Edward Zelinsky: The Most Deluded Law Professor I Have Seen Yet

When I heard about this article proposing the extension of law school to a fourth year, my rage meter went off the charts. There was no way I was going to allow this article to go unaddressed on this site. But, I want to write my unvarnished thoughts as I read this preposterous tripe. The commentary will be written as I go through the article. So, without further delay, let's see if Ed is really as big of a charlatan and poltroon as I think he is. (Note: Ed's words are in the italics)

President Obama has joined with other critics of contemporary legal education in calling for the reduction of law school to a two year program. The President and these other critics are wrong. Indeed, the remedy they propose for the ills of legal education has it exactly backward. Law school should not be shortened; it should be lengthened. The standard curriculum for a juris doctorate degree should be increased to four years.

Three considerations counsel the need for an additional year of law school: - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/add-a-fourth-year-to-law-school/#sthash.lohHbscW.dpuf

 Three considerations counsel the need for an additional year of law school:

Really Ed? I'm sitting on the edge of my seat to see how you justify students spending even more money on such a worthless degree.

First, there is today much more law to learn than there was in the past. There are today whole new fields of law which did not exist a generation ago, e.g., health care law. Moreover, within pre-existing areas of the law, the amount of law has expanded enormously over the last two decades.

Consider, for example, the area in which I write and teach, taxation. No one doubts that the current tax law is more complicated and extensive than the taw law in effect when I went to law school. Important subspecialties, e.g., pensions, partnership tax, and international tax, have grown in complexity and importance.

Many critics belittle the substantive business of legal education by dismissing my tax courses as theoretical or doctrinal. But my courses are where my students learn the law and there is much more law to learn than there was a generation ago.

Imagine a critic of medical education who looked at the explosion of medical science in recent decades and called for less medical schooling. That is precisely what the advocates of a two year JD program are doing.

 Ed, let me break something down for you. Your students don't learn a damn thing about the actual practice of tax law. I'm sure like every other law professor growing fat off placing your students in the shackles of debt, you think that spending five weeks examining the tax treatment of inherited modern art sculptures means your students are "learning the law", but I seriously doubt you are teaching them practical things like how to write a tax appeal letter. The invocation of medical schooling is a popular canard offered by your ilk. Here's the thing. Medical students actually learn how to be doctors. They are forced to train for up to 10 years before they are free to open their own practices and take on patients independently. Your students are highly unlikely to be litigating high level tax matters.

Second, through expanded LLM programs, we are de facto creeping towards four years of legal education. In many areas of the law, such as tax, LLM degrees have grown in prominence. Several factors are fueling the expansion of LLM programs. Chief among these is that there is now more law to cover in a fourth year of law school.

Rather than the currently haphazard growth of LLM programs, it would be more sensible to require universally a fourth year of education for all law students.

Let me get this straight: Ed wants to make all students take a fourth year of courses when only a small portion are currently stupid enough to do so? Might this have something to do with the fact that undergraduates are no longer buying the B.S. Cardozo is selling? In the latest report by Law School Transparency, Cardozo received a 53.2% employment score while students pay $273,327 for the privilege. Your students will not experience better employment outcomes with a de facto LLM from a second rate law school. But you don't really care about that, do you Ed?

Third, many of the same critics who favor a two year law school curriculum also support expanded clinical education for law students. Such expanded clinical education should not come at the expense of substantive legal education but in addition to it. One way of thinking about the proposed fourth year of law school is that it responds to the demand for more clinical education in light of the simultaneously growing need for more substantive legal education.

People already see the third year of law school as being largely useless. Law schools are now trying to replace the third year with a "practice based" curriculum. So Ed thinks that we should keep the useless third year while adding a fourth year of clinical training. Are you serious right now??? Do you talk to any of your students after they graduate? Or do they cease to exist to you the moment they stop paying tuition?

The most serious argument against a fourth year of law school is the additional cost it would entail. Legal education is already too expensive. Adding a fourth year would impart even greater urgency to task of controlling the expense of law school, just as there is currently great urgency to the task of controlling the costs of undergraduate education.

Today’s panacea for controlling educational expenses is technology, most prominently online courses. I’m skeptical of panaceas in general and this panacea in particular. However, there are areas in which law school faculties and administrations can genuinely achieve economies. There is nothing sacrosanct about current teaching loads or about the much noted growth of administrative outlays by institutions of higher education.

I see. So adding a fourth year of law school is going to cause administrators to say, "Hold on guys! These students are paying us way too much in tuition now. We need to cut costs pronto!" And this will be aided in some mysterious way by "technology". Ed, I see that you care more about buying a new Mercedes than the fact that the majority of your students will be unable to afford the lifestyle your school's glossy law porn promised them. What have law school administrators done to date that would lead anyone to the conclusion that adding another year of potential revenue will lead them to start thinking more about students? Most law students are already carrying educational debt from undergrad when schools like Cardozo add another $276,000 to the tally. A fourth year will only allow law school admins to hire more useless faculty and for people like Ed Zelinsky to keep writing more academic books about IRAs and how Baby Boomers can save more for retirement.

An ancillary benefit of a fourth year of legal education would, in the short run, be a reduction in the supply of law school graduates. A fourth year would also abate the job-related pressures students currently feel after the second year of law school by giving students another bite of the employment-related apple after their third year.

The world is more complicated than it used to be. For better or worse, the law’s complexity has grown apace. Well-trained lawyers in the 21st century will need to know more law than did their predecessors. A mandatory, universal fourth year of law school is the right response to the shortcomings of legal education in a complex world.

Ed thinks a fourth year of law school will lead fewer people to go to law school. Ah, but that handy fourth year helps ensure that Cardozo doesn't lose too much of that revenue. Not to worry though: another year of summering at the Dutchess County PD's Office is going to help students find the jobs they can't seem to get today.

Ed shows a shocking lack of knowledge about the current legal employment market. Why should he? He graduated from Yale in 1975, and then got a M.Phil. in 1978. He hasn't had to practice law in the last 30 years. Ed's true motives come to light in the third paragraph. He doesn't care about students; he cares only about himself. Like all law professors, he sees the cushy life he has built for himself possibly coming to an end. He needs law school to keep pumping out grads. He needs to keep living in his nice house and driving his nice car. He doesn't care about the fact that his students are suffering in today's job market. So he hopes to change the situation to suit his life better by making such a ludicrous proposal. I hope that when the scam ends, people like Ed Zelinsky are forced to hang out a shingle and compete like dogs with their former students. It is only then that they will see what they have wrought.

President Obama has joined with other critics of contemporary legal education in calling for the reduction of law school to a two year program. The President and these other critics are wrong. Indeed, the remedy they propose for the ills of legal education has it exactly backward. Law school should not be shortened; it should be lengthened. The standard curriculum for a juris doctorate degree should be increased to four years. - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/add-a-fourth-year-to-law-school/#sthash.lohHbscW.dpuf

President Obama has joined with other critics of contemporary legal education in calling for the reduction of law school to a two year program. The President and these other critics are wrong. Indeed, the remedy they propose for the ills of legal education has it exactly backward. Law school should not be shortened; it should be lengthened. The standard curriculum for a juris doctorate degree should be increased to four years. - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/add-a-fourth-year-to-law-school/#sthash.lohHbscW.dpuf