Colm Tóibín on his daily routine and the cult of Law School

Colm Tóibín's explained his daily routine to the Irish Times: 


"Breakfast? No! None of that eating rubbish. You get down with an empty stomach. So you create this system of rewards – if you do this, you can have that. Otherwise you’d never get any work done… I take an hour off and work for an hour. And I work until late, six days a week. The other general rule is, no lunch with anybody. That’s an awful waste of time. And I would never drink in the day. Ever."

There's no business like the Law School business

Sian Griffiths (@SianGriffiths6) recently did wonderful some work in The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) here, reporting on the "1000s of law students who will never practice law." The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) is now complicit in this economic madness, offering to add yet more aspiring, but credulous, law students to the "glut" of jobless or desk-monkey law students - see advertisement above! Above that advertisement The Sunday Times included a lengthy encomium, via Sian Griffiths, on a racing driver turned law student. 

Nigel Savage, chief executive of the University of Law was featured on that encomium. He passed wise words on employer-led practice learning, as opposed to the "traditional liberal education" (euphemism for "bums on seats, don't teach education" (as per the Jenni Russell article here)). Apart from that it was cheap salesmanship, PR passed as journalism. Journalism's ignoble and shameful capitulation.

Yet here's what people don't know. The University of Law was sold to a private equity fund for £200 million. With that, you have to ask: If someone was prepared to pay £200 million for the University of Law, there must be big money to be made from teaching law students?

Yes, there's no business like the Law School business. So here's my question for the Sunday Times: Why not offer scholarships for a degree in languages? In technology and engineering? For this is where the growth and economic opportunity lies. 

As a post-script. Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) has written feverishly on his ad-free blog The Dish about "the surrender of journalism to PR and advertising." It seems that it's infected even The Sunday Times. 

The Cult of University, Ctd Science versus arts students

The point made in the last post in The Cult of University series here, was that attending 8 hours of lectures per week in an arts/humanities/social 'science' course is a waste of £27,000, except for the academically gifted. Carola Binney (@carolabinney) said in The Spectator here:

"I [an arts student] have three-and-a-half contact hours a week. Two of these are just ‘advisable’, and are sacrificed to essay crises with some regularity... Us Arts students have to decide to work. We have to get ourselves up, preferably in the morning. We have to choose to do today what we could do at 2am tomorrow. We have to turn down a pub trip in favour of an evening alone with our books. Hungover and exhausted, who wouldn’t rather sit watching acid drip into alkaline for a couple of hours, rather than trawling through Asser’s Life of King Alfred."

I want to ask again: What average 18,19, 20 or 21 year old is going to construct an effective learning curriculum around a 3-8 hour week of lectures and tutorials? From my own personal experience, not many. This is where the self-directed drinks curriculum takes precedence, as per By my mind, this is a waste an inefficient allocation of human potential.

Dale J. Stephens said here:

"I enrolled into college... However any idealism was quickly squashed. For the most part, people weren't there to learn - they were there to party, and hangovers permitting, learn something along the way. I started asking questions." 

Previous posts in The Cult of University series here, here university here, here, here, on the University Neurosis here, on The Legally Blonde complex here and also a piece here. Also on the Huffington Post here.

My blog post on YouGov who found that employers have found graduates non-work-ready, here. My blog post here where a Sunday Times poll found that students are critical of university teaching standard and that universities are more interested in research than teaching students.

Why "Thinking like a lawyer" is a nonsense

Senior editor and legal correspondent, Dahlia Lithwick said in The New Republic here:

"Being trained to “think like a lawyer” is terrific as far as it goes. But legal education is notoriously abstract, impractical, and obfuscating. I don’t want someone to “think like a doctor” when she’s taking out my gall bladder. I want her to take out my gall bladder."

Jordan Weismann, associate editor of The Atlantic Magazine said the same for the tired platitude, "thinking like a lawyer". He said here:

"And in the end, despite all the homilies about how you can do anything with a law degree, firms big and small are still the major driver of J.D. hiring. Without Big Law's explosive growth, it's impossible to imagine that law schools would have ever expanded or raised tuition the way they did during the good times. With Big Law on the rocks, we can only be thankful that schools themselves are now shrinking."

Why does everyone want to go to law school? Ctd

The Lawyer Magazine wrote here:

"With 14,000 students chasing 5,000 places, recruiters are rethinking the selection routine. Anyone hunting a training contract should note the endless queue. University graduates see law as a relatively safe option in a rocky jobs market, but in 2009/10 there were 11,370 full-time and 3,140 part-time LPC places compared with just 4,874 newly registered training contracts."

Sometimes you don’t know what the right thing is for you until you start to do it

Paul Bernal is a lecturer in IT, IP and media law at the University of East Anglia, blogging at Paul Bernal's Blog. In an interview with legal tabloid Legal Cheek he explained how practical doing can bear more professional fruit than abstractive reflection. He said:

"Now, I would say I’m closer to doing what I really want to do than I have been at any stage in my life — and I’ve found it without a plan. At first I thought I needed one. Now I’m quite clear that even if I had had a plan, it would have been important to be able to break with it, to follow my nose — and not to be afraid to change plans."

The key part: "Sometimes you don’t know what the right thing is for you until you start to do it. The thing I’ve learned, more than anything else, is that that’s OK. In fact, it’s great."

 

As Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it must find you working." English political philosopher Michael Oakeshott wrote to the same effect: "the greatest achievements are accomplished in the mental fog of practical experience."

 

 

Reforming Law School

Following the publication of the American Bar Association report on the future of US legal education, Lisa Needham of lawyerist.com said:

"Perhaps most radical and most important, it could reintegrate the legal profession with legal education and require that practitioners become stewards of the profession, committed to creating opportunities and mentorship for the newly graduate."

 

Why Law School? Ctd Move on if no job after 2 years post-TC

@rachel_1709 #AskaTrainee if you haven't got a TC offer in 2 years I would move on
— Charlotte Brinsley (@cbrinsley) September 29, 2013

Why Law School? Ctd, Lorin Stein

When all else fails, go to law school. A pretty standard drag and drop career move written into the cultural script. Even the editor of The Paris Review, Lorin Stein nearly took the route. That was until at the last moment his big literary break broke. It was explained in an interview with The Financial Times. It was said:

"In 1998, just at the point where he [Lorin Stein] was about to give up and go to law school, he got a call. Jonathan Galassi, FSG president and publisher, needed an assistant. He was in."

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd

Law school has about as much to do with being a lawyer as farting.
— Grad School Elitist (@GradElitism) August 13, 2013

Legally Blonde - Why everyone wants to go to Law School

 

The cultural myth endures. Andrew Sullivan provides the analysis here. Girl says her law mentor went to law school after being inspired by Legally Blonde. The same happened with a girl in Belfast here. Here's what some of Andrew Sullivan's commenters have said: 

"I agree that students need more practical experience. The ABA is definitely run by people with some old-fashioned thinking, so that organization needs a shake-up. The number of people who go to law school who really shouldn’t is also a problem... The bar exam is just institutionalized hazing and in no way reflects whether someone is qualified to practice law."

A commenter from an earlier Dish post here: 

"But it’s long been a byword among young lawyers that an extraordinarily high percentage of instruction has been irrelevant to the actual practice of law, unless you take very seriously such chestnuts as the critical importance of learning to “think like a lawyer.” For one thing, an awful lot of law students, in my experience, have been “thinking like a lawyer” since about the third grade, which made them very unpopular children. More importantly, the cult of legal education seems to depend on the perpetuation of what amounts to an intellectual hazing system, where the student’s tolerance for tedious content, arbitrary testing, and self-imposed pressure is presumably preparation for the agonies of being on the low end of the professional totem pole for years."

Why law school? Ctd Maria Doran Chooses Law School

Rumpole and the Bailey, Suits, John Grisham, Lincoln Lawyer, The Good Wife, Silk, Legally Blonde - just some among the very many vague reasons why young people go to law school.

Why does everyone want to go to Law School?, Ctd 'best [Wall Street]cover letter ever' student wants to go to law school

The Business Insider and Forbes magazine featured what was labelled as the 'best cover letter ever': a direct communication from a student to a big Wall Street exec for a summer internship.

The situation of the student was that he/she wants to be an investment banker. At time of sending the person was an undergraduate finance student planning to do a masters in accounting. 

And get this, and I quote: 

"I am currently awaiting admission results for (BLOCKED) Masters of Science in Accountancy program, which I would begin this fall if admitted. I am also planning on attending law school after my master’s program, which we spoke about in New York."

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd craven self-interest and student loans

Andy Mergendahl, writing in the lawyerist.com said something that brings a lot to the debate on why the hell everyone wants to go to law school, and importantly, why law schools enlists students knowing employment prospects are as bleak as a ducks arse.

Andy said that so long as the federal student loan system persists and the money flows, the law school over subscription problem will exist. 

See, it's all craven-self interest. Here's Andy:

"It’s tempting to conclude, given the legal job market and the intense criticism the schools have endured, that they must be changing a lot, and quickly. 

I disagree. As long as federal student loan money continues to flow like a river, nothing significant will change. Money drives everything in the law: legislation, the executive branch, judicial elections, law firms big and small. Only money (or the lack of it) will change the law schools."

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd Legal Education andTraining Review

After 30 months, it's out. Legal Cheek has produced a good summation of the 335 page document.

10 tweets that help you understand the Legal Education & Training Review without having to read the thing http://t.co/n1bTIVCHO4 #LETR
— Legal Cheek (@legalcheek) June 25, 2013

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd, 'Glut of graduates threatens hope of career in law' reports Sian Griffiths

From Sunday 23 2013 in the Sunday Times, a must read: 'Glut of graduates threatens hope of career in law.'

In short: young people are not being warned about the shortage of legal jobs according to the Law Society of England and Wales.

The warning from the Law Society certainly gives force to the article, 'It Is Now Completely Clear to Everyone That Law School Is for Suckers.'

Basil McCrea asks: are we producing too many law graduates?

Finally a politician has shown himself to be aware that there might be something wrong with belching out law students in the full knowledge that employability prospects are low:

@gary_ni @HerbertSmithLaw @AllenOvery @Citi @investni Maybe you should check how many law students we are producing in NI vs demand
— Basil McCrea (@basilmccrea) June 23, 2013

This comes in the tail of the Sunday Times article which came under the title, 'Glut of graduates threatens hope of career in law' covered by Education Editor Sian Griffiths (@SianGriffiths6). As covered in tweet below:

Law Society: 000s of middle-class graduates who spend years trying to qualify as solicitors will never secure jobs. http://t.co/nqUepk4vxP
— GeneratingGenius (@GeneratingG) June 24, 2013

Why does everyone want to go to law school? Ctd with Alex Aldridge

Alex Aldridge of Legal Cheek talks about going to law school from 13 minutes of his Law Tour podcast series interview with Charon QC.

Listen to podcast in full here.

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd

I think the former barrister Harry Mount writing in the Spectator is onto something:

"There’s no reason why they should be paid any more than other graduates in less overrated jobs. But their high prices, and their dashing reputation, stoked up by Charles Dickens, John Mortimer and a million courtroom dramas, have conspired to produce this delusion of brilliance. It is a delusion many of them fall for themselves."

He's referring to the shrieks and wails of horror being emitted by the legal profession as the Lord Chancellor and non-lawyer, Chris Grayling implements swinging cuts to the legal aid bill.

But it still has resonance with the question of why everyone wants to go to Law School?

Because, as he suggested, Dickens, Mortimer and TV court room dramas have conspired to create a delusion of brilliance. On that is a fiction and but a grotesque characters that does nothing but lead young people up the garden path.

Harry tears into the legal profession, which he calls a "overcharging charade" and the "last unreformed profession", a little more which provides some interesting reading:

"A few specialist areas — banking law, trust law, intellectual property — require brainiacs with Oxbridge firsts, who deserve to be well paid. Most of the rest of it is child’s play. Divorce, death and housebuying are straightforward enough — lots of us manage them with little difficulty — and so is the law associated with them. But over the centuries we’ve let a small group of not particularly gifted people monopolise the legal control of these routine, if crucial, acts."

A little more:

"Most things barristers do for hundreds of pounds an hour could be done as well not just by solicitors but by any intelligent person. Many of the things high-street solicitors do, too — conveyancing, divorces and wills among them — are a doddle, especially in the age of the internet."

Read Harry Mount's piece in the Spectator in full here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8927101/take-it-from-a-former-barrister-chris-grayling-is-right-to-reform-legal-aid/

Why does everyone want to go to Law School? Ctd

This is an open discussion with my last post here. I want to pick the debate up on the blog post by Max Tucker who wrote an essay for the Huffington Post entitled, 'Why You Should Not Go To Law School.'

He backs up my thinking that everyone wants to go to Law School and that it's the default career choice. He said:

"At some point in their life, everyone thinks they should go to law school. You may in fact think you want to go to law school now."

The rest of his essay is great and deserves a read and attention, which you can do here. But I want to leaves things on an interesting comment that was made in response to the post by a practicising attorney. Lara Gardner said:

I'm an attorney and I could have written this, word for word. It is dead on. I wish I had read it before going to law school and getting a degree that ensures I'll have an impossible time ever finding a job that isn't law-related or free of massive student loans. I have virtually no regrets except for attending law school. It was the biggest mistake of my life. Don't do it! Believe what he says here. He's right!