It is Time for Some Professional Soul-Searching

The profession of law faces some big problems these days.  The ones that you hear about the most are the relatively few numbers of jobs available to graduates, the high costs of legal education and the effect on student loan debt, and the few practice-ready graduates that law schools are turning out today.  I would add to those my own concerns that the law profession is losing talent at record numbers because of work-life issues that affect women so severely.

Of all of these, the one that concerns me the most is the sub-standard training of new lawyers that results in so few practice-ready graduates.  That may surprise you because the mission of Best Friends at the Bar is focused on women’s issues, but it should not.  The training of lawyers is critical to all career issues, for men and women alike, and is a threshold issue.  I know how to prioritize my concerns.

We hear lots of complaints today that “newly minted lawyers are inadequately prepared to practice law, that they are not sufficiently trained in core competencies, management skills, or professionalism [and that these issues] present public protection issues” in term of best practices, as stated in the Virginia Lawyer magazine’s February 2013 issue.  According to that article, the particular skills that need improving are writing skills, problem-solving skills, client interaction skills, and judgment and discretion.  I think you would agree that is a pretty hefty list.

As also stated in a follow-up article in the Virginia Lawyer, “We are preparing new attorneys in analog whereas the legal world outside the law school bubble has gone digital.”  In other words, we need modern solutions for modern problems.  Ironcially, however, it seems to me that most of the logical approaches to solving the problems harken back to good old common sense and the lessons of the past.  Be sure to read my follow-up blog to find out why.

So, what can be done about this?  Some rather radical changes to the way we have been doing business in law schools and in the early years of practice, I think.  The practice of law has changed more in the last 25 years than it changed in the prior 200 years, and revisions to how we train lawyers have to be a part of those changes.  We know that the private practice of law revolves around considerations of profit and that the changes in the law law firm practices involve issues of leveraging, being responsive to client demands for diversity and alternative billing models, restructuring in the age of technology and global practices, to name just a few.  Yes, those things are important, but who we have practicing law and how well they do it in the early years certainly relates to profits and business concepts as well.  Simply put, if law firms cannot bill out entry level lawyers to pay at least the overhead costs associates with those lawyers, they will not hire them.

To hear about the specific possible solutions that are being discussed today, read my next blog where I will discuss the priorities that I think must be established and executed on to begin to solve the problems of training young lawyers.

TO BE CONTINUED!

 

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