Legal Education versus Scamblogging

I thought I'd share with everyone some links to a very interesting debate/controversy surrounding the latest so-called "law school scamblog." The blog, titled "Inside the Law School Scam," is authored by an anonymous "tenured mid-career faculty member at a Tier One school" in the US. and makes a number of startling claims about legal education in the US. Since it launched on August 7, it has generated intense debate (including ad hominem attacks), traditional and new media coverage, and attempts to expose the identity of the blogger. Here are some quotes from the blog:

"For another, the transformation of law schools from quasi-academic professional schools to serious academic institutions has been, to put it mildly, incomplete. To a significant extent, that transformation has been quite partial and even illusory."

"Despite..all the changes in legal academic life over the past few decades, the law school world  has done next to nothing to create a system of peer review publication.  99.37% of legal academic work is still published in student-run law journals, of which, because of the increased emphasis on publishing, there are now several hundred.  The system, in other words, is hardly designed to reward and encourage genuine academic rigor."

"So no, law school is not a scam in the literal sense. What it is, for a huge number of law students all across the law school hierarchy, is a practical, intellectual, and economic waste of time and money."

"The typical law review article is read by perhaps five people: the author, one or two of the author's more diligent colleagues, and a couple of law review editors."

Hat-tip: Stuart H

Comments

[Gareth Morley]

I'm pleased to hear that the transition of law schools from professional schools to serious academic institutions is incomplete, since it seems like a terrible idea in the first place. People aren't paying you big money to become social scientists: they want to become lawyers.

I tend to agree with anonymous that we get bad social scientists/philosophers/literary critics, but more to the point is whether we are training people to become lawyers.

[Marnie Tunay]

Even more to the point is whether 'we' are teaching people to become good lawyers.

[Gareth Morley]

Apparently, lawprof is Paul Campos.

I don't see why it should be a major focus of public policy to ensure law school grads a healthy income. There are lots of other people who are worse off. I'm sure there are lots of interesting arguments about law school pedagogy, but these are matters about which reasonable people might differ. I tend to think traditional first-year legal education is actually a really effective cognitive discipline, while no one has really figured out what to do with second- and third-year law students.

I do wonder about the level of inflation in law school tuition over the last decade or so. It really does seem excessive.