Coalition of 67 Law Profs and Deans Pushes for Legal Education Reform

I am one of the 67 law professors and deans who, as members of the "Coalition of Concerned Colleagues" assembled by Paul Carrington, Stephen Gillers, Deborah Rhode, and others, sent the following letter to the ABA:

The recent chorus of complaints about the “crisis” in legal education has
brought new urgency to longstanding concerns.
Law schools are operating
in a difficult climate,
characterized by rising costs, strained
endowments,
reduced governmental assistance, disaffected students, and declining
applications. The undersigned Coalition of Concerned Colleagues seeks to
draw attention to the problems confronting legal education, and to identify
potential responses.

Over the last three decades, the price of a legal education has increased
approximately three times faster than the average household income. With
the help of the federal student loan fund, some ninety percent of law students
borrow to finance their legal education and the average
law school
debt now
exceeds $100,000. Overall, law students in 2011-2012
borrowed
more than
$4
billion to pay for their legal education.
Unsurprisingly, debt burdens are
unevenly spread and amplify racial and class disadvantages.

The price of legal education has risen as the job market for lawyers has
declined.
More than two out of every five 2011
graduates did not obtain
a
full-time long-term
job
requiring a law degree;
the median starting salary of
the class, among the less than half of graduates for whom a salary was
reported,
was $60,000. The problematic economics are captured by this
fundamental mismatch: a graduate who earns the median salary cannot
afford to make the monthly loan payments on the average debt.
Large
numbers of current law students will be forced
to enter Income Based
Repayment (IBR), a
new
federal debt relief program that allows reduced
monthly payments, but with significant
costs for both
debtors and
taxpayers.
These costs
may cause Congress to rethink the provision of easy credit to
law students.

The price of legal education substantially affects access to the profession.
The out-of-pocket cost of obtaining a la
w degree ranges from $150,000 to
$200,000 or more for many law students. This erects a formidable economic barrier to becoming a lawyer and restricts the career choices of those who do
enter the bar. Although the federal government and most law schools of
fer
some loan repayment assistance to graduates who take public interest jobs,
law school programs are often insufficiently funded and the federal
programs do not provide full discharge until after 10 years of public interest
employment.

Nor do these programs address the fundamental problem of
how a
lack of
jobs, public interest or otherwise,
has now made
law school a questionable
investment.
The federal government estimates that, at current graduation
rates, the economy will create about one new legal job for every two law
school graduates over the next decade.
Most knowledgeable observers
believe that the situation is unlikely to improve even if the economy fully
rebounds. More employers are relying on paralegals, technology and
contract attorneys to do
work previously performed by recent graduates, and
cash-strapped public sector agencies are facing pressure to curtail legal
expenditures.

Many law schools are themselves in an increasingly difficult financial
position. After years of uninterrupted increases in enrollment and tuition,
they now face a sharp decline in applicants. As it becomes harder for law
schools to fill
their
classes, all but the wealthiest institutions will face
pressure to cut expenses. Yet at the same time, preoccupation with the
annual ranking of schools by
U.S. News and World Reports
gives schools a
perverse incentive to spend more in areas rewarded by the
U.S. News
formula. Two examples are expenditures per student and faculty-student
ratios, which have risen dramatically in the decades since the rankings went
into effect. Schools also have incentives to
reduce tuition for students with
high median GPA and LSAT scores, even though these applicants are
unlikely to have the greatest financial need.
This causes students from
modest
economic backgrounds paying full tuition to, in effect, subsidize the
education of their more privileged peers.
As
chool can do better in the
rankings if
it
spends
more in ways that could enhance
its
reputation. The
combination of rising costs, declining
applicants, and perverse incentives
puts the financial survival of some schools in question.

Legal education cannot continue on the current trajectory. As
members of
a
profession committed to serving the public good, we must find ways to alter
the economics of legal education. Possible changes include reducing the
undergraduate education required for admission to three years; awarding the
basic professional degree after two years, while leaving the third year as a elective or an internship; providing
some training through apprenticeship;
reducing expensive accreditation requirements to allow greater diversity
among law schools;
building on the burgeoning promises of internet-distance education;
changing the economic relationship between law schools
and
universities; altering the influence of current ranking formulas;
and
modifying the federal student loan program. As legal educators, it is our
responsibility to grapple with these issues before our institutions are
reshaped in ways beyond our control.

The Coalition of Concerned Colleagues:
Anthony G. Amsterdam, New York University
Rhoda A. Billings, Wake Forest University
Paul Campos, University of Colorado
Paul Caron, Pepperdine University
Paul D. Carrington, Duke University
David L. Chambers, University of Michigan
Jesse H. Choper, University of California
Jim Chen, Michigan State University
Philip J. Closius, University of Baltimore
Roger C. Cramton, Cornell University (AALS President 1985)
Scott Cummings, University of California at Los Angeles
Charles E. Daye, University of North Carolina
Richard Delgado, Seattle University
Walter E. Dellinger, Duke University
Norman Dorsen, New York University
Frank W. Elliott, Texas Wesleyan University
Richard A. Epstein, New York University
Samuel Estreicher, New York University
Monroe H. Freedman, Hofstra University
Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanford University
Marc Galanter, University of Wisconsin
Julius Getman, University of Texas
Stephen Gillers, New York University
Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University
Michelle Goodwin, University of Minnesota
Robert W. Gordon, Stanford University
Robert A. Gorman, University of Pennsylvania (AALS President 1990)
Phoebe Haddon, University of Maryland
Geoffrey C. Hazard, University of California, Hastings College of Law
William D. Henderson, Indiana University
Helen Hershkoff, New York University
Philip Heymann, Harvard University
N. William Hines, University of Iowa (AALS President 2004)
Mary Kay Kane, University of California Hastings College of Law (AALS President 2001)
Herma Hill Kay, University of California (AALS President 1989)
Orin Kerr, George Washington University
Patricia A. King, Georgetown University
Edmund W. Kitch, University of Virginia
William A. Klein, University of California at Los Angeles
George Lefcoe, University of Southern California
Richard A. Matasar, New York University
Deborah J. Merritt, The Ohio State University
Arthur R. Miller, New York University
James E. Moliterno, Washington & Lee University
Thomas D. Morgan, George Washington University (AALS President 1991)
Alan R. Morrison, George Washington University
Robert Nagel, University of Colorado
Burt Neuborne, New York University
Gene R. Nichol, University of North Carolina
Sallyanne Payton, University of Michigan
Richard A. Posner, University of Chicago
Todd Rakoff, Harvard University
Nancy B. Rapoport, University of Nevada
Deborah L. Rhode, Stanford University (AALS President 1998)
Daniel B. Rodriguez, Northwestern University (AALS President-Elect 2013)
Ronald D. Rotunda, University of Illinois
Edward L. Rubin, Vanderbilt University
Stephen A. Saltzburg, George Washington University
William H. Simon, Columbia University
Peter L. Strauss, Columbia University
Susan P. Sturm, Columbia University
Kent D. Syverud, Washington University
Brian Z. Tamanaha, Washington University
Michael E. Tigar, Duke University
Gerald Torres, University of Texas (AALS President 2004)
Robin L. West, Georgetown University
Michael Wishnie, Yale University