Not with regard to racial preferences, but because the ABA has heavy-handedly sought to require librarians, writing instructors, and clinical faculty be granted tenure or tenure-like protections. I can certainly see the case for law schools choosing to give these faculty members tenure (assuming tenure is a good idea to begin with, which I'm not sure is true), but I don't see any reason why the ABA should be requiring every law school in the country to do so. Indeed, the real reason is likely (a) heavy lobbying from groups representing librarians, writing instructors, and clinical faculty; and (b) the ABA's general indifference to the costs it imposes on legal education. Actually, from the ABA's perspective, the more legal education costs, the better, because that way the cost of law school serves as a greater barrier to entry. There's no reason the Department of Education, which is deciding whether to continue using the ABA as the accrediting body for law schools for federal purposes, should endorse the ABA's rules. For that matter, there is no reason the ABA should be mandating how many classes are taught by full-time faculty as opposed to adjuncts, nor restricting the number of hours faculty may be required to teach.
Thanks to John Rosenberg for the pointer.
UPDATE: Check out related posts at the Truth on the Market blog by Geoff Manne and Josh Wright. And here is the memorandum by the American Law Deans Association that kicked off the controversy.
I think that many (most/all?) of the "regional accrediting boards" are concerned with this point in undergraduate education. The reasons I've heard justifying this is the idea that full-time long term faculty are likely to provide a more integrated education to the students, and hence provide a better experience.
In my department, the faculty have worked for many years to coordinate courses so that the overall result has been good coverage of our entire field, with topics covered in a reasonable sequence, ...
Would we see all that if the ABA were succeeding in some nefarious plot to restrict the number of lawyers?
The problem was that the adjuncts taught what the practice of law actually entailed, and not some nice theory about what it should be, but isn't. It is this idea that the Academy not get its hands dirty with the actual practice of law that is really the problem. They are throwing thousands of new lawyers on the streets every year who have no idea of the actual practice of law, and one reason is that the full time faculty often don't either. They often went from law school themselves, to a clerkship or two, to academia, where they started teaching the next crop of lawyers.
So, I had a 30 year trial lawyer teaching about pleadings and discovery in Civil Procedure, and a sitting District Court judge with a couple of decades on the bench teach about criminal procedure. An actual live patent attorney with probably a thousand patents under his belt taught me about patent practice. These were some of my adjuncts.
On the other side, I had a contracts prof who graded us on parotting back case cites that were only marginally relevant, so barely relevant that they might even have resulted in sanctions if actually included in briefs to courts. Needless to say, he was fully tenured.
Is the ABA a private entity or a state (or federal) actor? from what angle would the provision be attacked...would you have to get to the ABA through the department of education? And once you get either party in court, what are the best constitutional arguments? Just the same arguments from grutter, but with different justices?
I'm posting this question here rather than in the previous posts regarding the ethnic diversity provisions, because i doubt anybody is still looking at those, and so a response is less likely. thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out here.
A job for high school and college English instructors.
The problem was that the adjuncts taught what the practice of law actually entailed, and not some nice theory about what it should be, but isn't. It is this idea that the Academy not get its hands dirty with the actual practice of law that is really the problem. They are throwing thousands of new lawyers on the streets every year who have no idea of the actual practice of law, and one reason is that the full time faculty often don't either. They often went from law school themselves, to a clerkship or two, to academia, where they started teaching the next crop of lawyers.
I had, in a way, the opposite experience. Although the practitioners undoubtedly knew the actual practice of their field better than the regular faculty (on average) they were also (again on average) much less capable of teaching what they knew.
Do you think they have the necessary training and skills in legal argumentation? Legal writing is quite specific writing, after all.
I agree with the poster above: Once past my first year in law school, I always worked with practitioners. I had to unlearn trash passed off as legal training during my first summer out, and I did not appreciate it. Given the showing in the FAIR case, I wonder just how competent fulltime law school instructors are.
And since everyone is throwing out their anecdotal evidence, the practioners at my school (top-10) we're horrible (on average). They didn't have the grasp on the big picture like my professors did, and as another poster said, they (on average) were not good at conveying what they did know.
The people who taught me to write were the partners I worked for at my first law firm. They were cruel but fair and taught me a lot.
I don't recall speaking to any of the library staff during my time in law school.
I remember a legal research and writing class from my first year in law school. I don't recall learning how to write in that class.
The people who taught me to write were the partners I worked for at my first law firm. They were cruel but fair and taught me a lot.
I don't recall speaking to any of the library staff during my time in law school.
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I had exactly the same experience described by the Houston Lawyer, but that was 15 years ago. Fortunately, the training received by many students in today's law schools is quite different.
After the McCrate Report, in an effort to make legal education less theoretical and more practical, many law schools began incorporating more practice-oriented courses. Many schools invested a significant amount of money hiring and retaining full-time clinical professors, often on the tenure-track, to teach these courses. At many schools, these professors now help to provide a better balanced education to today’s law students. Today’s law students study the theoretical underpinnings of the law, but that education is supplemented with practical courses that allow today’s students to function as practicing attorneys upon graduation.
ALDA now wants to “roll back” the employment conditions and safeguards for these clinical and writing professors. This would, undoubtedly, lower the quality of the education received by today's law students, especially in important practical courses. It would, of course, save money, but that savings would be at the expense of properly educating today’s law students.
You can do it in Vermont. I believe you have to clerk for three years, then are elegible to sit for the bar. There's only a handful of lawyers who have done it though, if I recall....