone give me a cheer for Campos, even though he was forced out.

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  4. You guys don't get it. Law practice will never collapse. Far too much need for lawyers. Simply some will make it big, some will do okay and some won't make it. The way its always been.

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    1. What you don't get is that in the past:

      1 - law school cost about 1/3rd of what it does now (adjusted for inflation)

      2 - student loans, to the extent they existed, were dischargable in bankruptcy and

      3 - what was formerly an over-supply of lawyers, with some not making it, has turned into a hyper-glut, with only a fairly small percentage even having a chance to make it, and of those, only an even smaller percentage actually succeeding long term.

      It is the combination of these three relatively new factors (with No. 2 being the worst by far) that have changed law schools from being something analogous to a lottery into a scam.

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    2. 7:13 again

      Shorter version -

      Thirty years ago no one's life was wrecked by going to law school. They may not have made successful careers as lawyers, but their lives were not destroyed by non-dischargable debt.

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  5. Two of the comments in this post have been quoted elsewhere:

    prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2013/08/the-state-of-lively-discussion.html#more

    Note that comments are closed.

    ReplyDelete