1. Dave! on January 3, 2006 11:59 AM writes...

Doesn't sound like anything new to me... "Scare you to death, work you to death, bore you to death," right? So if the 3rd year were 1) interesting and/or 2) useful, maybe it wouldn't be a problem.

2. Chris Laurel on January 4, 2006 2:18 AM writes...

Below is a letter I am drafting to the dean of my law school. I plan to send it to him by January 8, the first day of the new semester. I still need to take my exams after the school postponed them on me (I did not ask). It is in rough draft. Feel free to comment.

"What do you throw a drowning lawyer? A rock."

Dear Dean,

First, I assure you I am not, as one well-meaning professor suggested, bipolar (only eccentric). Second, if you read any one thing I write in my three years in law school, please take time to read this. Below I explain: how the state of the nation contributed to my nervous breakdown at the end of the Fall 2005 semester; the problem with the juris doctor program as a reflection of the problems our society experiences; and the solution for students and professors.

1. Breakdown: What is happening to America around me?

In November 2005 a newspaper reported that Indian Point's emergency plans still do not consider the possibility of a terrorist attack on the nuclear plant located 35 miles from Times Square. A year after the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami, two new reports conclude that California is still a long way from protecting its residents from earthquake-generated waves. On my flight home on New Year's day I sat next to an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker from New Orleans. "My city is choking and dying, and America cares more about PC holiday greetings and Katie Holmes' sonogram machine." Without debate we spend over $1 billion/day to destroy and rebuild a country that played no role in 9/11, but we immediately question the logic to rebuild a city integral to our culture and history.

The White House advocates torture, and Charles Krauthammer argues convincingly (and incorrectly) that it is moral to torture. At Abu Ghraib we tortured innocent Iraqis to death, but this fact went unmentioned in every Presidential debate. Without warrants the White House is amassing vast troves of information on citizens who—the FBI acknowledged—never engaged in wrong-doing nor had ties to terrorists. Our borders remain incredibly porous. Our government operates in secrecy. We inadequately monitor our ports, chemical refineries and energy plants. The now-defunct 9/11 Commission's recommendations languish. People are in unprecedented and dangerously high levels of consumer debt (with frightening implications for our future prosperity within our lifetimes). Four months after Katrina we are unconcerned no plan to address poverty is forthcoming as we trawl blogs for news on Brittney Spears' post-partum body-mass index. We barely notice that student loan subsidies were cut by their largest margin since the program was instituted in 1965. No concerns is paid when we increase taxes on the middle class and cut them for the wealthy in the midst of two wars, both underfunded and undermanned. Avian flu is a ticking bomb and if it went off tomorrow every single person would have family or friends perish along with millions others, and we do not come close to adequate preparation.

Richard Posner mentions New Orleans could become a tourist attraction like Gettysburg, and perhaps was headed that way, anyway. The difference is there was never civilization at Gettysburg, only destruction: its sole purpose was as a battlefield. Is that what New Orleans is? Then I fear we have lost that battle, and that is the homefront.

Americans have little idea what is happening and they have no time to find out. What they do learn is distorted by spin, sensationalism, marketing or blatant lies spread by a press that has ceded its "Fourth Estate" responsibility. Where is the intellectual outrage on campus? The outrage of the average American? That things continue to worsen with consequences that could possibly kill millions in this country, definitely weighs on me. I don’t understand how it doesn’t on anyone else. This is why the law school structure is ethically wrong. Egregiously so.

2. Enlightenment and legal education via boot camp methods – what's the basis?

In 1993 an AALS report on the rampant drug and alcohol abuse at American law schools shocked the legal community. It shouldn't have. A 1999 study in Notre Dame Magazine found that "lawyers suffer from depression, anxiety, hostility, paranoia, social alienation and isolation, obsessive-compulsiveness, and interpersonal sensitivity at alarming rates." Excessively long hours continue to harm our families and quality of life. We harm our communities when we work ourselves like mules, disallowing engagement in society. When an attorney abandons law they do so as a rebirth of their human spirit. Those who endure often become embittered, humorless, or turn to destructive law school coping mechanisms ("We know [law school] is where they start," said New York Chief Judge Judith Kaye. "This is the last bastion before they begin in the legal profession."):

"One group of researchers found that the rate of alcoholism among lawyers is double the rate of alcoholism among adults generally, while another group of researchers estimated that 26 percent of lawyers had used cocaine at least once C twice the rate of the general population. One out of three lawyers suffers from clinical depression, alcoholism or drug abuse. Not surprisingly, a preliminary study indicates that lawyers commit suicide and think about committing suicide more often than nonlawyers." [Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn 1999]
In 2003 a follow-up to the 1993 report found no improvement and noted that law school faculty are not immune from the problems of substance abuse. In 2005 Dean Escalera told me in her office that change takes time. How much time do we need?

How we learn has no bearing on how we practice. If law school mirrored legal practice then six partners would oversee 100 first year associates, give them general instruction for six separate transactions or cases, and expect if they do not understand they will ask every question necessary to complete an assignment correctly. Only when the partner, the client and all opposing counsel meet to close the deal would the first year associate's work be fully reviewed. If he or she did one thing incorrectly – the wrong name on a filed UCC, for instance – the deal would not close. The junior attorney would be asked to leave. Business transactions would slow to a crawl.

This is how law school operates. There are no "senior associates" involved. My theories for this "boot camp" martyr mentality are unimportant, though note the US alone requires a three year program at crushing cost to educate aspiring attorneys. In most other countries law is an undergraduate program, followed by a bar-type test and apprenticeship.

End-of-course review sessions are more accurately "Q&A's." Professors expect students to prepare to pepper them with questions germane to the main themes of the course. Students expect the professor to prepare a broad overview of their year-long course, with hints as to what is important. Q&A's are inefficient and frustrating for everyone involved.

For students raised typing, hand-writing under pressure for three or four hours causes painful cramps. I barely can read my own writing, which is slow and sloppy; however, I type 85wpm. Written tests are a significant disadvantage to me.

3. Time to fight the inertia: an easy fix

America keeps crashing the same car: we never fix problems (racism, disaster preparation, destroyed cities, etc.). Our attorneys will argue for major changes in laws to benefit a client or society, yet we fight tooth and nail efforts to fix our own problems, despite evidence of where this road to ruin leads. "I had to suffer, so should you," is the mentality of many alum. Despite their discontented careers, unpleasant memories, and all evidence to the contrary, they cling to the delusion it helps our careers and characters. Few parents would responsibly encourage their children to pursue law if they grasped what their child would experience. Few people know how illogical is the juris doctor program structure.

Semesterization will not fix the problem and our inertia means any change must be the best. Without doubt, students need to be tested more. Only then will grades accurately reflect abilities. Staggered exams evidence improvement and alert students of problems before it is too late.

Three exams (25%, 25%, 50%) will be required for three-credit classes and above. One exam per course produces extreme anxiety; a cold at the wrong time will send an over-stressed student over the edge. Multiple tests inspire motivation, incentivize continuous preparation, mitigate procrastination, and therefore better educates students. Star performers will continue to shine. Multiple exams expose topical weaknesses and strengths which may or may not be important to an employer's hiring needs. We will provide records of all exams (not only finals) for use in interviews.

Professors also are stressed and grading more exams is anathema. We should follow other graduate schools and institute legal teaching assistant programs. The 3L year's usefulness is questionable but here to say. Let's make it substantive: those planning academic careers will benefit enormously from teaching assistant positions. So will professors: under their tutelage and close supervision TAs will grade the first two exams. Professors always grade the weighty final. 3L TAs will fill the role of senior associates; they are less intimidating and will provide great insight. They can also conduct comprehensive review sessions. If ABA rules prohibit any of this, we must convince them of the import to change tout suite. There are few credible arguments against these solutions.

The necessity for these reforms is urgent. The lawyer joke at the beginning is typical, except it is lawyers who toss rocks to drowning lawyers. Interestingly, lawyer-bashing caught fire in our culture only since the civil rights era, when lawyers greatly (and controversially) improved our democracy with cases that brought the Bill of Rights to the citizens of the several states (something that should have happened once John Bingham wrote the 14th Amendment with that intent). Those rightfully-won battles sadly remain unpopular, and will come under attack. Judge Alito's criticism of Reynolds v. Sims (as an "advocate" – an advocate of what? Far-right jurisprudential philosophy then and now) is proof. So-called Originalists on the Supreme Court vote most to overturn legislative acts. We may be in for some of the toughest fights of our lives over principles taken for granted in this young, fragile experiment in liberty.

Only lawyers are trained and educated in history and rhetoric to combat the distortions and lies (often crafted by our own) that are ruining America's public discourse. Outside the office our free time is focused on neglected families; there is no time to contribute honest and principled arguments to important issues facing the country. We work too many weekends: we are victimized by long hours and extraordinary debt. Law students excited about 2L summer jobs are sheltered from the reality that they jumped out of the pan of law school unhappiness and into the law firm fire of exhaustion. We could tolerate law firm culture longer if we didn't emerge miserable from an emotionally devastating education program that inaccurately measured ability and warped our self-worth.

Dean, you have such high regard amongst the students. We see you as fair, gifted with intelligence, an inspiring professor, affable and a role model. You can improve the lives of these students with relative ease, and benefit the school in the process. We would enhance our already stellar reputation and firms will love that our more accurate grades aid their recruitment goals. The stakes are too high to continue on this pointless road to ruin. You have the power to help effect a small change with enormous and immediate benefits. We must stop unnecessarily beating our country's most talented and driven. I hope you agree enough to give me the opportunity to meet and discuss this idea. I did not address every issue and solution in this letter to keep it as short as possible.

3. MT on January 4, 2006 1:58 PM writes...

But what you didn't have was WiFi in the lecture halls.

4. Gregory W. Bowman on January 5, 2006 11:33 PM writes...

The unspoken question here is whether we should get rid of the third year of law school. The law is becoming increasingly splintered and hyper-specialized, and in my view the third year (and much of the second, for that matter) is there to allow people to take elective courses they are interested in. As a professor, I am constantly frustrated by how much I CANNOT cover in a single semester--including stuff that is terribly important for students to know. I'd actually think about ADDING A FOURTH YEAR if I had my way, unpopular though that may be, to provide more substantive instruction--as well as practically-focused externships and the like.

I've posted more on this on my blog at http://law-career.blogspot.com.

5. Aaron W on January 6, 2006 9:13 AM writes...

I did learn a lot my third year in. I felt that the first two years laid the foundation so that I could have understanding of the wider foundation of law when I took those third year courses. A lot of classes in first and second year were like looking around in a symphony hall with a flashlight - you had no idea of the larger ramifications of what you were learning or sometimes even what that class itself was trying to teach you. I know I spent nearly 3 months of civil procedure 1 wondering when that keystone in the arch we were being taught was going to fall into place, because I had no idea what the point of many ideas was. It turned out that that particular class was because the teacher was the worst in the law school, thank you Raymond Lamonica, but other classes were similiar though not to the extent of those classes (Thank GOD for Glannon's Civ Pro). I think third year is necessary, but maybe it would be better for everyone involved if half of it was spent doing "rotations" in real law practice. I definitely learned more about the practice of law from my one and half years as a lawclerk at DOC than I did in my three as a law student.

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