Friday, June 14, 2013

Lemmings or Luddites?



Money Quote: "So should workers simply be prepared to acquire new skills? The woolworkers of 18th-century Leeds addressed this issue back in 1786: 'Who will maintain our families, whilst we undertake the arduous task' of learning a new trade? Also, they asked, what will happen if the new trade, in turn, gets devalued by further technological advance? And the modern counterparts of those woolworkers might well ask further, what will happen to us if, like so many students, we go deep into debt to acquire the skills we're told we need, only to learn that the economy no longer wants those skills?"

So should we quit calling law students lemmings and start calling them Luddites? Other than the extent of the non-dischargeable debt and lost opportunity costs, are displaced lawyers worse off than any other career that has collapsed in history? Or this century?

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"Law Schools are Turning Our Kids into Profit Centres," by Stephen J. Harper (Business Insider Australia)

Money Quote: "Where can an investor earn a 7.9 per cent guaranteed annual rate of return? Not 30-year United States Treasury bonds; they pay around 3 per cent. Not other countries' sovereign debt; some of the most economically fragile nations in the Euro zone sell 10-year bonds bearing interest rates of less than 6 per cent -- and it's certainly not guaranteed. Try your kids. The interest rate on subsidized federal student loans is currently 3.4 per cent, but it will jump to 6.8 per cent on July 1 and covers just a slice of the market anyway. For undergraduates who don't qualify for the subsidy, it's already 6.8 per cent. For graduate students (including law students), the rate is 7.9 per cent."

Yes, you are a profit center.

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"Largest State to Require Practical Skills Training," by Karen Sloan (National Law Journal)

Money Quote: "A task force of the State Bar of California has recommended that new attorneys be required to complete at least 15 hours of practical skills training and 50 hours of pro bono service before they are admitted to practice."

So goes California, so goes the rest of the nation! Coming soon to a State near you!

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"Law Schools: Get Back to Basics," by Sherri Lee Keene (National Law Journal)

Money Quote: "As law schools ponder how they might better prepare students to meet the increasing demands of legal practice, they need to go back to basics and consider the greater role that practical legal writing should play in building practice competence."

Ms. Keene is the associate director of legal writing at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Some old saying about "to a hammer everything looks like a nail" is popping into my head right now.


5 comments:

  1. The corrupt Judge Lippman apparently started a trend. Take down and out graduates facing lifelong debt and the most important and stressful standardized test of their lives and force them to work for free for a few weeks before bar admission.

    Then, once they do the pro bono, those same bar organizations block them from referral services due to lack of experience. So, these hordes of nonexperienced grads can work for free but not for any money.

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    1. I know everyone says that we can't blame boomers, but when they act like this..!

      And where are the boomers who are on our side? Where are the news stories about boomers giving up the country club memberships and luxury cars and vacations "that they've earned!" in order to help out those who they "earned" them from?

      Oh right. There aren't any. Because a boomer who isn't greedy would make fucking headline news.

      Delete
  2. "As law schools ponder how they might better prepare students to meet the increasing demands of legal practice [which are??}, they need to go back to basics and consider the greater role that practical legal writing should play in building practice competence."

    Really.

    The shills are still at it. Practice competence isn't going to be learned in a school... and anyway, it assumes a viable practice. Teach writing skills all you want, it's not going to increase demand. It's a collapsing profession. I adopted the plain language practice and stopped saying "To the Honorable Judge of Said Court" in my petitions and immediately acquired two Fortune 500 clients this week. My neighbor loved my argumentative subheadings and decided he wanted a personal-injury lawsuit of his very own, and threw himself down the steps of the local shopping mall so I could file a well-written petition just for him.

    How 'bout teaching the lemmings how to write a convincing petition for bankruptcy relief and student loan discharge? Or how to write a stirring Letter to the Editor warning fellow lemmings to stay well away from this profession. Now that's writing with a purpose.

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    Replies
    1. No retard. If you can write a better memo about a fake client in a fake dispute over a contrived set of facts, you will be the best lawyer ever. Clients will flock to you because you can write the coolest memos that cite all these different sources and your 3L teaching assistant creams over.

      Do you know nothing?

      Delete
  3. "As law schools ponder how they might better prepare students to meet the increasing demands of legal practice..."

    There are not enough jobs.

    ReplyDelete