Dan Slater, a former litigator, argues that there are too many places at too many law schools, especially with the current hiring slump at law firms.



Another View: Lock the Law School Doors

In a memo to incoming students, Patricia D. White, the dean of University of Miami School of Law, surmised: “Perhaps many of you are looking to law school as a safe harbor in which you can wait out the current economic storm.” She then urged them to “think hard” about their plans and offered incentives for those willing to defer for one year.

“The nature of the legal profession is in great flux,” Dean White observed. “It is very difficult to predict what the employment landscape for young lawyers will be in May 2012 and thereafter.”

Recently, The New York Times reported on the dire straits of today’s law student. As firms begin an industrywide overhaul, which has entailed slashing jobs and reconsidering hidebound inefficiencies like the lockstep salary, students will compete for half as many $160,000-a-year jobs this year as they did last. According to the National Association for Legal Career Professionals, the 2008 recruiting season marked “what is likely to be the beginning of a weaker legal employment market that may last for a number of years.”

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Another View: Lock the Law School Doors - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com