As I work my way through the documentation and data gathering required for our accreditation review, I stumbled across a current article on the ‘crisis’ in legal education by Genevieve Blake Tung. She presents rather alarming data points for lawyers and law schools of which I was not aware. For example, employment rates for law graduates have been on the decline since 2008 and less then 66% of law school graduates obtain jobs requiring bar passage. Projected graduate supply outstrips likely demand by 3:2 and there are now extensive critiques of the problems with legal education and the disconnectedness between law schools and practice. Sound familiar? I don’t have any similar readings in medicine, social work, architecture or education but I wonder how hard it is to turn up equivalent expressions of disquiet in these professional domains? I suppose the better question is, was there ever a time when the professional community in any field deemed the educational preparation of its future members to be appropriate, affordable, and sufficient?
V.M Daniel Regents Professor of Information