It’s time again for another edition of “Welcome to the
Scamblog Camp!” This post’s featured
guest is Frank Wu, from UC Hastings School of Law.
Professor Wu gets off to a slow start, unfortunately, in
that even he can’t resist a textbook-swipe at “hyperbolic” critics, or “young
people” looking for “instant gratification.”
In other words, Gen-X, Y, Z, A etc. are all “lazy, entitled whiners,
because you are not me, therefore, you are the opposite of me, i.e. lazy,
entitled whiners.” The simple economics of obscene debt burdens coupled with low starting pay is again lost on people, apparently - it's easier to blame the victim and write people off as "lazy."
The problems have been publicized well enough if
hyberbolically. But they are problems plural rather than singular. There is the
lack of jobs, specifically those desirable to young people whose expectations
have been set by the instant gratification of the internet era; the
extraordinary cost of tuition, which typically is debt financed; and concerns
over the utility of the skill set that is offered. Fixes for one problem or two
problems exacerbate the third problem…
However, to Wu’s credit, he does get back on message
quickly:
A rush of young people into law schools is good for the
law schools, to be sure. Whether it is good for the young people is another
matter.
If we bounce, it will not be “back.” It may be a bounce,
to an altogether different place. Things do recover. But almost never to their
starting point. Newspapers have been bouncing to the internet…[a]utomobiles
with only internal combustion engines, operated by human beings, will be
replaced within our lifetimes…[r]ecord collectors insist on the superiority of
vinyl records to even lossless streaming for their music, but most listeners
have left analog for digital.
Yep. As has been
stated many times on this blog alone, buggy-whip manufacturers need not apply (although, personally, nothing beats classic vinyl).
When I was in practice, literally a lifetime ago (I am
twice the age now I was then), a pack of associates with highlighters and
post-it notes, located on a windowless lower floor performed the task, one or
two even being handed a plane ticket to inspect a warehouse of boxes. Today, a
separate firm, maybe a “captive firm,” uses outsourcing, scanning, and
algorithms, to deliver the same work product at ten times the speed and one
tenth the cost.
That is the “bounce.”
No, no, Frank must not have gotten the memo from the rest
of the Law School Cartel. There is a
greater need for lawyers than ever before!
JDs are worth a million dollars, easily!
All we need are more “practical” “teaching” “methods…”
I actually am an optimist [concerning Anglo-American Law
and emergent legal fields]...[t]he demand for legal services, to the surprise
of many, is not the same as the demand for lawyer’s services: accountants,
consultants, and paralegals all compete…[p]oor people, even those of us who
belong to the American norm of "middle class," do not have access to
adequate, economical legal help.
Yet clients are more sophisticated than ever about
purchasing professional services. Even ordinary people, likely one-time
consumers, can buy a la carte “unbundled” versions of representation. The
business has become stratified…
Wait, what? Wu is
an optimist, yet he just ran through the laundry list of competing legal
services, lack of market, and the fact that “bread-and-butter” clients are
sophisticated and buy unbundled services?
Not exactly a gold mine. Also, I
thought it was only law students who were “sophisticated consumers” according
to the courts.
Above all, however, the jump in big law firm entry-level
compensation is not enough to remedy much because of scale…[b]ig firms, even in
boom times, provide a minority of opportunities to new graduates. A majority of
law schools place few if any of their students on Wall Street…[t]he tenure of
the junior lawyers at big firms is not lengthy. The pyramid structure ensures
that few will make it to the top[.]
The law firm is not trying to be nice. It’s recruiting
and retaining talent through calculation. As Don Draper remarked on the hit
television show Mad Men about having to say thank you: “that’s what the
money is for.” The bulk of law school graduates will end up, as they always have,
in solo practice or at small to medium firms; or in government, usually state
and local rather than the coveted clerkships with federal judges.
More “optimism,” I guess…? Not much about saving dolphins here. I thought it was only the mean, mean scambloggers
who talked about BigLaw reality, dashing the sugarplum dreams of new 1Ls.
That is what mystifies me. When I describe the
predicament of the legal profession, and thus of legal education, I have
received pushback from people who say: yes, but, there is a range, and there
are those firms and schools who are making out just fine. I don’t doubt that.
What troubles me, and all of the rest of us ordinary folks, is that publicizing
only one end of the spectrum (either end) presents a distorted picture…I prefer
realism.
No mysticism required.
Cat’s out of the bag. People are
waking up to the truth. Desperate people
say desperate things in order to survive.
It is positive, I suppose, that big law firms are
offering more to their first-year associates. As a signal about the legal
marketplace, it is at best weak and at worst misleading. We would serve our students better if we adapted. Nostalgia is
not a strategy.
Well, said, Professor Wu, well said, and it looks like the criticisms from the scamblog camp were, (ahem) right all along. There certainly is nostalgia for the days when big-bucks flowed into Law Schools by the metric ton, without having to pander to people's estates and put a non-law-related names on the building, or apply to the USDA for funding, in order to survive. Only now, people are forced to admit it. Coulda shoulda woulda been different, but, oh well.
Until next time, friends! Keep fighting the good fight!
http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/legal-education-bouncing-back-frank-wu?trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-hero-14-null&midToken=AQHVFAy4KU2jWw&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=1MMAQtE4BEaDo1
