Will law school get shorter, longer, or disappear altogether?
Some of these on-going discussions about the future of law schools have transpired over the course of the last few weeks, meaning many readers will have seen at least some of these posts already. But I thought a quick-and-dirty summary, with links, all in one place might make for interesting Friday reading.
Ben Barros at Property Prof Blog has gotten lots of attention this week for his proposal (mentioned earlier by Al) for an advanced placement system for law schools. It’s in response to the ABA Out of the Box Committee recent suggestion that law school should be four years for regular division students. Not all of the reactions to extending law school by a year have been positive, of course. From Elie Mystal at Above The Law:
I just learned that before your head explodes there is a blinding white light and you can faintly hear Ave Maria playing in your head. It's quite pleasant actually. Oh, here comes the blood.
Gordon Smith at Conglomerate doesn’t like it either, and also worries about Paul Lippe’s Welcome to the Future: Time for Law School 4.0, which, according to Gordon, promotes:
"An accelerated curriculum, with no more than a year of case method, a year of clinical, and then a year of externship with subject area focus, along the lines of medical school."
That last bit is where I did a double take: law school is technically three years, but law students receive only one year of classroom instruction!
Finally, Kashmir Hill at Above the Law asks Could There Be Accreditation for Distance Learning Law Schools in the Not-So Distant Future?
Whatever the answer, Bill Henderson at Empirical Legal Studies thinks that we need to find it fast:
The salad days of 2004 to 2008 were driven by a Wall Street juggernaut that destroyed the U.S. investment banking industry, which was the historical client basis for the industry's most prestigious law firms. And here is a more pointed follow-up question, "How much does the legal economy need to recover so that our students can to support their debt load?"
A few blawggers have made special efforts to bring out their inner law freak this week . . . and we like that.
At Concurring Opinions, Lawrence Cunningham discusses A Latvian Twist on Faust. According to The Baltic Times:
Kontora Loan Company of Latvia, in the face of the worst financial crisis in the European Union, is offering unique loans to those who have nothing to offer for collateral. The company will shell out the loan in exchange for a guarantee of their clients’ “immortal souls.”
And at PrawfsBlawg, Dave Fagundes analyzes Rex v. Djinn. According to CNN:
A family in Saudi Arabia has taken a genie to court, alleging theft and harassment, according to local media.
The lawsuit filed in Shariah court accuses the genie of leaving them threatening voicemails, stealing their cell phones and hurling rocks at them when they leave their house at night, said Al-Watan newspaper.
An investigation was under way, local court officials said.
Dave works through both the case specifics, and its implications for legal scholarship:
The mind boggles at the legal difficulties raised by the case. How will the family serve process on the genie? If the genie fails to show up in court, and the family gets a default judgment, how will they collect? (Presumably the genie can use his magical powers to conjure up plenty of cash to satisfy the judgment.) Or does the suit seek injunctive relief? This case represents good news for legal academics, too. The field of genie law is significantly under-written (no articles on Westlaw based on a very cursory search), so the lawsuit should provide lots of fodder for novel scholarship.
Guys – can I get an invite to the Genie And Immortal Souls Law conference? Please?!?
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