A new task force formed by Massachusetts Bar Association
President Richard P. Campbell will examine whether law schools need
to be overhauled to fully prepare their students for jobs in the
legal profession.
"Law schools do not prepare their graduates for practice, and
the three-year model is unduly expensive and broken," Campbell
said.
Campbell decided to form the task force in response to law
school graduates having difficulty finding jobs in the struggling
economy. This is the fourth consecutive year of bleak job
prospects.
"Many individuals in this debt-ridden, lost generation of recent
law school graduates are turning to solo practice without either
prior experience or access to mentors," Campbell said. "Practical
problems ensue. Clients are poorly served; incivility abounds;
established practitioners experience a decline in revenue coupled
with an increase in transactional expenses."
The task force is co-chaired by: MBA Criminal Justice Section
Vice Chair Radha Natarajan, a public defender with the Committee
for Public Counsel Services in Somerville; and Eric J. Parker,
co-founder and managing partner of Parker Scheer LLP in Boston. The
official name of the task force and its full membership is still
being developed.
Parker said the current crisis in the legal professional has
several key points, including an overabundance of attorneys, a
dwindling need for lawyers, law school graduates dealing with more
than $100,000 in debt and law schools continuing to sell their
product.
"You've got this undeniable oversupply. Law schools are feeding
more lawyers into a system that has no demand," Parker said. "What
are the strategies for managing this? It's heartbreaking."
The oversupply of newly minted lawyers who cannot land a job is
a problem that has widespread consequences, Parker said. Many of
those new lawyers, he said, are setting up their own law offices
completely unsupervised and with no experience practicing law or
handling a case.
"It's going to impact the judiciary. It's going to impact the
community," Parker said. "It's a very serious problem."
Among the topics Campbell has asked the task force to
investigate are:
- Responsibility for law schools to fully inform prospective
students hailing from Massachusetts on the costs of attending and
the likelihood of gainful employment (i.e., will the cost be worth
incurring?);
- Responsibility for law schools to fully educate students on bar
examination topics such that an additional $6,000 in bar review
costs are not added to a $150,000 tuition bill at the end of three
years;
- The timing of bar examinations, as the topics are taught in the
first two or three semesters of law school but the examination is
delayed until the end of three years (and at a cost of another
$75,000 to $100,000);
- The potential for issuing limited licenses to practice law,
possibly after one year of formal law school, followed by formal
mentoring over a four- or five-year period that leads to a plenary
license to practice;
- The financial impact of tuition costs on availability of a
career in the law to new immigrants (i.e., the conversion of legal
practice to a profession only for elites, as with barristers in the
United Kingdom);
- The impact of a grossly oversaturated profession on the quality
of legal services for the average citizen (i.e., inexperienced
lawyers hanging shingles and rendering poor-quality services;
high-quality lawyers driven out of the profession by declining
incomes, etc.).