Hi Patricia,
You recall the old koan that over the three years of law school, they “scare you to death, work you to death, bore you to death.” The New York proposal would allow students to drop the last half of the “bore you to death” year and head out to work for the indigent.
We all know that there are two parts to law school. There is the training, How to Law. This does not take three years. To wit, observe the bar prep courses. Sure, they tap into bits of knowledge picked up over the course of law school. But they do a very good job at shoveling everything you’re supposed to know for the bar exam into your head with brutal efficiency. Namely, about six weeks of cramming with snappy mnemonics.
Adverse possession is OCEAN:
Open, Continuous, Exclusive, Actual and ... something.
Is it worth it? The legal profession is so heterogeneous and so disparate that there is no fraternity of lawyers. I had nothing against being in school. But it comes at a cost, as does everything. Particularly, there was time that could have been spent working, and was instead spent blowing about $30,000 per year.
Furthermore, the whole concept of changing the training of lawyers is years overdue. It has been a solid decade since legal research firmly moved out of books and onto the computer. This alone should have altered the way lawyers are trained. Add in the collapse of the employment market and the diversity of the students, law is fifteen years behind the curve.
We have a very good cookbook here. The America’s Test Kitchen folks are some of our favorites when it comes to explaining how to cook. We like it so much that we give it as a wedding present at every opportunity.
They put out a Healthy Cooking book, which is also very good and includes some neat tricks to reduce the amount of useless crap we normally mindlessly dump into food. They even have cookie recipes. The chocolate chip one is lead by the following: “A more reasonably sized chocolate chip cookie was a good starting point for a lighter cookie.”
If we can come to the conclusion that a face-sized chocolate chip cookie may not be the best standard procedure, would it be possible to make the same conclusion about law school?
Cheers,
Ray
~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Ray,
What you’re looking for is Notorious, my dear man. Adverse Possession must be: Open, Continuous, Exclusive,
Actual and Notorious. I always liked that one. It sounds so villainous.
So
we’re doing a law school post already, huh? Alright. Let me
start by saying that I loved law school. I loved the classes; I loved my professors; I loved my
classmates; I loved my clinical experience with the State’ Attorney’s office; I
even loved overextending myself to the point of nervous-breakdown-level exhaustion
with extra-curricular activities. I believed in justice like a religion and
wanted to work for equal access to it like an evangelist wants to share the
gospel. I believed I was entering a truly noble profession – a service industry
where I would be specially situated by my training to make a difference in
people’s lives and maybe even in society as a whole. I drank the Kool-Aid and came back for seconds.
Many of my beliefs about the practice of law have changed since then, but that’s for another post sometime. This post is about the New York judge making it possible for law students to take the bar exam early in exchange for spending their last semester doing pro bono work. And about the length of law school in general.
I think the first year of law school is the really important one. It’s the one in which you learn to think differently. You either learn or fine-tune your ability to look at any situation and then unpack it in all directions to see all the possible effects, contingencies and outcomes. In a way, it makes us experts at worst-case-scenarioing everything we observe. We’ll call that one a mixed blessing.
As a 1L, you also learn how to decipher cases and statutes and how to look for the info you need to solve problems. After 1L, it’s largely a bunch of substantive law that may well change before you graduate. And writing. Dear gods, law school needs to teach people how to write better. I can’t tell you how many pleadings I have received where I’ve had a challenging time figuring out what opposing counsel was even trying to say. Ooph.
I think that the most valuable part of second/third year is the opportunity for clinical experiences – the chance to get sworn in as a Rule 16 trainee attorney and to actually practice law. That’s half of the genius plan that the New York judge is proposing. The other half, attaching this real world experience to the public interest sector, is also super smart. These underserved communities desperately need the help and in so many cases, even baby lawyers can do what is needed with minimal instruction. It’s good for the clients and it’s good for the lawyers since the one thing law school fails to teach you how to do is practice law.
I was always impressed with the methodology that Northeastern Law uses. Their website boasts that 100% of their graduates have a year of legal practice under their belts before graduation. That’s pretty impressive. They do it through a cool Cooperative Legal Education Program wherein you alternate quarters after first year – a quarter of class learning, then a quarter of practicing (under supervision, of course), lather, rinse, repeat. That set-up is much more akin to the legal training of ye olde days, when folks like Abraham Lincoln became lawyers by apprenticing with experienced lawyers. It seems to me to be an extremely practical and mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties. Further, since Northeastern Law has a stated focus on issues of social justice, 85% of their students fulfill their public interest requirements through the jobs made available in the Coop system. If I’d known about Northeastern before I was already in law school, chances are I would have applied there and enrolled if they’d have had me.
Wait a minute, rewind for a second… "public interest requirements" for law school students? I like the sound of that. Are a lot of law schools doing that now or is it just a Northeastern thing? Because, much in the same way as mandatory pro bono hours for licensed attorneys would better the profession as a whole, requiring students to devote a certain amount of time to the public interest is a fab idea.
Regarding your point on the un-necessity of 3 full years of law school, I have to admit that for most people the last semester or two would not be crucial to passing the bar exam or being competent attorneys. I took zero classes in the area of law to which I ended up dedicating the majority of my law practice. I learned everything I needed to know about the subject to pass the bar exam during bar review. I have little doubt that had I only attended bar review and not law school, I probably could have passed the bar exam. I have a good memory and I test well.
That doesn’t mean the 3 years and 74 cajillion dollars I spent on law school were a total waste, though. The acculturation is important, as is learning the unpacking-of-doom skills we so often are called upon to use. And, if you are a law geek like me, the substantive classes are fascinating and provide a better sense of what our legal system could be if we only committed to its potential and really viewed it as an honorable service industry.
Could I have passed the bar without the utter joy of Employment Law with Professor Hayes? Sure. Would I have suffered from not having met and learned from a man of exceptional kindness who has a passion for what our legal system can be? Absolutely.
So shorten law school a bit and use the time to let student lawyers get some real world experience. That sounds good to me. Tack on a public interest requirement for good measure. My greater issues with law school have less to do with time served than with fraudulent enticements and the potentially life-crushing debt that students with no realistic opportunities for post-school legal employment carry once they graduate. But we'll save those for another day.
Best,
Many of my beliefs about the practice of law have changed since then, but that’s for another post sometime. This post is about the New York judge making it possible for law students to take the bar exam early in exchange for spending their last semester doing pro bono work. And about the length of law school in general.
I think the first year of law school is the really important one. It’s the one in which you learn to think differently. You either learn or fine-tune your ability to look at any situation and then unpack it in all directions to see all the possible effects, contingencies and outcomes. In a way, it makes us experts at worst-case-scenarioing everything we observe. We’ll call that one a mixed blessing.
As a 1L, you also learn how to decipher cases and statutes and how to look for the info you need to solve problems. After 1L, it’s largely a bunch of substantive law that may well change before you graduate. And writing. Dear gods, law school needs to teach people how to write better. I can’t tell you how many pleadings I have received where I’ve had a challenging time figuring out what opposing counsel was even trying to say. Ooph.
I think that the most valuable part of second/third year is the opportunity for clinical experiences – the chance to get sworn in as a Rule 16 trainee attorney and to actually practice law. That’s half of the genius plan that the New York judge is proposing. The other half, attaching this real world experience to the public interest sector, is also super smart. These underserved communities desperately need the help and in so many cases, even baby lawyers can do what is needed with minimal instruction. It’s good for the clients and it’s good for the lawyers since the one thing law school fails to teach you how to do is practice law.
I was always impressed with the methodology that Northeastern Law uses. Their website boasts that 100% of their graduates have a year of legal practice under their belts before graduation. That’s pretty impressive. They do it through a cool Cooperative Legal Education Program wherein you alternate quarters after first year – a quarter of class learning, then a quarter of practicing (under supervision, of course), lather, rinse, repeat. That set-up is much more akin to the legal training of ye olde days, when folks like Abraham Lincoln became lawyers by apprenticing with experienced lawyers. It seems to me to be an extremely practical and mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties. Further, since Northeastern Law has a stated focus on issues of social justice, 85% of their students fulfill their public interest requirements through the jobs made available in the Coop system. If I’d known about Northeastern before I was already in law school, chances are I would have applied there and enrolled if they’d have had me.
Wait a minute, rewind for a second… "public interest requirements" for law school students? I like the sound of that. Are a lot of law schools doing that now or is it just a Northeastern thing? Because, much in the same way as mandatory pro bono hours for licensed attorneys would better the profession as a whole, requiring students to devote a certain amount of time to the public interest is a fab idea.
Regarding your point on the un-necessity of 3 full years of law school, I have to admit that for most people the last semester or two would not be crucial to passing the bar exam or being competent attorneys. I took zero classes in the area of law to which I ended up dedicating the majority of my law practice. I learned everything I needed to know about the subject to pass the bar exam during bar review. I have little doubt that had I only attended bar review and not law school, I probably could have passed the bar exam. I have a good memory and I test well.
That doesn’t mean the 3 years and 74 cajillion dollars I spent on law school were a total waste, though. The acculturation is important, as is learning the unpacking-of-doom skills we so often are called upon to use. And, if you are a law geek like me, the substantive classes are fascinating and provide a better sense of what our legal system could be if we only committed to its potential and really viewed it as an honorable service industry.
Could I have passed the bar without the utter joy of Employment Law with Professor Hayes? Sure. Would I have suffered from not having met and learned from a man of exceptional kindness who has a passion for what our legal system can be? Absolutely.
So shorten law school a bit and use the time to let student lawyers get some real world experience. That sounds good to me. Tack on a public interest requirement for good measure. My greater issues with law school have less to do with time served than with fraudulent enticements and the potentially life-crushing debt that students with no realistic opportunities for post-school legal employment carry once they graduate. But we'll save those for another day.
Best,
Patricia
PS I’ve never actually seen The Paper Chase. Worth watching?
PS I’ve never actually seen The Paper Chase. Worth watching?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Patricia,
First and foremost, you are allowed to watch The Paper Chase. But only now.
I watched it about a third of the way through first semester of 1L, weeping openly and comforting myself with a very large bottle of off brand rum. It may have also been right after one of Rees's Civ Pro mid-terms, so there was that too.
But I think we're talking the same thing. I mention that this proposal is "nibbles and baby steps", far from the things that really need to change about legal education. You mention your issues with law school are "fraudulent enticement and the potentially life-crushing debt." These proposed reforms, while good on their own and potentially great to those public interest entities that will get representation, do not get to the core of the issues facing law school.
As usual, you have the elements that I've lost. (See supra off-brand rum).
The funny thing is that I look down your list of things that were great about law school, and dammit, they were fantastic. Finding something so new and invigorating, then steeping yourself in it. Then, thinking about it, I can't say that I really steeped myself. I found something that was a little wrong, and started to push away. I am a reluctant tea bag.
What's funny is that, at some point, the reason that we make mistakes is so we don't make them again. I can't say that I ever learn that lesson. I came into law school with a particular idea of what it would be, then was quite pissed when it didn't pan out. And that is the same mistake I made at earlier points in life (undergrad, new jobs) and at later points in my life (other new jobs, relocations).
Of course, all that said, I could never go back in time and talk myself out of being an ass. I'm pretty sure someone gave me a ton of great advice that year. I just selected what I thought was useful to me. Or I selected none of it. Or I selected the parts that I remembered. (See supra off-brand rum).
And now we've moved to the difficulty of time travel, so I'll stop there.
Cheers,
Ray
Hi Patricia,First and foremost, you are allowed to watch The Paper Chase. But only now.
I watched it about a third of the way through first semester of 1L, weeping openly and comforting myself with a very large bottle of off brand rum. It may have also been right after one of Rees's Civ Pro mid-terms, so there was that too.
But I think we're talking the same thing. I mention that this proposal is "nibbles and baby steps", far from the things that really need to change about legal education. You mention your issues with law school are "fraudulent enticement and the potentially life-crushing debt." These proposed reforms, while good on their own and potentially great to those public interest entities that will get representation, do not get to the core of the issues facing law school.
As usual, you have the elements that I've lost. (See supra off-brand rum).
The funny thing is that I look down your list of things that were great about law school, and dammit, they were fantastic. Finding something so new and invigorating, then steeping yourself in it. Then, thinking about it, I can't say that I really steeped myself. I found something that was a little wrong, and started to push away. I am a reluctant tea bag.
What's funny is that, at some point, the reason that we make mistakes is so we don't make them again. I can't say that I ever learn that lesson. I came into law school with a particular idea of what it would be, then was quite pissed when it didn't pan out. And that is the same mistake I made at earlier points in life (undergrad, new jobs) and at later points in my life (other new jobs, relocations).
Of course, all that said, I could never go back in time and talk myself out of being an ass. I'm pretty sure someone gave me a ton of great advice that year. I just selected what I thought was useful to me. Or I selected none of it. Or I selected the parts that I remembered. (See supra off-brand rum).
And now we've moved to the difficulty of time travel, so I'll stop there.
Cheers,
Ray
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