The Cato Institute hosts a Book Forum today at noon EST (free live webcast here) on Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.), Failing Law Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2012)):
For decades, American law schools enjoyed one of the world’s great winning streaks. Amid swelling enrollments and what seemed an insatiable demand for new lawyers, they went on a spree of expansion; even as tuitions soared, the schools basked in an air of public-interest rectitude symbolized by Yale law dean Harold Koh’s description of his institution as a “Republic of Conscience.” Then came the Great Recession—and a great reckoning. New graduates were unable to find decently paying legal jobs even as they staggered under enormous debt burdens; it became impossible to ignore long-standing complaints from the world of legal practice that the law curriculum does not train students well in much of what lawyers do; and creative efforts to reduce the cost of law school were stymied by an accreditation process that closely constrains the format of legal education. In Failing Law Schools, one of the most talked-of books in years about higher education, Brian Tamanaha of Washington University has written a devastating critique of what went wrong with the American law school and what can be done to fix it. None of the key contributors to the problem—faculty self-interest, university administrators’ myopia, cartel-like accreditation—escape unscathed in his analysis.
Also appearing with author Brian Tamanaha:
- Paul Campos (Colorado; author, Don’t Go To Law School (Unless))
- Neal McCluskey (Cato Institute)
- Walter Olson (Cato Institute; author, Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America)
Other reviews of Failing Law Schools:
- Jennifer Bard (Texas Tech)
- Ray Campbell (Peking University School of Transnational Law)
- Jim Chen (Former Dean, Louisville)
- Chronicle of Higher Education
- Ronald Den Otter (California Polytechnic State)
- Stanley Fish (Florida International)
- David Fontana (George Washington)
- Scott Greenfield (here and here)
- Bill Henderson (Indiana)
- Paul Horwitz (Alabama)
- Orin Kerr (George Washington)
- Brian Leiter (Chicago)
- Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State)
- Andy Morriss (Alabama)
- National Law Journal
- Philip Schrag (Georgetown)
- Robert Steinbuch (Arkansas-Little Rock)
- Washington Post
