University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog

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

Guess who's coming to U of T?

Michael Ignatieff did not have to wait long for another job. He is returning to the U of T's Massey College as senior resident and will be teaching in several departments, including the Faculty of Law.

TO JD OR NOT JD (2010)

A number of Canadian law schools have changed the name of the first degree they grant from LLB to JD and have offered graduates from the BJD days the chance to trade-in their old model for the new (for a price, of course.) Here's a list of an answers that might help some of you decide which way to go, now, and that you Alberta types might consider whenever the tide reaches you. 

The list is done in "standard" Letterman form - but 20, not 10 - call it a double-Letterman. The meaning of some may not be as obvious as the others. In some cases, the numbering is a hint.

Osgoode as it Gets

The Toronto Star is running an interesting piece about a former sex worker whose grit and tenacity landed her a spot in Osgoode Hall this year, and one of ten students whose requirement of a previous degree was waived. As the reporter notes, this Pretty Woman meets Legally Blonde scenario is perfect for a movie script. It is a remarkable and inspiring story of personal achievement against the odds.

Update on UNLV

So those poor students who hadn't received their Con. Law grades back yet will all receive a PASS on their transcript! As the story points out, if you had banked on getting the A in Con. Law and now you got a pass, needless to say you would  be quite upset. Of course, if you thought Con. Law was your bad exam, getting a pass may not be that bad.

This, of course, leads to the obvious question of what first-year course is perceived to be the most difficult course for most law students? I suppose if I were studying 100 years ago, Horse Law might be up there.

Who did it? They did!

The excellent language blog, English, Jack reported in April that the Department of Justice, working around the clock to implement the Conservative Agenda, has issued a ruling on Them. Not only does the department now have a policy on them, it also has a policy on they, their, themselves and theirs. To be precise, the department has declared that the use of any or all of these pronouns as singular third person pronouns is now acceptable in drafting legislation. English, Jack's opinion: " I do hope that this sounds the death knell for the pointless proscription of singular they."

Up until now I have resisted this trend. I accept the need to avoid gender-specific language, but I have tried, and I have encouraged ('corrected') students to avoid using the third person plural pronoun in place of a singular noun. There are ways to do this: writing in plurals ('lawyers' instead of 'a lawyer' and thus 'them' instead of 'him' or 'her'), using "he or she" and its variants, using "he" and "she" for different categories (for example, in Robert Cover's classic article "Violence and the Word" he uses the feminine pronoun for the judge, the masculine for the accused), or justifying use (for example, when I write about jurors in 18C Nova Scotia, I use the masculine pronoun, but note that this is acceptable because only men were called as jurors).

The problem I have with the plural pronoun used in singular situations is with verb agreement. Take this pair of sentences:
"The professor's job is to teach students the law. He is doing a poor job if he does not help with writing skills too."
There are two alternatives using the plural pronoun here:
1) "The professor's job is to teach students the law. They is doing a poor job if they does not help with writing skills too."
2) "The professor's job is to teach students the law. They are doing a poor job if they do not help with writing skills too."
In the first option, the verb agreement is with the singular noun, which may prevent confusion as to what the pronoun refers, but there is no pronoun-verb agreement. In the second there is pronoun-verb agreement, but the verbs in the second sentence do not agree with the original noun.

The Department of Justice favours number 2, though in the several examples on the web page the authors studiously avoid having to show examples where agreement problems may arise. Likewise, the various writing guides they quote do not, at least in the passages quoted, address this question.

At this point, and as I head into another year of teaching, I am disinclined to accept "they" and its variants as singular pronouns, and will encourage my students to use plural general nouns combined with the plural pronouns. But, I am less certain than I once was on this, I may yet give in to the Department of Justice's recommendations and.I may give up my pointless proscription of singular they.

LSAT in Brazil?

If you were planning on going to law school, but can't decide where - apparently, the entrance exam in Brazil is so easy that even an 8 year old can pass it! 

Jobs for Law Students

Every year around this time I bump into the odd student who graduated and still does not have a job; however, most of our graduates, as far as I can tell, have been gainfully employed. Prospepective law students in Canada who are thinking of heading south, on the other hand, may wish to pay attention to what the job situation is like down there. Two threads at Above the Law (with a link to the National Law Journal story that started the discussion) and WSJ Blogs paint a less than rosy picture of jobs for JDs.