Legal Commentary

While I do not think there's any reason people should have noticed the absence, I regret being such a double-plus ungood Prawfsblawgger this summer and appreciate all the great stuff others have been writing.  (Blame it on Arizona, and Jackson Hole, and the North Cascades.)  That said:  I've been thinking and reading a lot about (what one hears is) the coming (and current) very, very challenging law-job-hiring market that our students are facing and wondering, what can we (i.e., the law professors) do to help?

Some thoughts after the jump . . .

One possible answer, of course, is "nothing."  The economy is in not-good shape, and the profession is not only responding to the downturn but also (perhaps) changing in fundamental, structural ways.  Another possible answer is the old reliable one, "law schools should give up on their scholarly aspirations / pretentions and focus carefully and entirely on professional training and practical skills.  If they do, then the students' job prospects will improve dramatically."  Still another might be, "law professors should join together and call for the closing of half of America's law schools.  This would reduce the number of young lawyers seeking increasingly hard-to-find jobs." 

These latter answers do not appeal to me, so I hope that they are not the right ones.

So, what else?  I cannot imagine that any law teachers are not concerned about their students' prospects, or saddened by the stress that so many are facing.  What can we do?  If law schools were to, for example, double the number of staff in their career-services offices, would that help?  Or, would it just mean that there would be more people helping the too-many students chase after the too-few jobs?  If law schools got more aggressive / creative with "how to get a job" programming, carefully reviewed and edited all students' CVs, counseled every student individually regarding their plans and prospects, etc., would it make a difference?  We can call our friends and former students, but such calls are not likely to create jobs that do not exist. 

I imagine that many of us are being asked for advice, help, support.  What are we saying and doing?