It is called law school, not lawyer school
Last December, Stanford Law School held a gathering of deans from 10 law schools that are in the process of revamping their educational programs — one of many meetings springing up in attempts to revamp legal education. The apparent problem is that law school students do not graduate with the practical skills not necessary to be practicing lawyers. And as a second semester senior desperately — oh Jeebus desperately — applying to law school, I cannot help but stand athwart this plan, yelling “stop.”
Pardon me if I sound like that annoying guy at a cocktail party, but the last thing we need is more lawyers. Well, that is not entirely accurate. The last thing we need is law schools that view their charge as purely vocational. When people graduate from law school, they should not view themselves as merely lawyers, but people of law who understand the massive fabric that holds together our society.
Every single aspect of our lives, from the water we drink to the air we breathe to the coitus we make, is regulated to some degree by our laws. This is not just the result of some so-called nanny state gone amok. Rather, part of a civilized society is creating a system through which citizens can appeal any and every issue without having to resort to violence — though at times Antonin Scalia’s opinions are as subtle as a lead pipe to a skull.
Like it or not, we do not ride atop the social Leviathan, but live inside it, completely surrounded. And like a fish in water, people are barely aware of the ocean of legality in which we swim. Law school should teach people to navigate this ocean, not just as sailors who ride the currents to ferry clients, but as oceanographers who know the mystery of the depths, constantly striving to understand the why and how.
A successful Juris Doctor should turn an average citizen into a lawyerly Neo who can see the code of our societal matrix, understanding the true meaning of every obscure clause and, yes, being able to manipulate it as such.
Or, to use a metaphor I find much more appealing, law schools should be graduating judicial Jedi who can feel and use the law around us. After all, the law is my ally and a powerful ally it is. Society creates it, makes it grow. Its statutes surround us and bind us. Legal beings are we, not some sort of crude warriors. You must feel the law around you, everywhere.
Plus, wouldn’t it be awesome if gavels made lightsaber noises? But I digress.
However, people are offering an alternative. In The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president emeritus and university professor at George Washington University Law School, commented he believes that law schools should create a less rigorous master’s degree that he jokingly called ABB: All but bar. This path would be for people who want to learn about the law but not necessarily become practicing lawyers. I must admit this idea leaves me somewhat distressed.
Trachtenberg’s plan would essentially split law education between legal scientists and engineers, but with the differences all the more obvious. Learning law without any direct experience is like learning chemistry without a lab. Law students, especially those who do not just want a vocational experience, need to understand law in all its aspects, from its philosophical underpinnings to its most contemporary applications.
In the end, our lives are ones of laws and the unexamined life is not worth living. If law schools become more vocational, the job of lawyer will become a job not worth attaining. Of course, there is another reason people go to law school. Take a $120,000 paycheck for a first year lawyer at Vinson and Elkins, please.
Evan Mintz is a Hanszen College senior and executive editor.
Other opinion stories
- Campus changes at expense of prestige
- Judge campaigns by substance, not slogan
- New Year's resolutions
- New Year's resolutions should be all year 'round
- Rice PR made the right choice in Wilson drama
- Rice, Harvard and tuition
News
- Book sculptures kick off new effort to increase campus art
- Campus mourns grad student death
- New computer science chair pledges curricular overhaul
- Rice completes first run of GoCrossCampus
- Search for missing Rice student garners national attention, but few clues
- Tuition, H&D fees to increase for 2008-09 year
- Wiess selects CIC's Leimbach as new RA
Sports
- From Boston to Blazers to Bill Simmons: What kind of state is the NBA really in?
- How a fading conference can ruin it for the rest of us
- Owls face difficult tests in UTEP, No. 2 Memphis this week
- Women's losing streak now at four games