LAW and a new world ORDER

The ABA has failed the legal profession. Its loose accreditation standards promote a law school industry rather than excellence in legal education and lawyers who are prepared to help clients, teach, or serve the public. Its lack of activism in matters concerning the growth and sustainability of law as both an industry and rewarding career choice for bright, talented students is practically obscene. You don't see doctors worrying about whether they'll work, just where and how much they'll make. I'd rather not see my doctor moonlighting at Subway on his days off, but many young lawyers are forced to work second jobs to make ends meet...god forbid a client or potential employer orders a sandwich from their lawyer. Ouch.

A profession is selective and these schools should be training enough lawyers to meet the needs of the market, not processing student loan checks for as many kids who can fit into a classroom. Many young lawyers and law students feel (privately and publicly) like entering law was a huge mistake. Note that depression among lawyers is three times higher than any other profession. After reading this article, I am sorry that so many bright young (and older) people chose their calling only to find a market glut and often a six-figure debt mocking the decision.

I have always put the ethics of lawyers with those of used salesmen. Trying to sell something that they know isn't worth a plugged nickle.

That's used car salesmen. Just waking up. lol

Lawyers are know better the used car salesman an real estate salesman. Far to many of them and to many of them are involved in government.

25 years ago, 3 law schools were turning out too many grads and everyone was wringing their hands about it. Now we have 4.

Well, coach, if you thought coaching wasn't as glamorous as it seemed, wait till you get that lawyer job. ;)

Seriously, its a great education, but not a great way to get a job.

Pau Kreutzer wrote:

The ABA has failed the legal profession. Its loose accreditation standards promote a law school industry rather than excellence in legal education and lawyers who are prepared to help clients, teach, or serve the public....

Free market capitalist type myself. Don't really think we need to flexnerize law schools. Folks just have to be realistic about what awaits them. I know I wasn't... But surely kids nowadays are a lot smarter than I was back in the day. ;)

Why focus on the law--look at all sorts of graduate degrees and see what the job placement rate in profession is. Literature? Music? History? Women's studies? Medieval poetry? Doesn't deter people in the slightest.

Doesn't the world have enough attorneys? Think of how our lives have change since the power or the trial lawyer came about. So much of our lives, our actions are controlled buy the fear of getting sued. Kids can't play anywhere around anything you own because if they fall, they sue. Forget about ever owning a trampoline. The price of goods are jacked up to cover insurance and to pay down lawsuits. Our legislators are all lawyers and we all know the bang up job they're doing. You get laughed at by the judge in family court for not hiring one of the good ol boys in the legal network...even if you have worked things out and have agreed upon a settlement (divorce). Do us all a favor future college grads, go to school to learn something that is helpful to society. not destructive.

Timmyboy wrote:

Doesn't the world have enough attorneys? Think of how our lives have change since the power or the trial lawyer came about. So much of our lives, our actions are controlled buy the fear of getting sued. Kids can't play anywhere around anything you own because if they fall, they sue. Forget about ever owning a trampoline. The price of goods are jacked up to cover insurance and to pay down lawsuits. Our legislators are all lawyers and we all know the bang up job they're doing. You get laughed at by the judge in family court for not hiring one of the good ol boys in the legal network...even if you have worked things out and have agreed upon a settlement (divorce). Do us all a favor future college grads, go to school to learn something that is helpful to society. not destructive.

Your post started off well, then it got strange toward the end.

First, you are right, this world by now should be extremely fearful of getting sued. And the cost of legal representation is so high that it just makes more sense to settle something without lawyers. I think lawyers will continue to make less money in the future, somewhat like IT people are doing now.

Next, lawyers do provide some good to society, but like anything, it depends on the profession. Environmental lawyers, for example, still warn the community about potential harm to our drinking water and breathable air. Without them, companies would still throw hazardous chemicals into river, thereby killing us all.

We still need lawyers in the court room, whether they are defendants of a heinous crime, such as the murder of a member of society, or steeped deep into prosecuting same said criminal.

Part of the reason why lawyers grew in the first place was because their demand shrunk. With no revenue coming in, the law profession began doing unscrupulous things like ambulance chasing, helping the rich evade taxes, and so forth.

The area I'd like to see lawyers get more involved with is public education. Right now, politicians, communities, and school educators still can not help our neediest students get an admirable k-12 education. Somebody has to have some answers. Why not lawyers?

Regardless of what one generally thinks about lawyers, the incredible number of JDs being produced by local law schools is a strange phenomenon. The greater Twin Cities job market simply can’t employ 1,000 new lawyers year after year. Many of the young people who thought they were getting their ticket punched by going through law school are going to be unhappily surprised when they end up doing something else (likely less lucrative) with their law degree or relocating to find a job. Likewise, their student loan debt is going to be formidable. The article mentions $60K-$90K in loan debt…I would say that’s the low to middle range. It’s common for law students to accumulate $100K in law school debt, on top of $20K or more in undergraduate student loans.

Whether or not there are ‘too many’ lawyers is a relative point-of-view, but compared to other degreed professionals there are indeed a lot. If one were to add together all of the MDs, DDSs, and engineers and architects with advanced degrees graduating from the U of MN in any given year you would have about half the crop of lawyers created by the four local law schools.

Simply put, I don’t know where all of these lawyers find work. If I were an associate lawyer I would worry about what the future holds because the JD credential is becoming so diluted. Lawyers are being ill-served by both their professional organizations and their law schools. The schools in particular deserve a hard look. University law programs are typically big money-makers for the organization, so they have an incentive to admit as many students as they can manage. Meanwhile, do the schools have some responsibility to not create lawyers there likely won’t be enough jobs for?

Geno wrote:

Lawyers are know better the used car salesman an real estate salesman. Far to many of them and to many of them are involved in government.

Most lawyers, however, know when to use "no" instead of "know," "and" instead of "an," "too" instead of "to," and "salesmen" instead of "salesman."

If I might be so bold as to quote a little scripture of biblical note..."woe unto you lawyers." I'll leave it up to you degreed folks to search out the reference. In the meantime, try to "Socratise" that one and I'll bet it comes out something like.." there isn't no jeezize."

The real problem with the legal profession having to choke on the sheer numbers of "grads" for whom there is not a partner at the "dance", is that the profession is niether "legal" nor "professional". The last of the Mohegans who could be called jurisprudent was...Justice Frankfurter. Read his stuff and get a reading on where we are, how we got here, & where there is no place to go from there. Not a real bright future, said the cynic, but "woe unto you lawyers." You could have prevented it all.

richards poor almanac wrote:

If I might be so bold as to quote a little scripture of biblical note..."woe unto you lawyers." I'll leave it up to you degreed folks to search out the reference. In the meantime, try to "Socratise" that one and I'll bet it comes out something like.." there isn't no jeezize."
The real problem with the legal profession having to choke on the sheer numbers of "grads" for whom there is not a partner at the "dance", is that the profession is niether "legal" nor "professional". The last of the Mohegans who could be called jurisprudent was...Justice Frankfurter. Read his stuff and get a reading on where we are, how we got here, & where there is no place to go from there. Not a real bright future, said the cynic, but "woe unto you lawyers." You could have prevented it all.

I commend you for a bold attempt to launch soaring rhetoric, must inform you, it crashed before it left the runway.

This is just an intuitive leap, but did you wash out of law school, or quit partway through? I see an unusual combination of inside knowledge and resentment.

lackey wrote:

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Most lawyers, however, know when to use "no" instead of "know," "and" instead of "an," "too" instead of "to," and "salesmen" instead of "salesman."

Agreed. I have often described it as a three year course in proofreading.

The legal "profession" was ruined long ago by the ABA and the "political elite" in this country. Legal education was transformed from teaching "the law" to instructing in community organizing, ala Saul Alinsky, and (as PTB has said) a "three year course in proofreading". This has resulted in the total "dumbing down" of the "profession" as witnessed by the total dilution of the bar exam from the former three day trials and tribulations to a multiple choice and T/F multi-state "quiz". It is little wonder that our government is run by law school graduates, who couldn't even pass the watered down bar exam, as behind the scene staffers.

Americanus wrote:

The legal "profession" was ruined long ago by the ABA and the "political elite" in this country. Legal education was transformed from teaching "the law" to instructing in community organizing, ala Saul Alinsky, and (as PTB has said) a "three year course in proofreading". This has resulted in the total "dumbing down" of the "profession" as witnessed by the total dilution of the bar exam from the former three day trials and tribulations to a multiple choice and T/F multi-state "quiz". It is little wonder that our government is run by law school graduates, who couldn't even pass the watered down bar exam, as behind the scene staffers.

If only they could walk to the bar exam in bare feet through 16 inches of snow, uphill, both ways. Ah the good ol' days. The good ol' boys from the good ol' days laid the foundation for today's legal profession, lest you forget.

Pau Kreutzer wrote:

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If only they could walk to the bar exam in bare feet through 16 inches of snow, uphill, both ways. Ah the good ol' days. The good ol' boys from the good ol' days laid the foundation for today's legal profession, lest you forget.

Spoken like a spoiled gen-xer, who apparently couldn't even pass the "revised" bar exam. Do you still live at home with mom & dad?

Americanus wrote:

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Spoken like a spoiled gen-xer, who apparently couldn't even pass the "revised" bar exam. Do you still live at home with mom & dad?

The sweeping generalizations are telling. Apparently resentment and ignorance have seized your ability to reason, so you just paint the world with ridiculous generalizations based on your little assumptions. My parents died when I was 16. I am a so-called GenXer who served in Desert Storm so I could attend college, law school, and eventually practice law. If that makes me a spoiled GenXer, so be it. Living with my parents isn't an option because they don't allow camping in cemeteries. Save your assumptions for "amen"ing Rush and the other chuckleheads.

Your characterization of the past and current incarnations of the bar exam merely shows your ignorance and suggests your own apparent failure to pass when it was supposedly more difficult. Passage rates are high. Always were. I am a little embarrassed for you.

Pau Kreutzer wrote:

<quoted text>
The sweeping generalizations are telling. Apparently resentment and ignorance have seized your ability to reason, so you just paint the world with ridiculous generalizations based on your little assumptions. My parents died when I was 16. I am a so-called GenXer who served in Desert Storm so I could attend college, law school, and eventually practice law. If that makes me a spoiled GenXer, so be it. Living with my parents isn't an option because they don't allow camping in cemeteries. Save your assumptions for "amen"ing Rush and the other chuckleheads.
Your characterization of the past and current incarnations of the bar exam merely shows your ignorance and suggests your own apparent failure to pass when it was supposedly more difficult. Passage rates are high. Always were. I am a little embarrassed for you.

You should be embarrased; but not for me - for yourself. You GenXers always make it about yourselves. Interesting that you are a practicing lawyer, who is not listed on the rolls of lawyers admitted to practice in Minnesota. When you fantasize, you go all the way, don't you?

Hmmm...I wonder if somebody named Americanus is on the list? What a genius. But you do get creepy points for cyber stalking. GenX inherited the garbage dump left by their grandparents and parents. Obviously that "greatest generation" (as if) and their self-involved yuppy offspring were far better at leaving their messes for others to clean up. The legal profession is just another example of it.
Gosh, I see the joy you take in sweeping generalizations. Sure saves energy, not having to actually THINK.