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Should Law School Be More Than Just a 'Sorting Mechanism' for Potential Employers?

By Bruce Carton

A lively discussion is underway at The Volokh Conspiracy blog on the issue of whether law schools hire the wrong type of people to be professors by overemphasizing "elite academic credentials at the expense of practical knowledge and experience." More broadly, the debate there is over whether law school should be a "trade school" or rather a place of scholarship where students gain academic and theoretical insights about the law. The post by Jonathan Adler cites a new paper by Georgetown adjunct professor Brent Newton who asks: Could [a typical law school] professor whose primary scholarly interest is criminal law and procedure effectively prosecute or represent a criminal defendant at a felony trial? Could such a professor who writes law review articles about the First Amendment effectively represent a client in a civil rights litigation? Could such a professor whose expertise is securities regulation effectively represent a client or the government in an S.E.C. enforcement action? Imagine such professors being first-chair counsel in a complex civil or criminal litigation who must interview potential witnesses, take depositions and engage in electronic discovery, file and respond to summary judgment motions, conduct voir dire, present the testimony of an expert witness, cross-examine (and...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on August 27, 2010 (boomark / email).