First, we need your skepticism to question our methods and our motives. The legal marketplace is undergoing significant changes. We did not adequately anticipate these disruptions. In addition, we do not fully understand their breadth and depth. Because we are human, we are reluctant to admit our confusion. Even worse, we may even deny there is a problem.Bill packs a lot of baggage into his challenge, which is why it's so easy to appreciate him yet so difficult to simply agree with him. Since he invoked the 60's, it's worthwhile to remember that we came up with some great things back then, a dedication to equality and acceptance of lifestyles that had been historically taboo before. And rock and roll. Can't forget rock and roll.
Second, we need your youthful energy to refashion legal education in a way that is much more consistent with our professional ideals. All lawyers covet prestige, but over the last decades we have confused prestige with money and rankings. As a historical matter, lasting legal reputations are disproportionately traceable to a lifelong willingness to doggedly and creatively advance the welfare of others. Even today, the best lawyers find ways to faithfully serve their clients while simultaneously advancing the public good. We need your generation to lay the foundation for a renaissance in which our collective behavior more closely hews to our ideals.
We also came up with bone-headed flops, like drugs as a lifestyle, peace at all costs and communes. And bell bottoms. What were we thinking?
So the legal marketplace is undergoing significant changes? That's the premise of Bill's first point, and it's a mantra of the futurists. Well, that's true from a certain perspective, yet too vague to be of any useful meaning. Is he talking about the LegalZoom, buy cheap forms, sort of change? Is he talking about Biglaw's demise because it got too greedy sort of change? Is he talking about law schools cranking out more lawyers than society can afford sort of change? There are certainly problems aplenty, but it's not clear that we're looking at the same ones.
Bill concedes this when he writes "we do not fully understand their breadth and depth," and I can get behind this. On the other hand, I suspect he's well down the Susskindian path to the death of lawyers and everybody can be a lawyer for 15 minutes with an iPad. I'm on a completely different path, where lawyers have forsaken excellence and client service in favor of transitory fad solutions and an iPad.
Aside: Before Victor Medina sends me another nasty email for dissing the iPad, it's just a symbol. I've got nothing against the iPad per se. It's makes a great cutting board.But then, as Bill does nothing more than call for students to question assumptions, to be skeptics, and puts his own assumptions on the table as well as everyone else's, how can I disagree? Worthy ideas should be subject to scrutiny, and if they can't pass the rigors of skepticism, then they don't deserve to survive.
On his second point, Bill again throws in a troubling assumption, that "[a]ll lawyers covet prestige." Really? Maybe I'm missing the bone in my head that is supposed to make me covet prestige, but of the many things I want out of life, prestige isn't on the list. Of course, I didn't grow up at a time when Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian became celebrities for, well, I have no clue how it happened. But I suspect their fame gives rise to a desire for prestige, which I define as unwarranted recognition and perhaps even fame, for every kid today.
Bill then notes that over the "last decades," a time frame that confuses me a bit, "we have confused prestige with money and rankings." I trust the mention of rankings is thrown in for the benefit of law schools, but the money piece has broader appeal. What has become undeniable to me is that lawyers, particularly but not exclusively new ones, are only interested in the money. And like Bill, this strikes me as a huge problem.
It's unclear whether he's talking about money in terms of the ability to pay back onerous student loans, or money to buy that cute red Ferrari. The former reflects the mindset of a person low down on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, while the latter is just greedy. Still, his point, that we've forsaken the core reasons why lawyers exist in favor of what was once the collateral benefits of hard work and excellence is well taken. Will law students understand this?
The upshot is that Bill puts his money (get it?) where his mouth is, inviting students to challenge him as a lawprof, to practice being skeptical now. This is why I admire Bill despite our disagreements. But then he goes and writes something like this:
At the beginning of this essay, I failed to mention one key proviso to my “question authority” admonition. I told the law students that when they question authority, they should do it respectfully. Indeed, all of my life experience has shown me that effectiveness in human relations requires a foundation of mutual respect. Your elders did not create the challenges that lie ahead. We are not your enemy. Our limitation is that we are human, and therefore imperfect; and so are you.
Yet, if you question authority persistently but respectfully, you will be doing yourself, legal education, and the legal profession an enormous service.
Aw, jeez. Timothy Leary is rolling in his grave. Peace, love and rock & roll, but you don't get to tell your invited skeptics that they can only question authority in a tone you like. That is so un-60's.
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Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/04/04/inviting-skepticism-with-a-proviso.aspx?ref=rss
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