We have justly lampooned hackademic scholarshit about "the open road" and the alleged intersection of law and hip-hop. Like so much other foolishness that starts in the US, the phenomenon of pretentious nonsense from legal hackademia has spread to the other side of the world: the National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata is offering a course on law and Harry Potter.
Those who enroll in this ridiculous course are "expected [to] have already read all the books at least twice, if not more". Old Guy hasn't read one page of any Harry Potter book and doesn't intend to, but he wonders about this requirement. Is Harry Potter really so profound and complex that it—unlike all other texts assigned in law school—must be read at least twice?
The course is "intended to encourage students to think critically about Indian social problems" such as discrimination, torture, slavery, and religious strife. Infantile shiterature, we are expected to believe, provides a neutral framework for exploring these problems. I doubt very much whether any Critical Thinking™ will occur in an environment that can't pull it off without invoking the genre of puerile fantasy.
The forty-student course quickly filled up. Presumably it is viewed as an easy way to get a good grade without having to read anything: just show up for class, spout some platitudes about Indian social problems, write (probably with a crayon) a couple of pages on sophisticated philosophical conclusions derived from the exalted books, and collect an A. The popularity of such foolishness, however, is no mark of merit. Nor will it be of much help on the bar exam or in legal practice.
The Harry Potter series is actually a decent read, and that it should be used as part of some kind of legal studies course anywhere in the world is just insane. Seriously, even here in the USA, where law schools have run rampant with impunity, we’ve never seen anything like this.
ReplyDelete(On a side note: Hi everyone, I’m back, sorry it’s been so long.)
Third world problems.
ReplyDeleteThough I agree this is a gut course, I don't have an issue with it. A contrived, imaginary universe can be useful for teaching law. In my day that universe was Nacerima. While I've only read the first book -- once -- I think HP is a good choice.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but studying cases like Marbury v. Madison, Pennoyer v. Neff, and International Shoe, spending time on doctrines like res ipsa and trespass to chattels, and arguing over Rule 11 in civ pro. doesn't do much to prepare students to think analytically. Law schools need to teach students how to gather facts, counsel clients, make strategic decisions, synthesize precedent, write persuasively, and negotiate.
ReplyDeleteI have read that "Malcolm Muggeridge famously remarked that the last true Englishman would be an Indian." Perhaps the last true American will be someone from South Asia, too.
ReplyDeleteI will add one thing, though. If law schools admitted only qualified students (i.e., those with credentials similar to the top 15 or 20 schools) they wouldn't need to have "academic success programs" or obsess over providing "practice-ready skills" and "student-centeredness." Why? Because smart law graduates figure it out in practice, typically in a large firm. They can reason. They can write. They have logical reasoning skills. The real problem has been the reduction in admission standards and proliferation of profit-driven law schools (see, e.g., infilaw and the bottom tier of law schools)
ReplyDeleteUnprepared students exist even at the Tier 1 schools (Harvard and Yale), but they make up practically the entire student body in Tiers 5 and 6, and they probably dominate most of Tier 4 as well.
Delete"Academic success", as you correctly suggest, is just a euphemism for remedial instruction. By offering "academic success", toilet law schools justify admitting anyone who can fog a mirror. Old Guy should demand a spot on a football team or in the woodwind section of an orchestra, with the support of "athletic success" or "musical success" to make up for his ineptness.
What makes Tier 4 grads and below that inept? Is the law really that complicated?
DeleteNo, the law is not that complicated. But it does require a reasonable degree of intelligence, reasoning ability, analytical thinking, and skill at reading and writing.
DeleteThe tiers are highly correlated with these essential qualities, as measured by the LSAT. Down in Tier 6 (which might be called the über-toilets), all but a few students scored below 150, and usually well below. Note that 150 itself is just below the 50th percentile. People scoring in that range are at high, very high, or extreme risk of failing the bar exam (https://www.lawschooltransparency.com/reform/projects/investigations/2015/key-findings/). People who do not pass the bar exam cannot become lawyers at all, and those who barely scrape through are unlikely to be good lawyers. Tier 6 also sees high rates of "academic attrition" (read: failing out).
Tier 5 isn't much better. Tier 4 is a mixed bag, with many toilety schools but also a number of schools that attract a lot of reasonably capable students but nonetheless show results in the employment department.
The practical level courses are offered because many law students have no other option then going straight into solo practice. They can't get hired by large firms, or any firms. It's sink or swim.
DeleteYes, 3:50. In many countries—including some whose legal systems are otherwise similar to the US's, such as Canada and the UK—admission to the lawyer requires a period of on-the-job training, similar to a physician's residency or a tradesperson's apprenticeship. Although that is not a condition of licensure in the US, traditionally the large firms and government agencies provide the practical training through oversight for the first few years. But people who go straight into solo practice do not get that. Whatever they have had in law school is likely all that they will get.
DeletePerhaps the US should move towards a requirement of on-the-job training. The law schools will oppose the very suggestion, precisely because so many of their graduates already cannot find work at all and thus would be ineligible for admission to the bar under that policy.
A Harvard or a Yale can afford such frivolity as "Hip-Hop and the American Constitution" or the legal lessons to be learned from Harry Potter, but a toilet law school cannot. Curiously, though, these ridiculous courses tend to spring up primarily at the toilets, such as the defunct Indiana Tech. (No slight on the National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata is intended: I know little about India's law schools.) People who are unlikely to pass the bar exam should be spending their time on the meat and potatoes, not on the after-dinner mints.
Most professions and trades for that matter in the US require some kind of apprenticeship. Public accounting for one. However, public accounting differs from law in that if one fails to become licensed, there is a plethora of financial service occupations to fall back on. Law offers no escape valve and Medicine doesn't need it because it it so tightly controlled. As you said the law school are dead set against any such requirement because it would just put up one more deterrent for the marginal to attending law school. And the law schools can just fall back on the excuse that an apprenticeship has never been required.
DeleteEven continuing education, which is required by most professions, is opposed by many of the state bar authorities, because of the large number of licensed attorneys that would just give up the license rather than go to the time and considerable expense of CLE to maintain and economically sterile law license. The licensing fees alone are relatively affordable so most non practicing lawyers will maintain that and the bar organizations continue to collect their revenues.
I have read proposals to convert the third year of law school to strictly practical courses, internships and bar prep. Even when the third year consists of relatively rigorous substantive courses, it is basically overkill at that point. In my 3L I took courses in Administrative Law, Immigration Law and Conflict of Laws. Interesting? Yes. Challenging? Yes. Useful? Somewhat. But I didn't obtain any additional legal skills, bar exam preparation or credentialing for a career from these courses. When to most lawyers need to apply the doctrine of Renvoi during the course of their careers? Again, though, the law schools would be opposed to even making unpaid internships a requirement, since it would incumbent on the schools to arrange these internships. Not to mention part time law school opposition.
Lol I'd like to hear Nick Saban's or Urban Meyer's reaction to the concept of "athletic success." Although there may be unprepared students at Harvard or Yale, the vast majority are extremely intelligent which, in my view, means that if they go to a firm like Cravath or Paul Weiss, they'll be able to figure out how to write an SJ motion or draft a MTD (and they will probably know to consult local court rules too). Maybe you guys should begin focusing on faculty hiring, particularly given that hiring committees are consistently enthralled by social justice warriors who have no real-world practice experience. It's a joke.
ReplyDeleteInadequate students at the élite schools are few, but they do exist.
DeleteWe certainly have discussed faculty hiring, particularly the tendency to select aristocrats with practically no experience (in some cases none at all, not even a license to practice!) because of pedigree or spouse. But faculty hiring, important though it is, is not what makes a toilet law school: the key factor is admissions. I don't believe that the quality of instruction differs vastly between Harvard and Cooley: exchange the students, and the results would be much the same (reasonably prepared Harvard graduates, lousy Cooleyites).
In terms of "success" it bears repeating: in addition to all the above problems noted, it's also a matter of numbers, as in there are way too many lawyers chasing too few paying clients. So it's not simply a matter of being saddled with massive debt after law school. It's a matter of never being able to pay back the debt due to a lack of work.
DeleteTo Old Guy at 3:53 That is an interesting point about the likely relative equity between the qualifications of law professors between Tier 1 and Tier 6 schools. It makes sense. In fact, it is probably a lot easier to teach at a Tier 1. The Tier 6s are under pressure to keep up the bar passage stats, the only thing they have to hang their hats on. For the Tier 1s, it's as forgone conclusion, or to get fancy, a priori, that the students will pass the bar exam.
DeleteSo the point I am sort of getting to is that, when I was in my low ranked school, at the upcoming time for the bar exam, we had a teaser video from Bar Bri with the celebrity lawyer Arthur Miller, discussing his subject Civil Procedure. The video was a somewhat dry discussion of Civil Procedure that you might get on the first day of law school. After it was over my colleague said, that was great, that is the difference between a Tier 6 and a Tier 1. I didn't agree however, not only was it that great a lecture, it was entirely not what a bar review is supposed to be. During the lecture Miller talked about mnemonics. He said he didn't think they were necessary for a prepared lawyer. So he said if you wanted a mnemonic for the International Shoe case, he offered say Shoe and stamp your foot on the floor. This is not a bar review. A bar review is presenting an outline and then intensively going over multiple choice questions. That is it.
The other point is that being a Tier 1 professors like Arthur Miller is easy because your students are on auto pilot guaranteed to pass and guaranteed because of the credentials to become successful. Leaving more time for the Arthur Miller's to devote to their TV shows and appearances and video bar review lectures. Whilst keeping their legitimacy as Tier 1 law school professors.
Yes, 7:18, it's easier to teach at a Tier 1 school. Down in Tier 6, even basic literacy is too much to expect of one's charges. Numerous professors at toilet schools have complained about the difficulty of getting through the skulls of toileteers. Exams in Tier 1 tend to call for essays; exams in Tier 6 tend to be multiple choice, or even true or false.
DeleteInteresting discussion of bar-review courses. I'm not familiar with them (I've never taken one), but I tend to think that you're right about the approach needed.
That is because the news of the scam is out there, and now anyone with a brain has learned from the previous victims of the law school bubble. Applications aren't really down, but the quality of applicant is. It sort of mirrors the legal system and America's broader bifurcated class system. The middle got completely sucked out, and there is a tiny elite tier and then everyone else all the way at the bottom.
DeleteAmerica had built itself off of the middle class, and especially those that excelled in the middle class and were able to do well for themselves. The elite were always elite, that much hasn't changed. What changed is there is absolutely no room for that intelligent middle class hard worker at the table. So that group is now refusing to jump through hoops and pay an exorbitant sum just to be shut out and laughed at.
The elites don't particularly care, mocking smart middle class people is only probably slightly more amusing than mocking stupid lower class people. The best part is, the stupid people are zero threat and never will be. Maybe it got tiring coming up with ways to cut down the meritorious challenge of hard working and intelligent people.
11-4-18 @ 3:27 pm:
DeleteBest post on here in a long time.
These fools will start the Game at MINUS $300k. It's bad enough that 99 out of 100 people die broke. Most Americans have $0 savings, etc.
What chance do these people think they have?
You believe in the System, you get the results of what you believe in. The System is exploiting those in the lower class as hard as it can while at the same time destroying the middle class, again as hard and fast as it can. Only the targets of the scam have shifted in large part.
Same goes for women and Feminism. Not all Feminists are women but all women are Feminists. Why is MGTOW growing? Why are men walking away?
There is nothing at the table for them, either economically or in so-called "relationships" being used / financially abused and exploited by women.
It's all a game to get - your money (Casino, 1995).
It's official: Valpo is going to close no later than May 2020, and possibly a year earlier:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-vu-law-school-decision-st-1031-story.html
Currently there are 80 students in third year; these are expected to graduate in the spring of 2019. The 17 second-year students may stay at Valpo (with only a handful of professors, of course) and finish the following year, or they may finish at a different law school but still get their degrees from Valpo, or they may transfer out. There are no first-year students.
How does transferring after 2L work? Would they get to keep all their credits?
DeleteMost schools will not accept more than 45 credits (about three semesters' worth) from another law school. But the U of North Dakota has reportedly accepted all of the credits of some people transferring in from Arizona Summit in their last year or so:
Deletehttp://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2018/09/students-leave-arizona-summit-for-north.html
Anything for a buck, I suppose.
Not surprising. Given Valpo's impending closure, I wonder if Indiana Tech would have become sustainable if it remained open.
ReplyDeleteNot the way to bet. Valpo's Achilles' heal was its dependence on Chicagoans who couldn't get into the several bottom-of-the-barrel schools there or NIU. As those schools have dipped deeper and deeper into the "talent" pool Valpo's raison d'etre faded away.
DeleteHere we come to the matter of me admitting I was wrong. I figured the indies would be the first to go, but after infilaws started to unravel two distinct trends have emerged. First, smaller schools with money-hemorrhaging law schools are cutting those schools loose to stop the bleeding. Second, Indies are desperately trying to stay afloat until some party-on-other-people's-money state U adopts and subsidizes them.
""Inadequate students at the élite schools are few, but they do exist."" well you know does it really matter? Law is not rocket science. Some great lawyers come out of middling law schools. We all know that.
ReplyDeleteIs this so much worse than critical race theory? My school offers a class in that. I'd much prefer Harry Potter.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same course. Critical Race Theory™ is the pretentious, pseudo-intellectual title; "Law and Harry Potter" is the vulgar, openly moronic one.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOff topic for this post, but very important to the legal industry - addressing the extreme lawyer overcapacity that the ABA has ignored for years, crying “ANTITRUST”.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to look at General Electric, which was once a leading U.S. company and is very recently in serious economic trouble due in large part to overcapacity in its major business of power. GE’s stock has tumbled from a high of over $60 a share to the single digits. GE’s credit has been downgraded to just above junk. The GE story shows that ignoring overcapacity in an industry is an economic disaster scenario.
The ABA has been unwilling to address the huge lawyer surplus for years and years. This is an economic disaster for lawyers, more than half of whom cannot get jobs in establishments (1.335 million lawyers, 619,000 establishment jobs for lawyers) with the remainder of the lawyers needing to be self employed outside of establishments at what the IRS is reporting are very low wages. Furthermore, there are only 798,500 lawyer jobs, including the non-establishment jobs, for more than 1.3 million lawyers. Partners in law firms are supposed to be included in the establishment figure according to a BLS supervisor who works on these matters.
The ABA cries of ANTITRUST are specious. There has not been any guidance from the DOJ addressing controlling enrollment in educational institutions that train people to work in an industry with severe, extreme levels of unemployment and underemployment. These institutions are training lawyers for a lifetime of unemployment, underemployment and many multi year unsuccessful job searches, for jobs that are now temporary at best.
The General Electric story should be a wakeup call to the ABA to finally start taking the problem of extreme lawyer overcapacity seriously and limit law school enrollment.
OK, time to take a rest from pushing the former dream machine/old clunker around the web . . .
ReplyDeleteThe ABA had the bad luck of having its case decided during the Clinton administration. Republicans, and especially guys like Trump, don't take antitrust so seriously. And any move to cut back on liberal, non-profit law schools and SJW professors would be welcome by these guys.
Remember Campos? He actually put a law school scam posting on his LGM a couple days ago. I remember when this was his big issue.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/11/law-school-shakeout-update