Why Law School Is for Everyone
Law isn't as exclusive as it seems
Frank H. Wu practiced law in San Francisco. He has taught at Howard, Michigan, Columbia, Maryland, and George Washington universities, and served as dean at Wayne State.
According to consensus, it is the rare person who enjoys the Socratic method of the One-L experience. Most people would be less than enthusiastic about studying the holding and dictums of Pennoyer v. Neff, the civil procedure opinion that has puzzled generations of lawyers, and the same goes for equally celebrated cases in contracts (the damage of the "hairy hand"), torts (Mrs. Palsgraf's accident), property (the fox hunt ended prematurely in Pierson v. Post), and criminal law (the reluctant cannibals Dudley and Stephens). Nobody wishes to see too many of us initiated into the adversarial processes of litigation. Although that skepticism is understandable, it is based on an impression of lawyers and the legal system that is as false as it is popular.
The average viewer of L.A. Law or Boston Legal might well conclude that lawyers are all about sarcasm, expensive cars, fancy suits, affairs with colleagues, and the occasional trial—which starts the day after the allegations arise. So much for reviewing documents, performing research, closing deals, confronting ethical dilemmas, and billing delinquent clients.
Yet in reality, legal reasoning demonstrates the power of rational thought. Law encompasses all conceivable issues, ranging from the future of the environment and the regulation of the Internet to the response to terrorism.
The practice of law is crucial to our lives together. A diverse society flourishes only if its members respect different opinions and make mutual commitments to public discourse for resolving disputes. Democracy follows, and constantly improves upon, a set of shared principles. The complexities of our global economy require a robust legal culture that recognizes contracts, protects human rights, and is overseen by an independent judiciary.
Within that context, lawyers work on everything from the most significant financial transactions to the most contentious child-custody fights. As members of a service profession, they are the essential interpreters who transform the messy stories of their clients' lives into the compelling evidence that will win juries over to their side. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of their jobs is to represent another individual, giving voice to someone else's cause.
Lawyers must be more than merely lawyers. More than ever before, they need to blend analysis of legal doctrines with skills from accounting or physics or foreign languages. Hence, the trend toward lawyer-doctors, lawyer-engineers, lawyer-businesspeople, and so on.
Students have been ahead of their teachers for some time. They have long been coming to law school planning to adapt their training to myriad pursuits. They benefit from their ability to interpret a statute, even if they end up opening a restaurant.
Light for all. It is time for the institutions to adjust, offering new specializations, clinical opportunities, and appropriate placement services. Professors are realizing that they ought to cultivate multiple intelligences, not limited to the technical logic of analogizing and distinguishing precedent and hypothetical fact patterns. They see that the Juris Doctor program at its best continues the well-rounded liberal arts curriculum, presenting an array of intellectual challenges.
There is no typical law student. As many law students matriculate straight from college as enter after having taken a break in their formal education. Some have aspired to be advocates since they were children and became determined to right the wrongs they had witnessed; others happened to do well on the LSAT taken on a whim.
Whether they ever appear in court or draft a will, they will have been well served by learning how to stand up and speak out. They have been inspired by a sense of civil rights as well as civic responsibilities. They are ready to become leaders.
Reader Comments
Wrong culprit
The commenters who complain about law school being an expensive scam industry are correct but only in a very narrow sense, and not at all in the sense Frank Wu laid out. Re the shameful costs of school, that isn't a problem with the law, it's a problem with capitalism. It should be glaringly apparent right now that turning ANYTHING into an "industry" dehumanizes it. Not so bad for mining and heavy metal manufacture, but when it's a human service like healthcare, education, and/or.... law? Mr. Wu does not express his economic preferences, but I appreciate that he is correct -- law *does* touch on all our lives. I personally don't envision myself EVER working in a law firm or office, but as an advocate in an underprivileged community, a principal in a non-profit, someone who can help with wills, deeds, trusts, land filings, anything we all might typically do in the course of a life? Absolutely.
If law SCHOOL is a racket, it's not the law's fault, it's the way WE have let our system become like this. A century or more ago there used to be tutors, mentors, a way to study your passion on your own, and then maybe work a little, engage in discourse, extend your knowledge... Heck, before WWII there were even hobo colleges, people who would teach others for free.
It *could* be done again. Will it be? Who knows. But it's not like an in depth knowledge of the law is to blame.
If I had one dream, it would not be that law school be simplified, it would be that the LAW be simplified. I find it hard to understand, with HUGE BUILDINGS full of law already, why we have to make more. It seems to me that relative to lawmaking, we should be putting effort into the consolidation and simplification of things, like recycling instead of manufacturing new. In the UK they put quite a bit of effort into streamlining and it totally paid off. Their systems and forms now are super easy to use and understand.
But, I would never be able to have a chance to contribute to this dream, or any other, if I don't know something about law at all.
Dreaming of Lincoln, reading by firelight....
Law school is a scam
Mr. Wu does a great job of selling law school as some sort of wonderful experience that will enrich your life. However, he fails to explain one of the biggest problems associated with going to law school: DEBT. Private law schools now average about $42,000/year. That means you will end with $126,000 of student loan debt after you have enriched the law school and yourself. What does this enrichment process get you? A piece of paper, and a job that will pay on average $40,000/year if you are one of the lucky ones. If you are unlucky, then you will probably leave the legal field altogether. For someone in college or high school $40,000 may seem like a lot of money, but after taxes and student loan payments you will live a life of poverty. Mr. Wu, like all sales people, just talks about the upside never the downside so I'm just trying to fill the gap. Mr. Wu if you are reading this please explain to everyone how law school leads to a life of debt.
Shame! Shame!
There are valid reasons to go to law school. There are even more valid reasons not to go.
Nothing in this ridiculous piece of fluff really engages either side of the equation. It is an expedition to cloud-cockoo land and an example of the worst sort of law-school hucksterism.
Unscrupulous law schools combine with media glamorization and fixation, our society's saturation with law, and the mistaken and out-of-date impressions of parents and other elders to sell prospective students on a mere fantasy. Mr. Wu continues to do his part to help this process along, so that he and his law school colleagues can continue to enrich themselves while extruding class after class of hopelessly indebted and despairing alumni.
Yes, there are success stories. Mr. Wu knows full well that they are increasingly-rare exceptions to the rule, and collaborates in hiding the true reality. Has he no shame?
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