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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Law - "The Price to Play the ABA's Way"

Today's (Sunday's)NY Times Business Section features a massive (2-full-page) story by David Segal placing much of the blame for the high cost of a law school education on the ABA's one-size-fits-all accreditation requirements. But the must-read story covers a lot more ground than that.

Here are a few quotes:

Anyone willing to invest $175,000 on a legal education, and hoping to earn a pile of money at a corporate firm, has plenty of options. But let’s say that your ambition is to make a modest living, perhaps in an area that is struggling. Or that you’d rather not enter your mid-20s lashed to a six-figure loan.

If you want a diploma blessed by the A.B.A. — and you don’t have rich parents, a plum scholarship or an in-state public law school with lots of taxpayer support — you are pretty much out of luck. And that is not just a problem for would-be attorneys. The lack of affordable law school options, scholars say, helps explain why so many Americans don’t hire lawyers.

“People like to say there are too many lawyers,” says Prof. Andrew Morriss of the University of Alabama School of Law. “There are too many lawyers who charge $300 an hour. There aren’t too many lawyers who will handle a divorce at a reasonable rate, or handle a bankruptcy at a reasonable rate. But there is no way to be that lawyer and service $150,000 worth of debt.”

This helps explain a paradox: the United States churns out roughly 45,000 lawyers a year, but survey after survey finds enormous unmet need for legal services, particularly in low- and middle-income communities. This year, the World Justice Project put the United States dead last among 11 high-income countries in providing access to civil justice.

It’s not just that many lawyers are prohibitively expensive. It is that when it comes to legal expertise, there are not a lot of cheaper alternatives — not in the United States, anyway. Britain, on the other hand, has a long menu of options, including a tier of professionals called legal executives, who are licensed after getting the equivalent of a community college degree. Counsel is also available from nonlawyers at a variety of nonprofits. And you can buy a simple divorce over the Internet for a set fee, or pay for customized legal advice, online or by phone.

“In the U.S., people and businesses have only one place to go for all their legal help — lawyers who graduated from an A.B.A.-approved law school and who follow mostly A.B.A. rules about how they run their practice,” says Gillian Hadfield, a professor at the Gould School of Law of the University of Southern California. “Everyone else who offers legal advice is engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.” * * *

In the case of other professional schools, he says, “you go to the accreditors before you open your doors, and they work with you from the beginning. And if you’re not in compliance, they will tell you. The A.B.A. says you can’t even apply for accreditation until you’ve completed your first year. That’s a huge difference.”

As I read the following, I recalled that the IU-Indianapolis Law School traces its history back to the merger in the early and mid-20th century of a number of small independent law schools:
THE A.B.A. won its role in legal education after a messy battle that began early in the 20th century. At the time, dozens of profit-making night schools were springing up, offering a more practical curriculum at a fraction of the tuition charged by established schools. From 1890 to 1930, the number of law schools tripled, and most of the increase came from night schools, according to Mr. Shepherd of Emory University and William G. Shepherd, authors of “Scholarly Restraints? A.B.A. Accreditation and Legal Education.”

To say that these night schools and their graduates appalled the A.B.A.’s core membership hardly captures the horror. Thousands of new lawyers were suddenly flowing into the market, many of them poor immigrants. Some of these night-school graduates were accused of incompetence, though notably those accusations came from the legal establishment, both in the field and in academia. The dean of Yale described night schools as a “rank weed” and urged their closure. * * *

Mr. Archer’s vision of low-cost legal education did not vanish. It lives on in places like the Nashville School of Law, a night school that started as the Nashville Y.M.C.A. Night Law School in 1911. Nashville’s graduates are not recruited by large corporate firms. Most will remain in Tennessee, because only a few states deem a diploma from a school that lacks A.B.A. accreditation as a ticket to practice.

But tuition costs $21,000 — in total, for all four years it takes to complete the degree. The reasons? Nobody has tenure. There are no full-time professors. The library costs $65,000 a year.

“Our mission from Day 1,” says Virginia M. Townzen, associate dean, “was to provide a quality, affordable education to those who might not otherwise be able to attend law school.”

The graduates get high marks from local judges, including Lawrence H. Puckett of the 10th Judicial District of Tennessee. “Some of our more outstanding practitioners have come through the Nashville School,” he said. “Many of the teachers are judges that I know, and I’m sure they are excellent instructors. But I think it’s also the quality of students. They persevere while also holding down a job. That speaks highly of their character.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 18, 2011 05:50 PM
Posted to General Law Related