The National Law Journal this morning has an interesting review of a new book by Douglas Litowitz, The Destruction of Young Lawyers: Beyond 1L (University of Akron Press, 2005).  Here is the publisher’s description:

Young lawyers are morosely unhappy by every conceivable standard. They arrive at our law schools brimming with enthusiasm, but a decade later they are reporting staggering levels of anxiety, drug addiction, and depression. In legal circles there is talk about a "crisis of professionalism" and a "decline in civility," but the problem goes much deeper. Through ignorance and greed, the legal profession has designed a complicated system of education, licensing, and practice that drives young lawyers into fear, alienation, and self-hatred. The author of this book—a law professor and practicing attorney—argues that young lawyers face a series of institutional absurdities built into the fabric of law school, the bar exam, and law firm practice. The current system is churning out a tidal wave of disaffected and bitter lawyers who see the legal system as a Byzantine maze, an endless artificial game totally disconnected from considerations of justice. The Destruction of Young Lawyers shows how these struggles can be reversed through massive structural change and is the first step toward diagnosis and treatment of the specific problems facing young lawyers.

Litiwitz is particularly critical of law schools:

One thing that we know with certainty about law school is that it breaks people, that it is experienced as a trauma, an assault. Like other traumas, when it is actually taking place it is overwhelming and very difficult to understand. Only after it is already finished can it be pieced together in retrospect, like a robbery victim who later tries to reconstruct the features of an assailant. When I say that law school breaks people I mean that almost nobody comes out of law school feeling better about themselves, although many come out much worse—caustic, paranoid, and overly competitive. From outward appearances, the students churned out by the law school machine are shiny and bright, with a professional no-nonsense attitude, but inside that shell lies a nagging hollowness….

Law school is not transformative because it does not engage the students on an emotional or intellectual level. Stuck in large classes, pitted against a mob of others, reading boring cases about nameless and faceless people day after day, law students resign themselves to three years of memorization, tedium, and rote learning. Unlike the comparatively loose atmosphere of college, where students participate in discussion groups and ask questions during class, in law school the professors have absolute power and unquestioned status while the student is a second-class citizen instead of a partner in learning.

From the National Law Journal’s review:

Litowitz has spent much of his career in legal academe — recently as an assistant professor at Ohio University Claude W. Pettit College of Law, with previous posts at four other campuses in Oregon, Illinois and Florida. Yet many of his most damning criticisms are reserved for law schools.  "When I say that law school breaks people, I mean that almost nobody comes out of law school feeling better about themselves, although many come out much worse — caustic, paranoid and overly competitive."

David Rudenstine, dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, was taken aback by the tone and content of the excerpts, which represented all seven chapters of Litowitz’s book. "’Breaks people?’" he said. "If that’s his experience, then I think he has much to regret with regard to his professional choice. Statements like that seem to me aimed at selling books rather than making a cogent, responsible claim with regard to students’ experiences." He added, "These are familiar and common critiques of law schools and the profession. He makes some solid points with regard to some shortcomings. Of course law schools could be doing a stronger job of providing meaningful education, and the profession could have less abuse. But [Litowitz’s] criticisms are unduly harsh and unjustifiably negative." Of his book’s strenuous call for a two-year law school program, with a third year of formal apprenticeship, Litowitz said one dean told him he was "ignoring economic reality" and "trying to create some idealized world that will never exist."

For more, see the WSJ’s Law Blog.  Excerpts of the book are available here.