In September 2011, U.S. News and World Report published a blog post titled, “In Tough Job Market, Law Grads Use J.D.s for Nonlegal Work,” which unselfconsciously promoted cartooning, training service dogs, and working on a wind farm as “nontraditional” careers some University of Texas Law School graduates have found themselves in over the years. It’s understandable that law schools organize “Non-Practicing Advisory Councils” to help graduates find jobs if they’re changing careers or even if, say, their degrees open doors that were probably already open, but it’s a pretty sorry state of affairs when the Number One rankings magazine needs to use the same line to sell readers on law degrees. It’s time to put the “ versatile juris doctor” argument to rest before it becomes entrenched.

Legal Education was Meant to be a Specialized Degree, Not a Generalized One

Decades ago, the ABA asserted that post-undergraduate legal education was necessary to train effective lawyers, although its actual, semi-stated goal was to wall the profession off from people with undesirable origins and creeds and to ape the similarly consolidated medical education system. By the 1960s, the ABA had mostly succeeded in convincing state bar authorities to endorse its accredited law schools’ monopoly over access to the legal profession on the grounds that law shouldn’t be a mere vocational endeavor like plumbing. Soon after, with student loans available via the Higher Education Act, universities opened a wave of new law schools and greatly expanded their enrollments believing that more lawyers would improve access to legal services for poorer Americans.

READ THE WHOLE STORY.