Michael Simkovic has it up here. People who interested in the issue, but have not been keeping up, should probably read the article here then kick up their feet, relax, and read the stream of explanatory posts Michael has put up recently at Leiter.
Sure. The study could be wrong. Quantitative research is not, after all, truth-finding, but rather highly educated guessing, the quality of which depends on assumptions and data. Sure. The future of the legal profession, as compared to other fields, may bear no resemeblance to the past. Maybe this is just a history study. Sure. Some law schools may oversell this study in an effort to recruit students. We can grant all of these things.
Looking both at the paper itself, and the sustained, thoughtful responses to criticism, my sense is that this research is serious scholarship done by serious scholars who tried extremely hard to produce an accurate account of an issue under study. Perhaps other labor economists will definitively shred this paper - though I think such an outcome is unlikely.
But I think that people who care about legal education owe these guys a meed of gratitude for taking on an important question in such a radioactive environment; being willing to engage critics very publicly; and being both thorough and respectful scholars. The students at Seton Hall are fortunate to have somebody like Simkovic in the building.
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