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?!?