Law Students

Bull or Bear Market for your Law School Investment?

By Casebook Sherpa

Today, I’m reading this interesting debate over at the New York Times website, asking the question whether MBA students are “students” or “consumers.” I wouldn’t say the arguments made are earth shattering or particularly insightful. But the question posed is an interesting, albeit purely theoretical, one to me. So pardon the completely impractical discussion, but feel free to opine away with me…

Are law students “students” or “consumers”?

Students who learn or consumers who purchase a good?

Students being trained to join an institution or consumer viewed simply as a cost and profit center?

Students to whom a teacher’s duty is owed or consumers who are simply economic actors and entitled only to having certain material information disclosed?

My gut reaction is to say that we are more student than consumer. In spirit – the very heart of a legal education, the animating spirit behind it – we are most certainly “students” in the classical sense of the word. Learning how to think and reason and question. Of course, we don’t really learn what we need to learn for the real world. We learn, perhaps, how to stay afloat in the “real world” as a lawyer but not how to actually swim. The consumer moniker, in this sense, is helpful to frame law school as a place to serve the law student and provide the very best product possible with the market rewarding innovation, excellence, and return on investment. (However, I think it’s fair to question whether the supply and demand principles of any market have applied to law schools or lawyer salaries at all for decades.)

But I think the fairer metaphor is that we’re more an investor in something. In return for our vast sum of money and sweat equity we are promised a spot in a relatively lucrative, stable, challenging career path. Law school administrators and faculty are officers of this undertaking charged with maximizing profit and reducing costs. Or perhaps they are fiduciaries of a trust we place in “law school,” a risk we absorb by enrolling, and the trustees are, consequently, obligated to ensure the return we expect is relatively likely to be realized. Not guaranteed, but that those in a position to take care of our investment are acting with our best interests in mind and that the information they provide and we rely on is reliable, transparent, and devoid of false (fraudulent?) promises of any future, guaranteed earnings.

On this side of graduation – with roughly 16 months until that glorious day – I have serious misgivings about how this enterprise will turn out. In my more honest moments with myself and others (often after a slug of whiskey or two), I find myself bitterly lamenting the work load, job prospects, and, most of all, the seemingly endless stream of stories about disenchanted attorneys writing about “How to use your J.D. to fix up old cars” or some such alternative career for an attorney.

Yet, I’m hopeful as well. Law school has enabled me to take charge of my career and be challenged in ways that I never have before. Intrinsically, I think it’s been a worthwhile investment. Kind of like hol Whether it yields real world, external returns remains to be seen. But I think they’re far more likely to be realized with a J.D. than without it.

So… are we students or consumers? Or something else, like an investor or stakeholder? Are you bullish or bearish on the long-term prospects of your investment?

Related posts:

1. Criteria for Choosing Law School
2. Reducing Law Students’ Debt?
3. “At least, that is how I read Hubbell. No one is really sure.”

Full post as published by Fight The Hypo on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).