Legal Commentary

The discussion of my post last week about what it takes to teach a field went off in a different direction than I expected. I'll circle back to my original intended theme tomorrow, but for now, I'd like to follow up on a theme from the comments. Has a law school failed if its graduates are dangerous without supervision?

It's not clear to me that the answer is "yes." We could equally well flip the situation around and ask why it is that recently minted lawyers are allowed to work without supervision. New doctors and new engineers, for example, are allowed to practice when they get their degrees, but not alone. A medical school graduate starts residency under the close supervision of senior residents and attending physicians, who only gradually let go of the reins. She's doing real medical work, writing real orders on real charts for real patients, but in a closely supervised setting. Only after she finishes her residency will the state let her hang up a shingle by herself.

Such systems aren't unheard of in law. "Articling" is common in Commonwealth countries: a mandatory period of supervised legal employment after law school. It's much shorter than a residency, there are serious issues about who supervises the supervisors, and some countries with articling requirements are considering abandoning them, but it's still an interesting alternative.

Your thoughts? Would legal residencies be feasible? Worthwhile? A fool's errand? Indentured servitude? Or does the responsibility for young menaces really belong with law schools?