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