“I believe that going to law school is still a very promising investment for society and for students. It’s not the guaranteed path to a financial return that it was twenty or thirty years ago, but there are plenty of reasons why it makes very good sense for people to go to law school.”
-Hon. Randall T. Shepard
In recent years, the future of legal education has never been more uncertain. As the cost of legal education remains high and employment opportunities decline, many observers question whether law school continues to be a worthy investment. This uncertainty has had a profound effect on the demand for legal education. According to data published by the Law School Admission Counsel, the total number of law school applicants is down 40 percent since 2004, making the present academic year the lowest first-year enrollment in nearly four decades.
In response to this crisis, the American Bar Association announced the formation of the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education (“Task Force”) in the summer of 2012. The Task Force was charged with examining current problems in American legal education and presenting recommendations for their solution. After much anticipation, the Task Force published its final report on January 23, 2014. The former Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court and Chairman of the Task Force, Hon. Randall T. Shepard, agreed to discuss the Task Force’s conclusions and his own personal views of legal education.
The mission undertaken by the Task Force was no easy assignment. Since 2012, the group has held several public hearings and solicited comments from more than one hundred interested parties, including law faculty, practicing attorneys, and state bar associations. In total, the Task Force made more than thirty specific recommendations. According to Shepard, the most important of these recommendations are those that relate to reducing the cost of legal education.
Shepard explained, “One of the most dramatic changes that has occurred in the last twenty years is that most financial aid today is merit-based whereas it used to be that most aid was need-based. This means that the students who apply with the highest test scores and the highest GPAs pay relatively little to attend law school. The students with applications that are relatively weaker, but strong enough to be admitted, pay the full price and borrow the money to attend. This is not the way it was twenty years ago. It’s a very serious and adverse change in the system.”
By Shepard’s own admission, reducing the cost of legal education is incredibly complicated and involves a number of moving parts. So much so that the Task Force concluded that it neither had the time nor resources to adequately address the issue. Despite its limitations, they explored several proposals.
First, the Task Force considered a requirement that would force law schools to reengineer their scholarship programs with a renewed focus on need-based, rather than merit-based, aid. The American Bar Association could effectuate this change by developing an accreditation standard that requires half of all scholarships to be based on financial need.
Second, the Task Force called upon law schools to explore innovative ways of reducing the cost of legal education, including the development of a two-year juris doctorate program or an alternative to the traditional juris doctorate degree.
On the issue of a two-year juris doctorate program, Shepard stated, “I would be surprised if it occurred, but our conclusion was that there is no reason why it shouldn’t be tried in some schools. The three-year model has only been the standard for the last seventy years or so. Before that, the system was characterized by a much different model. I believe that the current model has served us well and I don’t know that it’s clear that it needs reengineering. The interesting issue is whether there are other models that can rest alongside it. The only way to find out is for law schools to design such a program and test it out in real life.”
As for the possibility of an alternative to the juris doctorate degree for lawyers, Shepard explained, “The best example about which we write is the decision by the state bar of Washington to create a post-baccalaureate legal curriculum for people who would be authorized only to assist in real estate transactions. The students would be tested and licensed in the same way that other professionals are. Those behind this plan believe that it makes that service available at a lower cost. The students don’t incur the costs of a three-year legal education, which results in lower costs for the consumers of this specific type of legal advice.”
According to the Task Force, the job of reducing the cost of legal education shouldn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of the American Bar Association and its accredited law schools. The report notes that external forces, like U.S. News and World Report, share the blame for increasing costs and therefore should share the burden of correcting the problem.
While Shepard commended U.S. News and World Report for providing valuable consumer information to prospective law students, he cautioned, “[T]he ranking system rewards things that drive up costs. For example, one of the factors considered by U.S. News and World Report is how much money the law school spends per student. On one hand, that seems like a good thing. On the other hand, it has the effect of driving up tuition rates. Someone is going to have to pay these costs. Under the present arrangement, the person paying is the student taking out loans. Because of this, we recommended that U.S. News and World Report stop using cost per student as a factor in its ranking system.”
Regardless of the cost of legal education, the Task Force emphasized that law schools, whatever their differences, must provide students with the best value for their tuition. To that end, law schools must find the appropriate balance between skills training and doctrinal instruction.
According to Shepard, more work needs to be done in this area. “The structure of legal education varies more than most people realize. The Task Force made the general conclusion that the developments of the last fifteen years are good ones. Specifically, programs that focus on clinical and experiential learning are positive. Law schools need to continue in that direction, because they haven’t reached the right combination yet.”
The impact of the Task Force’s findings remains to be seen. Even amidst all the uncertainty, Shepard hasn’t lost faith in legal education. “I believe that going to law school is still a very promising investment for society and for students. It’s not the guaranteed path to a financial return that it was twenty or thirty years ago, but there are plenty of reasons why it makes very good sense for people to go to law school.”
The complete interview can be viewed here and downloaded here.
The Task Force’s report can be viewed here.
Posted Feb. 7, 2014