I have very much appreciated your reading my posts here about Lawyers and Satisfaction. It is my pleasure to let you know that I have recently published not only a new Lawyer Satisfaction Blog but also a new website for Career Planning for Lawyers
I hope you will take the time to read the posts on the blog (and comment) and the material on the website.
See you there.
Friday, March 13, 2009
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
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
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:
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:
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”:
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:
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
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
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