Civil Legal Services Executive Director Identifies Flaws in Legal Education's Preoccupation with BigLaw Careers
Jonathan Smith, the executive director of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, put up an interesting post on his organization’s Making Justice Real blog last week. In it, he argues that the law school community is too focused on producing BigLaw lawyers, and should rethink the model so that more students are encouraged to – and educated in such a way to – serve clients of lesser financial means, i.e. lower- and middle-income individuals and families rather than the business interests that so many lawyers serve.
There are more than 37 million people in the United States living below the federal poverty line and scores of millions others who while not technically “poor” have inadequate incomes. There are very limited legal services for those at the very bottom of the income scale and for those who have too much income to qualify for a free lawyer, but too little to pay a lawyer, there is nothing. Around ½ of one percent of the legal industry is dedicated to serving people with low-incomes. The overwhelming majority of money and lawyer time is dedicated to business interests and the concerns of the wealthy.
While law schools are not solely responsible for this disparity in access, they play a role. The singularly important US News and World report rankings weigh heavily the rate of law placement in high paying corporate jobs, and as the deans each admitted this morning, these rankings are everything. As a consequence, legal education has been designed to make students attractive for firm jobs, the cost of education has risen to match law firm salaries and the shrinking law firm job pipeline has law schools in a panic.
We think it’s an important point, and one that should be considered in the larger discussion of how the legal education model should be reshaped. Weigh in and tell us what you think in the comments section.
