The truth sank in during 2012. Law schools continued to suffer lower enrollment ; graduates kept struggling to find jobs; and educators began to accept that these changes might be permanent that the old way of doing things had to change. If 2011 was the year the legal academy hit rock bottom, 2012 was the year it began to come to terms with its new reality.
“Absolutely, this year was a turning point,” said Washington University in St. Louis School of Law dean Kent Syverud, chair of the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. “A large faction of the legal education community is aware and accepting of the need for change.” Perhaps nothing demonstrates the shift as clearly as law professors’ reaction to bad press. In 2011, they circled the wagons and loudly defended legal education when The New York Times published a series of reports questioning the value of a law degree. In November 2012, when Case Western Reserve University School of Law dean Lawrence Mitchell took to the Times opinion pages to decry the “almost relentless attacks on law schools,” the reaction was much different. Law professors and pundits refuted Mitchell’s arguments in print and online, accusing him of looking through rose-colored glasses.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
