Indiana Tech Law School's Most Important Innovation.

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about the upcoming Indiana Tech Law School "Oath of Professionalism" ceremony. The Indiana Tech class apparently spent the first several weeks of their One-L Professionalism course collectively drafting the oath. On October 10th, the whole Charter class [1]  assembled in the moot courtroom, where the oath was administered by a federal District Court judge, William C. Lee. As a token of this, uh, achievement, the students received scales of justice pins.

My initial take was that this was a silly gimmick-- a time-wasting exercise by lazy professors, or a half-baked brainstorm by some administrator or professor, maybe based on a childhood memory of a ceremony at a Cub Scout jamboree. Just some official nonsense that was implemented only because it was not thought through, and to be remembered afterwards with an embarrassed smile.

But I will say this for Indiana Tech Law: they are quite serious about their ridiculous posturing-and-pinning ceremony. According to an Indiana Tech Law press release: "Law School Dean Peter C. Alexander said the Oath Ceremony is one of the most important innovations in Tech’s law program. "It reflects an earnest decision by the students to become not only lawyers, but also great examples of professionalism and ethics," he explained."

Think on this phrase: "One of the most important innovations." Indiana Tech Law's innovations are the purported reason for starting a brand new, and unaccredited, open enrollment law school in a State with a particularly high lawyer saturation, a State where even the well-regarded first-tier flagship school, IU-Bloomington, only manages to place 53% of its grads in full-time law jobs. So you would think that the innovations would have to be pretty astonishing, like maybe a pedagogical miracle machine capable of transforming any dim bulb law student into Clarence Darrow. But, no, the Dean ranks the "Oath Ceremony" as among the school’s most important innovations, and even enlisted the participation of a venerable federal judge.

Fortunately, the Fort Wayne journalgazette.net published a four minute long video excerpt from the ceremony, which included the full oath. Here is a transcription of the Oath (and it is a pretty long-winded Oath).  The buffoonery comes near the end-- I bet you didn't know that taking pride in your law school, while supporting its faculty and administrators, was part of professionalism. 

We the Charter Class of Indiana Tech Law School

To the Best of Our Ability Pledge That

We Will Live Our Lives In a Manner That Will Inspire Respect and Good Faith in The Legal System.

We Will Set an Example for Society by Respecting the Law and the Profession

And We will be an Example for Our Colleagues and the Legal Profession

By Treating All Individuals With Honor and Integrity.

We Will Conduct Ourselves in A Respectful and Trusting Manner

Both Professionally and Personally

And do Nothing to Bring Disrepute to the Profession.

We Shall Put Forth an Effort to Promote Civility

Among Those In the Legal Profession

By Governing Our Own Actions and Inspiring Our Colleagues to do the Same.

We Will Represent Our Clients in a Knowledgeable, Competent, and Prepared Manner

By Being Dedicated and by Providing Clear and Regular Communication.

As Indiana Tech Law Students, We Take Pride in Our Profession and Our Institution.

We Shall Support and Have Compassion for Our Fellow Classmates, Administrators, and Faculty

While Respecting Boundaries and Adhering to the Strict Ethics of Student Life.

We Take This Oath Not Only For Ourselves But Also as an Example for Those Who Will Follow.

At the conclusion of the oath, the Judge said, "And with that, congratulations." It may be my imagination, but he seemed to pause for an instant-- as though he felt he should congratulate the students on something, but couldn't think what.

After all, this oath did not accompany any change in status, or elevation in rank, or new office undertaken. (The journalgazette.net titled its post "Indiana Tech law students sworn in," leaving unanswered the question: sworn into what?) Nor did the oath involve a binding and verifiable duty, such as a witness swearing to tell the truth. Rather, the Indiana Tech oath is just a string of platitudes and general pledges to be all goody-two-shoes. Indiana Tech calls this stuff an oath because of the form and accompanying ceremony-- the recitation, the raised right hand, ect., and because of their desire to dress the platitudes in solemnity. This can be deemed oathiness (adopting Stephen Colbert's great phrase "truthiness")-- which, it is fair to say, is a genuine innovation, an innovation in scam.

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note:

[1] In the video, Dean Peter Alexander states that "This is our first year as a law school and I think we are off to a really terrific start. We have 27 intrepid law students. . . " 

 

In an interview on August 20th, Alexander stated that 33 enrolled.  Now, seven weeks later, there are 27, an attrition rate of almost 20%, and barely 1/4 of their goal of 100 students. In the interview, the Dean also stated that "I think the fact that there are 30 or more students willing to take a chance on this type of education even before we are accredited suggests we have a product that has some interest."  Well,  Dean, now you have fewer than 30 students.  What does that suggest about your "product"?