Law School Reform

On the subject of law school reform, a new suggestion taken from a practice of new/established technology-enhanced retail darling, Zappos. (So, for that reasom alone, I am biased towards it.)

http://slate.me/lawschoolarticle

"Paying students to quit law school.  An unorthodox solution to the problem of too many graduates unable to repay their loans."

Let me know your thoughts.

1/2 Mentored 1/2 Not

Our last poll surveyed NYCLA members to find out if they had a mentor who assisted them in their legal career. The results were curious: 50%  of respondents were lucky enough to have mentors guide their careers, while 50% were not so lucky and wished that they did have a mentor. 

Beyond the scarcity of mentoring, the poll doesn't say much.  It would be interesting to hear from both groups to compare where they are in their careers and development. Success is subjective.  I would be curious to know how those with mentors view their success in terms of the mentoring they received. Likewise, I would like to hear from those who wish they had mentors to know how they feel they would have advanced if mentored.


At least we hope to raise the statistics with NYCLA's mentoring program, now in its third year!

Fixing Law Schools

I recently read an interesting article on how legal education needs to change to be more useful to the graduating law students.  The article posits that law schools must "Prepar[e] student … for a lifetime of successful, ethical and personally rewarding practice." That's a tall order. See the article here:

http://chronicle.com/article/Theres-More-to-the-Law-Than/129493/

Criticism aside, I do agree that law schools need to be re-engineered. The following except taken from the article concerns stepping away from the Ivory Tower to  a more inclusive (and IMO relevant) way to view legal work:

It is necessity, not fashion, that causes lawyers to pay attention to the work of anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. We look to those disciplines because their insights are useful—even indispensable—in understanding and solving legal problems in our complex and rapidly changing world.