Saturday, December 27, 2008

Is it a Goal of Law Schools to Shatter Student Self-Confidence


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama


In my previous post requesting that I be appointed law school industry czar I noted that recent graduates had testified about

"how their experience in law school had destroyed their self-confidence, their self-esteem and their sense of self-worth"

That statement is based on my personal twenty-five years experience advising law students and lawyers. When asked what it is that I do, I always say that one of the most significant aspects of my advising is helping clients rebuild or gain self-confidence and self-esteem. I am not a therapist. I have NO training in that field. What I do know is that my clients are basically intelligent creative thoughtful individuals. What I also know is what has caused them to feel the way they do - attending law school, especially the highly selective ones.

As I expressed it elsewhere

"I often remind clients about the role that Noah Wyle played on ER, Dr. John Carter. When he began, he was an insecure medical student. At the end of his medical training, in his residency, he is a capable, competent, confident physician. The opposite occurs in the case of lawyers as they work they way through law school and the practice of law. Capable men and women who did well in college, wrote creatively, were active socially, started businesses and traveled, entered law school feeling good about themselves. The law schools then failed to teach them what they need to know to practice law and failed to teach them how to plan their career. At the same time, through the on-campus placement system, law students are often funneled to large firms to do work that never held their interest and, in addition they often find the work boring and meaningless. They feel trapped because they do not know any options and, therefore, do not know how to make a transition. No wonder so many are bored, unhappy, dissatisfied, miserable, frustrated and depressed!"

I had nearly forgotten about a Harvard Law Review Article entitled Making Docile Lawyers: An Essay on the Pacification of Law Students, Vol. 111, No. 7 (May, 1998, pp. 2027-2044) I don't have a copy of the article but the introduction can be found here I was certainly not surprised to read this,

"Given this status (Harvard Law School's) one would expect to find HLS full of confident, enthusiastic optimistic students who are thoroughly comfortable with themselves and fully prepared upon graduation to take on the world. In fact, one finds quite the opposite. Far from brimming over with personal and intellectual self-confidence, by the second (2L) year a surprising number of Harvard law students come to resemble what one professor has called "the walking wounded" demoralized, dispirited, and profoundly disengaged from the law school experience. What's more, by third (3L) year, a disturbingly high number of students come to convey a strong sense of impotence and little inclination or enthusiasm for metting the world's challenges head on. How are we to explain this "pacification of law students"? ... become subdued, withdrawn, and uncertain of their own self-worth over the course of their legal education."

I was not unaware of the 'lemming" effect that law school attendance had on students. When I was offered the position of Public Interest Career Adviser at Harvard Law School beginning in September, 1984, I accepted conditional upon being approved to offer a six session workshop (once a week for an hour) to the entering first year students, an introduction to be given the day they registered, the first session one week later. Five years later, that introductory program was attended by 200 newly registered students. Each session began with a Harry Chapin song. For the first, I played Flowers are Red. Do you know the song? Here are the lyrics. (I am not sure that everyone who heard it knew what they were up against.)


Your son marches to the beat of a different drummer. But don't worry. We'll
have him joining the parade by the end of the term

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw

And the teacher said..
What you doin' young man
I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red

There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower
and I see every one

Well the teacher said..
You're sassy There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me.....

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said..
It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should

Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said

.. and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found

The teacher there was smilin'
She said...
Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said..

and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

But there still must be a way to have our children say . . .
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Welcome to law school!!!

For the last ten years since the law review article was written my focus has been on advising lawyers and not students nor have I presented workshops or seminars at any law schools during that time. I still, however, observe the same negative characteristics in my clients but I wonder if there have been any changes in law schools since then; i.e.,

Has there been a follow-up study of the students at Harvard Law School?

Has there been a study of the students at any other law school? (I recall reading about a psychological study of law students at a law school but have been unable to find it)?

Are there selective law schools which recognize this problem?

Are there selective law schools doing something about it?

Are there any law schools recognizing and doing something about it?

What are the implications of having many law school graduates with little self-confidence going to work in some of the largest law firms in the world?

What are the implications of having many law school graduates with little self-confidence not taking positions with small law firms representing individuals and not going out on their own?

Here's an interesting factoid. Between the time the new dean of Harvard Law School announced the closing of my office in August, 1989, and the elimination of my position (as a waste of money because Harvard Law School graduates were not interested in serving the legal needs of the public) and the time I was told I had to leave the premises (and to which I have not returned in almost 20 years), I compiled a list of the first positions of the 2500 graduates of the prior 5 graduating classes. What I found was that ONLY 4 had NOT become employees, ONLY 4 had NOT taken jobs. Two had started City Year and two started a legal services program.

Anyone know how we can get our law school graduates to say "there are so many colors in the rainbow and I see every one?"

You should also read "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places. Choosing the Best Law School" and the other articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com


This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Why We Should Eliminate Law School Public Interest Career Planning Offices

MEMORANDUM

TO: Professor Bill Koski
FROM: Ron Fox
RE: Levin Center Executive Director Search
DATE: March 13, 2007
EC: Dean Larry Kramer, Professor Lawrence Marshall, Dean Susan Robinson, Professor Alan Morrison and Professor Tim Hallahan

A funny thing happened on my way to the TV to watch my Congressman, John Tierney, investigate the quality of medical treatment for injured soldiers when they return home. I read about the search for an Executive Director for the Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest.

I am writing because I believe very few, if any, graduating law students will be representing these victims of (at best) neglect and indifference. In fact, over the last 44 years since I graduated law school in 1963, I have continued to be concerned about whom graduating law students represent. As critical social issues continued to come to the attention of the public (poverty, health, housing, education, the environment, as well as the rights or women, children, minorities and gays), as many as 95% of those graduating from law schools, especially the highly selective ones, took positions in the largest law firms representing the largest corporations and the wealthiest 1% of our citizens.

I am not writing this because of any specific knowledge I have of Stanford Law School other than reading a press release entitled “Stanford, Harvard Plan Ambitious Curriculum Changes” nor have I written a letter like this to any other law school. For all I know recent graduates from Stanford Law School are taking positions that reflect the hopes and concerns of the law school, its students and the larger community. If not, what I am suggesting is that the hiring of an executive director of the public interest law center be put on hold while a one year study is undertaken aimed at developing a comprehensive strategy meant to implement the law school’s mission found on its website:

“Despite these differences, Stanford Law School’s basic mission has not changed since Nathan Abbott’s day: dedication to the highest standards of excellence in legal scholarship and to the training of lawyers equipped diligently, imaginatively, and honorably to serve their clients and the public; to lead our profession; and to help solve the problems of our nation and our world.”

After a number of years founding law firms representing individuals, creating lawyer referral programs, developing the field of divorce mediation and an advocacy training institute, I began to work in 1983 at Harvard Law School as the Public Interest Advisor, continuing the pioneering work of Doug Phelps, the first to hold such a position in a law school.

From then until 1989 when Bob Clark temporarily closed the office, I worked with about 40% of all students. There were workshops, speakers panels, mentoring with alumni/ae, job fairs and individual counseling sessions. At our request Kenneth Montgomery gave $300,000 to support summer public interest positions in honor of his friend William Andres. Michael Caudell-Feagan and I also established a Public Interest Committee of the National Association of Law Placement.

For the next five years after I left Harvard, I presented programs and consulted to twenty five law schools and law related associations. Through these programs and in my book, Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law published in 1994 by the ABA Law Student Division, I warned law students about the ways in which law schools divert them from careers serving the legal needs of the public and advised them on how to overcome these barriers and find satisfying positions in the law.

Some of my conclusions, based on my personal experience and involvement with career planners at other law schools, are: at least 40% of those entering law school planned to use their legal degree to serve the legal needs of the public; very few were interested in practicing commercial law as an employee of a large law firm; and the highly selective law schools “funneled” their students into large law firms because they:

failed to implement a mission of serving the legal needs of the public;
failed to teach the fundamental skills of the profession;
failed to teach the fundamental values of the legal profession;
failed to make students aware of the wide range of options in the practice of law;
permitted large law firms to have operated for their benefit, an on-campus hiring program; and
charged exorbitant amounts for the services they provide.

The predicable result of this diversion was the extraordinarily high job and career dissatisfaction found not only in law firm associates but also in the legal profession as a whole.

In 1996, I developed and began to co-edit FindLaw’s career column entitled “Find Satisfaction In the Law: Taking Control over Your Career and Your Life” directed primarily at those dissatisfied practicing lawyers. We did, however, focus on law students in two articles, including “Looking For Law in All the Wrong Places? Choosing the Best Law School” which can be found at
http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com/column/column16.html

The article, referring to the findings of the MacCrate Report, asked the question “What can you do to avoid the career dissatisfaction that NEARLY 70% of all practicing lawyers widely acknowledged in recent surveys?” and advised the law student “Learn how to practice law. Learn 1) the fundamental values of the legal profession, 2) the fundamental skills 3) the wide range of options and settings in which lawyers practice,4) how to keep debt from dictating your career choice and 5) how to plan your career and search for a satisfying position. The failure to learn one or more of these lessons has caused thousands of law students to be diverted form their hopes and dreams. Many intensely dislike the workplace they find themselves in but believe they are trapped and have no options. ‘Looking for law in all the wrong places’ inevitably leads lawyers to evince the most common characteristics recognized in clients every day - lack of self-respect, low self-esteem and a reduced sense of self-worth.”

Attached to the article and added at the bottom of this Memorandum is a list of questions for prospective (and current) students to ask about a law school. The request was deliberately designed with the knowledge that few law schools would have or make such information (indications of the extent to which the law school supports students pursuing careers serving the public) available.

The underlying questions are: what does the law school believe its graduates should do with their degrees; what do the students want to do with their degrees; are a high percentage of its graduates going to work for large law firms; is this what the law school wants; is this what the students want; and is this in the best interests of our society?

The urgent need for lawyers to represent the public should be a primary mission of the law school not a separate subsidiary “office”. The creation of public interest offices was a positive step in the 80’s but many law schools staffed the offices with low level administrators with little law practice experience whose role was to familiarize students with a few well-known organizations (ACLU, NAACP, NRDC) with few openings (as opposed to providing awareness of the thousands of individual practitioners representing those with personal plight issues) resulting in those students taking fallback positions with large firms through on-campus interviewing. Moreover, the establishment of what began to be referred to as “loan repayment” programs were ineffective since the high cost of law school, as noted above, is only one of many factors diverting law students from their intended career paths.

On campus interviewing, of course, should be eliminated. At one annual NALP conference session in 1992 when I recommended this, the moderator asked for a show of hands and close to 80% of the placement staff attending from many law schools voted in favor of ending OCI. When asked why it exists, one placement staffer said her dean insisted on it because of its importance to the ratings in the US News and World Report which rewarded the law schools which sent the most students the quickest for the highest salaries to the biggest law firms and had no category for the best teaching of skills and values.

My suggestions are not simply relevant to those seeking to represent individuals. The MacCrate Report contains many of the solutions on how the law school curriculum should be revised so that graduates and be confident enough to go out on their own and represent any clients, including businesses. (In 1988, I compiled and analyzed the list of positions taken by the last 2500 graduates of the most recent 5 classes at Harvard Law School. One astonishing finding was that only 4 had NOT taken positions as an employee of some institution – two had started CityYear and two had started a legal services program.)

There is such an urgent need for service to so many members of the public. Hopefully, the implementation of well thought out proposals would be that careers in public interest and social justice would become a realistic option for those attending the law school.

Should anyone want to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me by e-mail or telephone.

Ron Fox

Ronald W. Fox, Esquire
Center for Professional Development in the Law
admin@ronaldwfox.com

781-639-2322


REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FROM A LAW SCHOOL

Kindly forward the following material:

Written material describing how the school teaches the importance of ATTAINING A LEVEL OF COMPETENCE and preparing students to competently represent individuals at the time they graduate

Written material describing how the school teaches the PROMOTING of JUSTICE and how to insure that "every person in our society should have ready access to the independent professional services of a lawyer of integrity and competence"

Written material on IMPROVING THE PROFESSION and the involvement of the law school in training and teaching not only students but practicing lawyers

Written material describing how faculty teaches the importance of SELF-DEVELOPMENT and the obligation of law students to take positions only if they are consistent with the students' personal values and professional goals

The list of fundamental skills the school teaches and a course catalogue clearly indexing courses by the skills taught

Description of a full-time office staffed by faculty where students can receive advice about which courses to take to be prepared for particular forms of practice

The description of the courses which teach the fundamental skills of problem solving, factual investigation, communication, counseling, and how to litigate

The description of all the experiential courses offered (such as clinics and simulated teaching where one has the opportunity to "perform" and be evaluated) along with the total available slots for second year students listed as a number and as the percentage of that class

The number of those in your Class of 2000 who plan to open their own office on graduation and a description of courses on how to start and manage a law office

The description of courses taught by faculty which teach the legal needs of the public and the demographics of the legal profession (the various forms of legal practice)

The percent of students in the Class of 2000 who want to work for large law firms doing commercial work and the percent who want to work in small firms or public interest representing individuals and consumers

The years of experience of all tenured faculty members representing individuals in personal, consumer or "personal plight issues" (divorce, plaintiff tort, criminal defense) stated as a number and as an average for all tenured faculty

Written material from your law school expressing concern about the effect of high debt load on career choice (especially on those interested in public service)

Written material describing all the specific actions the school is taking to reduce the effect of high debt (such as an loan forgiveness programs, decreasing law school tuition, encouraging and supporting part-time, term-time work by students to increase their income)

Written material advising law school faculty and staff about the inappropriateness of suggesting to students to take jobs in large law firms they do not want simply to pay off their debts

The name of the person whose full time duty is the advising of students on budgeting and financial planning (not a student loan office staff person)

The distribution of your Class of 1996 by job: large law firms - corporate; small firms - corporate; small firms - individual (less than 5 lawyers); government; public interest law firms; non-profit organizations; for profit corporations? Is this distribution consistent with the forms of practice your school encourages and prepares students for? If not, what steps is your school taking to change this distribution

The percentage of the career services budget that is devoted to on-campus interviewing and the percentage to career counseling

Written policies covering a) the percentage of faculty work week devoted to classes, preparing for classes and advising students v. the percentage devoted to research and writing b) the responsibility of faculty for mentoring and guiding students into law practices by suggesting courses, and making referrals for summer and permanent positions and c) the weight which teaching and advising students is given in tenure decisions

Written responses to any surveys you have taken on job satisfaction of the members of the Class of 1992 and any other classes. The changes the law school has instituted to improve the level of satisfaction of its graduates

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Request to be Appointed Law School Industry Czar

Request of Ronald W. Fox to be Appointed Law School Industry Czar


President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500

January 1, 2011

Dear President Obama,

We all knew it was coming!

On December 3, 2008, an article appeared in CNNMoney.com “Verdict is in: Legal job market tightens” The article said “Employment opportunities for legal professionals have traditionally been plentiful – and lucrative. But as the economy has dried up, so too have those jobs…. (This) is a job market that is contracting for the first time in recent history….(R)ecent graduates not only face experienced competition for limited jobs but also hefty student loan bills. ‘Recent grads are going to have a hard time’”.

The lead story of the December 10, 2008, Boston Globe “Harvard Curtails Tenure Searches” began, “Harvard University officials said yesterday that they will postpone nearly all searches for tenure-track professors in the school's largest academic body, a sobering indication of how the economic crisis has hit the world's wealthiest university.”

What followed was: a sharp decrease in the number of applications for admission to law schools in the fall of 2009; dissolution and failures of hundreds of large law firms; an increase in the number of bankruptcies filed by law school graduates of the classes of 2006, 2007 and 2008.

By October, 2010, deans of most of the ABA accredited law schools in the country, accompanied by thousands of their most prominent alumni/ae descended upon the nation’s capitol to plead for a $3 billion bailout to save their industry. In their impassioned testimony they urged Congress to act, pointing out how the failure of the law school industry could have widespread negative repercussions throughout the country:

Large law firms who represented the biggest corporations in the world would have to lay off thousands if the law schools were unable to “funnel” unwilling law students to their firms;

Large corporations would suffer: i.e., a large corporation producing Hummers unable to retain lawyers to plead the case against higher fuel efficiency standards; coal companies unable to obtain permits for strip-mining; tobacco companies unable to prevent the distribution of material warning about the dangers of smoking; oil companies unable to lobby to “drill, drill, drill”;

Law schools, with their graduates unable to repay the extraordinary amount of the loans that they have incurred, would have to reduce salaries of professors and lay off thousands of staff; and

Even the universities to which the law schools are a department would suffer as the law schools, affectionately referred to as “cash cows”, no longer infuse the colleges with needed subsidies. Some universities would, in order to survive, have to extend the winter recess from October 12 to April 14 in order to continue to pay professors their full salaries.

Congress also heard from others, however, who emphasized how out-of-touch the management of the law school industry is and how they industry has failed for decades to produce a product needed or desired by the American public.

One witness read this 1980 quote from Lloyd Cutler (legal adviser to Presidents Carter and Clinton:

“The rich who pay our (lawyer) fees are less than 1% of our fellow citizens, but
they get at least 95% of our time. The disadvantaged we serve for nothing are
perhaps 20-25% of the population and get at most 5% of our time. The
remaining 75% cannot afford to consult us and get virtually none of our time.”

And provided statistics from the National Association of Law Placement which indicated that at most of the “select” law schools (that doesn’t mean they are good, just that they are hard to get into) until recently, upwards of 95% of their graduates took jobs with large law firms.

Others from non-select law schools testified that their vision was to emulate the select law schools and find all their graduates jobs in large firms so that they could make a lot of money and pay back the loans taken to attend law school and donate lots of money to pay the high salaries of the professors who devote most of their time to making appearances on TV and writing arcane papers.

A member of a consumer group reported that responses from law schools indicated that not one of the law schools had surveyed its students as they registered at their school or at any time during the first year to find out who they wanted to represent (individuals, small businesses, public interest organizations, large corporations) and how many want to start their own firms rather than being an employee at a large law firm.

Another witness was a member of the highly regarded committee that released the MacCrate Report (the chair of the committee was Robert MacCrate, former President of the American Bar Association 1987-88). The MacCrate report found that there were ten fundamental skills needed by a lawyer to competently practice law and the law schools only taught two (and did that poorly.)

It also compiled a list of four fundamental values of the legal profession required to be taught by law schools. One of them is:

“Striving to Promote Justice, Fairness and Morality. … As a member of a
profession that bears special responsibilities for the quality of justice, a
lawyer should be committed to the values of: 2.1 Promoting Justice, Fairness and
Morality in One’s Own Daily Practice; 2.2 Contributing to the Profession’s
Fulfillment of its Responsibility to ensure that adequate legal services are
provided to those who cannot afford to pay for them; 2.3 Contributing to the
profession’s fulfillment of its responsibility to enhance the capacity of law
and legal institutions to do justice.”


As the ABA began to take serious action to implement the recommendations of the MacCrate Report, a law school dean who was a leader in the opposition became a leader of the ABA and the MacCrate Report was relegated to what is commonly referred to as the “dustbin of history”.

A second year student recalled reading the annual rating of law schools in the US News & World Report to decide which was the best law school. Only recently did she realize that the criteria used by the magazine were useless in that not one evaluated law schools based on the extent to which they provided the skills and values needed to practice law competently.

Recent graduates testified about:

not being taught the value of promoting justice in any course except that “silly” professional responsibility course that the law school was required to have but everyone knew was irrelevant;”

not being taught how to practice law;

the on-campus interview program and the negative effect it had on them and their classmates;

not knowing what their options are for practicing law or anything about the demographics of the legal profession, thinking that everyone practiced in large law firms, not knowing that 66% of the profession practices in firms of 5 lawyers and that over 50% are sole practitioners;

never having been exposed to career planning (what are your interests, your vision, your goals, your options, your preference, how to promote and market yourself);

how their experience in law school had destroyed their self-confidence, their self-esteem and their sense of self-worth;

with tears in their eyes, how they hated the boring meaningless work they were doing in the large law firm;

being over their heads in debt;

being so dissatisfied with their career path but having no idea of what to do except apply along with thousands of others to the few advertised jobs; and

wistfully recalling they had gone to law school so that they could continue to assist women and children as they had done while in college.

Videos compiled by over one hundred consumer organizations were shown. In each one of them individuals from all walks of life testified about how they were unable to find a lawyer to represent them in a wide variety of cases including sickness caused by pollution, evictions from homes being foreclosed, insurance claims for hurricane damage, discrimination against gays, discrimination in employment of women, injuries to veterans, abused children, claims for injury from toys, denial of insurance, inadequate public education, access to public buildings for the disabled and abuse of the elderly.

I appreciated the opportunity I had to testify before the committee first quoting my warning from an article I posted on FindLaw about fifteen years ago entitled “Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places: Choosing the Best Law School”:

Are you interested in going to law school so you can eventually represent
individual women, men and/or children in areas of employment, education,
housing, health, discrimination, family and environmental injury? If your vision
is to use your legal education to help those traditionally unrepresented by the
legal profession or to promote social and economic justice, yours is a
monumental task. Over 40% of those entering law school over the last 15 years
shared your vision. Less than 5% reached it at graduation Based on my 38 years
in the legal profession, including 15 years of career planning during which time
I have spoken to over 5000 law students and lawyers, I can strongly warn you
that if you follow the path taken by college graduates over the last fifteen
years and naively choose a law school without employing an analysis similar to
that outlined in this article, it is extremely unlikely that you will reach your
goal.

I ended by reading the conclusion from the book I wrote for law students, Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law published by the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association in 1995:

Your professional degree provides you with a unique opportunity and a privilege
few have – the ability to secure a position in a place where you are
comfortable, where you serve those you want to serve, and where you will have
control over your career and your life. It is the key to having the
flexibility to redefine your career to suit your personal needs and those of
your family. Being a professional offers opportunities to continually
learn and improve your skills, to develop as a professional, and to grow as an
individual as you become more aware of those who need your help. Your
professional life holds the possibility of autonomy, satisfaction, integrity,
self-respect, and, most meaningful of all, the prospect of sleeping well after a
long day on the job and waking up looking forward to going to work. And
all you have to do is take control.

At the close of the initial three days of hearings, voices could be heard supported two widely divergent solutions.

One said that the industry was no longer needed, that it served no public interest, and the industry should be allowed to fail. When asked what would replace it, a spokesperson replied that it was time to return to the apprenticeship system. Those who wanted to be lawyers would sign up to work for a lawyer/mentor. When the mentor thought it was appropriate, but no more than three years, the individual would then be eligible to take the state bar examination. (In 2009, Massachusetts took the lead in the country by reinstituting the apprenticeship option which has never been ended in seven other states).

The other camp thought that the industry should survive but only if there was a major restructuring: i.e., a new curriculum which integrated professional development, tenured professors teaching clinical courses, schools with diverse goals and purposes (environment, litigation, small business, education, transactional, etc., etc.), a drastic reduction in law school expenses and a decrease in tuition - starting with consideration of the elimination of the third year of law school. The progressive caucus recommended that that there be no guarantees of loans to those attending law schools unless three quarters of their graduates took positions representing those with low and middle income.

After weeks of negotiations, including representatives from the Obama administration, it was agreed that the bailout loan should be given provided that a Law School Industry Czar be appointed by the President to oversee the distribution of the funds and the compliance of the Law Schools with the terms of the loan agreement.

Based on my nearly fifty years in the legal community and my nearly 40 year obsession with not only the need for increased delivery of legal services to the public but also the failure of the traditional law schools to serve their students or the public, I hereby submit this as my application to be appointed the first Law School Industry Czar.

(By the way, you may recall that between your first and second year of Harvard Law School, my position as Public Interest Adviser there was eliminated by the new Dean of the Law School who told me that my position was a waste a money because so few of its students were interested in careers in public service. I also want you to know that I do not take it personally and really am pleased that you and Michelle Robinson were able to pursue such a public interest career path in spite of never seeking my advice and counsel.)

Thank you for your consideration.

Ronald W. Fox, Esquire
Center for Professional Development in the Law
admin@ronaldwfox.com
http://www.ronaldwfox.com/ronfoxhtm.html
http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com
http://lawyersatisfaction.blogspot.com
(781) 639-2322

Copyright © 2008 Ronald W. Fox

Monday, December 8, 2008

What Are Your Options


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Some writings you treasure. They always seem to be near you.

On January 29, 1988 I was on the Keynote Address panel at the Alternative Legal Careers Day at Boston University Law School.

The publicity poster proclaimed in large letters

"Your Legal Career Doesn't Have To Be Predictable"

And below it was a picture of three individuals in traditional Indian garments (dhoti and sari) the male walking between the two women, of course, is Mahatma Gandhi.

You should also read "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places. Choosing the Best Law School" and the other articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com

This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

A Good School


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Some writings you treasure. They always seem to be near you.

Many years ago, I picked up this handout at one of my children's schools:

A GOOD SCHOOL
is one where students feel welcomed and respected, where every day
they experience some measure of success and where they are constantly reminded that what they do really makes a difference.


Are you going to a "good" law school?

Did you go to a "good" law school?

You should also read "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places. Choosing the Best Law School" and the other articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com

This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

The Law Schools Role in Depriving the Public of Access to Lawyers


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

In May 2005 Lloyd Cutler died at the age of 87. He served as White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton. In 1962 he cofounded Wilmer Cutler & Pickering one of DC’s leading law firms which merged in 2004 with Boston’s Hale and Dorr. John Podesta , White House Chief of Staff during the Clinton administration said, “Lloyd was a giant in the legal community. In a town split by partisanship, he had enormous credibility and respect on both sides of the aisle. He founded and acted as cochairman of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

In 1980, he said

“The rich who pay our (lawyer) fees are less than 1% of our fellow citizens, but they get at least 95% of our time. The disadvantaged we serve for nothing are perhaps 20-25% of the population and get at most 5% of our time. The remaining 75% cannot afford to consult us and get virtually none of our time.”

The MacCrate Report (the chair of the committee was Robert MacCrate, former President of the American Bar Assocation 1987-88) stated that one of the four fundamental values of the legal profession required to be taught by law schools is

“Striving to Promote Justice, Fairness and Morality. … As a member of a profession that bears special responsibilities for the quality of justice, a lawyer should be committed to the values of: 2.1 Promoting Justice, Fairness and Morality in One’s Own Daily Practice;
2.2 Contributing to the Profession’s Fulfillment of its Responsibility to ensure that adequate legal services are provided to those who cannot afford to pay for them;
2.3 Contributing to the profession’s fulfillment of its responsibility to enhance the capacity of law and legal institutions to do justice.”

Is that still true today, improved or worse? If not substantially improved, I would argue that allowing the funneling of close to 95% of the graduates of any law school to take positions in large law firms (especially when most of them had no desire to embark on their careers in such places) is not only a violation of this fundamental value of the legal profession but is also unjust, unfair and immoral.

(Ask any law school who questions this assumption about the hopes and dreams of its students to show you the results of the surveys they took of their law students prior to registering, early in their first year and at frequent intervals after that – very few, if any, will have anything to show you.)

What is it about our society that allows such a perversion to continue year after year? Is this another issue of reform that we can look to be placed on the agenda of Barack Obama when he becomes President?

You should also read "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places. Choosing the Best Law School" and the other articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com

This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Bad Job Market and the Law Schools' Responsibility


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Here's a message I sent this morning in response to an article on CNNMoney.com about the difficulty graduates from law schools are having finding a job.

Hi Jessica Dickler,

As you read what I have written, consider that for decades the percentage of those who are dissatisfied with their careers in the law has been extremely high - higher than that of most occupations.

SOME ISSUES RAISED BY THE STORY

There are SO many other stories contained within your article about the tightening of the legal job market; for example:

"Employment opportunities for legal professionals have traditionally been plentiful - and lucrative." To what extent did these legal professionals want this employment? What did these positions offer other than being “lucrative”?

"And last year was the sector's strongest showing in 20 years, with 92% of graduates finding jobs in their field, according to the National Association for Law Placement. But that's beginning to change." What does it mean that 92% found jobs “in their field”? Are there majors in law school? Do law schools prepare their graduates to practice in a field? What do law school surveys show about what law students want to do when they graduate?

"Which means the 150,031 students who were in enrolled in law school last year face a job market that is contracting for the first time in recent history." Most lawyers practice in firms of 5 or less lawyers. Do we know that that market is contracting or is it primarily in the large law firms?

"That means recent graduates not only face experienced competition for limited jobs." There may be limited “jobs”. What are the law schools doing about that? Did their graduates want “jobs”? Don’t they want to be on their own? Will law schools begin to train lawyers to practice law so they can represent clients upon graduation?

"but also hefty student loan bills. Recent grads are going to have a hard time," What are law schools going to do about these hefty student loans? What are the law schools doing to reduce the cost of law school? Why is the cost increasing? What are the additional services being provided that justify the increases? Why don’t they simply eliminate the wasted third year and reduce the cost by one-third?

"Every day I send out resumes, both electronically and through the mail, and every day I receive responses that the law firms are not currently hiring, ..Roughly 300 resumes have landed me one job interview." Where did he learn that the way to find a position is by sending out mass mailings?

" 'I do think the jobs are out there, you just have to look harder for them. You have to dig,' she said." Is that what is known as career planning? “Dig”? Is that the same thing as reviewing your history, your goals and your values, looking at your options, narrowing down to the one that will give you the most satisfaction, finding out who practices in that area, marketing and promoting yourself to that network and accepting a position whether that is a”job” or a position as an independent contactor or sole practitioner?

HOW LAW SCHOOLS FAIL THEIR STUDENTS

After practicing law for 20 years representing individuals and developing programs to deliver legal services to low and middle income people, in 1984 I became the public interest advisor at Harvard Law School. While there and while working with career staff at law schools around the country, I came to the conclusion that traditional law schools provided a service to large law firms and the law schools while ignoring the needs of its students and the public. From surveys I learned that few law students entered law school hoping to be associates at large law firms but year after year law schools “funneled” their graduates to these law firms. The law schools accomplished this by:

Failing to teach law students the skills they needed to practice law (the MacCrate report says that lawyers need 10 skills and law schools teach only 2 and don’t teach them that well);

Failing to teach them the values of the legal profession; i.e., the obligation to promote justice and the obligation to take positions consistent with their personal values and professional goals;

Failing to teach them the wide range of options they had in the practice of law; i.e., not letting them know that over 66% of all practicing lawyers were in firms of 5 or less lawyers;

Selling the job placement system to large law firms through the highly negative on-campus interview program while at the same time;

Failing to teach them career planning: the process whereby students look at their goals and their values, explore their options, make a decision and then look for appropriate positions where they are likely to find career satisfaction; and

Charging exorbitant amounts for tuition for minimal services (recognizing that they do not teach their students what they need to practice law) and continuing to increase tuition (while most agree that the cost of law school could immediately be reduced by one-third by getting rid of the useless third year of law school.)

So we have an “educational” system that starts with at least half of its students interested in representing individuals or representing small businesses or hoping to be entrepreneurs. Through a three year program, it fails to teach its students what they need to know, puts them heavily in debt, pressures them to take positions in large law firms that for many are boring, meaningless and incredibly time-consuming. The law firms are happy because they get laborers. The law schools are happy because the loans get paid. The graduates are unhappy and the middle and low income members of the public get no one to help them with their personal plight issues.

Before I left Harvard Law School in 1989 after a new dean there said that my office was not needed since few Harvard Law School students were interested in positions serving the legal needs of the public, I analyzed the first positions taken by the graduates in the classes from 1984 through 1988 and was not shocked to find that ONLY 4 had done something on their own. Two started City Year and two started a legal services program. The other 2496 took jobs as employees. Why did they not go off on their own and start something?

Have you ever looked at the annual ranking of law schools by the US News and World Report? If you do, it will take no time to realize that there is NO category – NO column ranking a law school based on which one best prepares its students to practice law!!!!

Since I left Harvard Law School in 1990, I have been an adviser to thousands of law students and unhappy and dissatisfied graduates. The one characteristic most of them share is a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. Their “expertise” is narrow and they know of no options. They feel trapped.

I recommend that you also read this article I wrote for my column in FindLaw "Taking Control over Your Career and Your Life: Looking For Law in All the Wrong Places? Choosing the Best Law School" over ten years ago. It is probably still relevant.

The next article I wrote Alternatives to Law School for Those Who Want to Be Lawyers proposed reinstituting the apprenticeship system that was in effect a century ago through which you worked for a lawyer for a number of years and then took a bar examination. This is still in effect in about 7 states and does not require attending a law school.

I invite you to contact me if you would like to discuss any professional development issue relating to lawyers.

Thank you for your attention to these issues.

Ron Fox

Ronald W. Fox, Esquire
Center for Professional Development in the Law
(781) 639-2322


You should also read the other articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com/

This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Prospective Retrospective - Why Most Should Avoid the "Funnel" to the Large Law Firm


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

If you are a law student, which of these will you be in the future? If you are a lawyer, which of these are you now?

The plurality of my clients have been out of law school from 8-12 years. Their primary area of practice is commercial litigation in a large law firm. Most have changed firms at least once with the assistance of a recruiter. Some describe the process as “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”.

A second category of clients are those who went to law school not interested in practicing law but rather “to keep their options open” and ended up believing that their only option was practicing law.

A third category of clients are those who went to law school planning to pursue a public interest career but ended up believing that their only option was to practice corporate law supplementing it with “pro bono” work.

A fourth category of clients are lawyers who, for a variety of reasons, no longer have a choice of remaining in their present law firms.

A fifth category of clients are those who have an entrepreneurial creative spirit which they believe has been squashed by the needs and requirements of law firm practice.

A sixth category of clients are “senior” lawyers considering leaving the law firm practice they have been associated with for sometimes many years.

My services are structured in two stages - the Career Search and the Search for a Satisfying Opportunity. Underlying the entire effort is one critical component - the need to help rebuild a sense of self-confidence and self-worth that most of my clients have lost.

I often remind clients about the role that Noah Wyle played on ER, Dr. John Carter. When he began, he was an insecure medical student. At the end of his medical training, in his residency, he is a capable, competent, confident physician.

The opposite occurs in the case of lawyers as they work they way through law school and the practice of law. Capable men and women who did well in college, wrote creatively, were active socially, started businesses and traveled, entered law school feeling good about themselves. The law schools then failed to teach them what they need to know to practice law and failed to teach them how to plan their career. At the same time, through the on-campus placement system, law students are often funneled to large firms to do work that never held their interest and, in addition they often find the work boring and meaningless. They feel trapped because they do not know any options and, therefore, do not know how to make a transition.

No wonder so many are unhappy, dissatisfied, frustrated and depressed!

I help my clients realize that the large firms are only one segment of the legal profession and a fairly small one when you look at the demographics; i.e., the vast majority of law firms have less than 5 lawyers AND THAT THERE ARE A HOST OF REASONS WHY THEY WOULD WANT TO WORK FOR SUCH A FIRM.

I know about small firms because for the last thirty-eight (38) years, I have been involved with them. I have worked for them, started them and worked with them. I have worked with firms that do commercial work, firms that represent individuals in personal plight issues, and public and private public interest law firms and non-profits.

In addition, many of my clients never wanted to be employees. They wanted to be their own boss and be in control of their lives. They are entrepreneurial. They would never contact recruiters or need to. Who would a recruiter send your resume to if you are planning to open your own office? In fact, who needs a resume if you are going to be a solo practitioner?

If you see yourself in these comments, please e-mail me or give me a call so that we can discuss how I can help you search for and locate a satisfying position.

Ron Fox

Ronald W. Fox, Esquire
(781) 639-2322
admin@ronaldwfox.com

You should also read the articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com/

This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

So you want to use your legal training to serve the legal needs of the public.

Easy enough!! Just go to the resource center of your law school's career services office and read my book entitled Lawful Pursuit: Careers in Public Interest Law.

This "remarkable, awesome, invaluable addition to your library" (quote from an unpublished blurb by Ronald W. Fox) was published by the American Bar Association's Law Student Division.

What do you mean, it is not there??? How can that be?

The book is such a superb career planning guide for law students (and lawyers) through which they learn that public interest includes not only public law firms and non-profits but also private law firms. In addition, they learn how important it is to know their goals, focus on one of their many options and then market and promote themselves in the search for a satisfying position.

Even better than that, it is a powerful critique of traditional law school education:

"So how do law students journey from wanting to work for social justice to being a dissatisfied practicing attorney? My belief is that the primary cause of rampant dissatisfaction of so many within the legal profession can be ascribed to the law schools which fail to teach students the values of 1) recognizing their professional and personal goals, 2) improving their skills, and 3) promoting justice in their work. Rather than encourage students to pursue a career in the public interest, law schools generally divert their student from following that type of career path. Page 2 ....

"Unfortunately, students graduating from what are considered the most selective law schools display little knowledge of the vast number of lawyers who practice in small firms (i.e., few know that 65% of all lawyers in private practice are in firms of less than six lawyers), have little respect for such practices,, and have almost no idea of the range of representation of these lawyers. Even if they are well aware of the overwhelming majority of lawyers who practice in small firms and are interested in joining these practitioners, few students, knowing how little clinical experience they were given in law school, have the confidence it takes to look for positions where they will immediately bear responsibility for representing individuals. The “Green Man” made an appearance on one episode of the television show Northern Exposure constantly advising Ed about his lack of competence and many other reasons why Ed would fail if he pursued the career he envisioned for himself. The Green Man was eventually revealed to be the mythical cause of all evil in the world – the lack of self-esteem. Law students are introduced to the Green Man early on in their law school years. Pages 43-44."

The book can be ordered thru the ABA. I also have some copies here which you can purchase for $15 including s&h. If you are interested, contact me at admin@ronaldwfox.com .

You should also read "Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places. Choosing the Best Law School" and the other articles at http://profdev.lp.findlaw.com

This blog is sponsored by the Center for Professional Development in the Law

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Who Will Teach Law Schools to Teach the Obligation to Strive to Promote Justice, Fairness and Morality?

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Today's topic is about justice and the traditional law schools.

I just found something sent to me from the Progressives' Election Coalition (PEC) some time ago. PEC was formed to work to elect progressive candidates. PEC's goals included

Ending the US occupation of Iraq
Universal health care
Combat global warning
Election integrity
Pubic financing of federal campaign
Fast-track, alternative energy programs emphasizing renewable
fuels
Reform corporate media
Institute corporate social responsibility
Equal rights for all US residents
A national living wage and support for the right to organize
Fair trade
Restoration of our Constitutional rights
Open and honest government
Strenghthen public education
Fair and simplified tax code
National security based on diplomacy and elimination of root causes of
terrorism
Perhaps most importantly, buidling a culture based on peace, social justice
compassion and generosity, rather than fear, greed and aggression.

Millions of Americans hope that the election of Barack Obama will mean that steps will be taken to reach these goals.

According to the MacCrate Report one of the four fundamental values of the legal profession is "Striving to Promote Justice, Fairness and Morality. As a member of a profession that bears special responsibility for the quality of justice, a lawyer should be committed to the values of .. promoting justice, fairness and Morality in One's Own Daily Practice."

Does or did the law school you attended teach you that?

Does or did your law school rely on on-campus interviewing to funnel its students to large law firms representing large corporations?

Based on the election of Barack Obama and his platform to the extent we know it, will your law school substantially restructure its curriculum and its career office so that its graduates will be prepared to take positions which will help to attain the goals above, many of which strive to promote justice, fairness and morality?

ONLY FOUR (4) out of 2500

So, one day in 1989 just after my position as public interest adviser at harvard law school was eliminated because the new dean said that there was insufficient interest among its students to warrant having such a position, I reviewed the first position taken by its graduates over the last five years.

What struck me (but did not shock me since I was generally aware of what I would find) was that of the 2500 graduates of that law school - men and women who had during the previous decade or so of their lives had lead organizations, created works of art, had traveled around the world, had written articles, had started businesses - ONLY FOUR (4) out of 2500 had NOT taken JOBS - ONLY FOUR (4) out of 2500 had NOT become employees - ONLY FOUR (4) out of 2500 had maintained or kept the confidence they had when they entered law school that they could do something on their own. Two started City Year and two started a legal services program in Texas.

What Harvard Law School (and other selective law schools) did was to do the opposite of what medical schools seem to do. While the medical profession seems to build the future doctors' confidence by teaching them how to treat patients, the legal profession does the opposite. Beginnin with its law schools which systematically erode their students self-confidence and their sense of self-worth by failing to teach them how to represent their clients

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Jobs of Their Dreams (or Their Nightmares)?

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Here's a research project for you.

Are you attending a hard to get into law school (notice that I did not use the descriptive words "good" or "best" or "tier x")?

If yes, what percentage of the Class of 2006 graduates took positions initially in large law firms or did so after a judicial clerkship?

What percentage of the Class of 2006 dreamed of such positions when surveyed during their first year of law school?

Is there a significant disparity between these two percentages?

If so, what steps has the law school taken to remedy this?

What does it mean if there was no survey taken to find out what the law school's students wanted to do with their legal education and who they wanted to represent ?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Yes You Can

I just posted this on my Center for Professional Development in the Law website

The election of Barack Obama was a victory for those who believe that there are serious problems facing our society and a critical need for changes in the way our country is governed. In addition, Barack Obama is a role model for those who entered law school hoping to use their legal training either to serve the legal needs of the public or to simply find satisfaction in the practice of law. Most of us know that upon graduation from Harvard Law School as the President of the Harvard Law Review, he returned to Chicago. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development.

While, as he says, there can only be one President of the United States at a time, and that position is not presently available to you, what his campaign does say is that “Yes You Can”. While your law school experience may not have made you aware of your options, you do have them. While your law school experience may not have taught you how to plan your career, there are guidelines and practices you can use to search for and locate positions consistent with your professional goals and personal values.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama

Do We Need Law Schools?

One assumption of this blog is that the failures of traditional law schools are the cause of the dissatisfaciton of lawyers as well as the inability of most of the public to obtain the services of a lawyer.

With that in mind, I ask, "Do we need law schools? If you believe that they serve a purpose, tell us what that is."