Leftist law schools
The so-called top law schools are nothing like they were when I attended one. There was already a leftist element back then, but it probably consisted of less than a quarter of the faculty. The courses were relatively non-political, too, even in fields that would be likely to attract mostly people on the left.
Elite law schools have become training academies not so much for effective and competent lawyers, but instead for militant transformational radicals with a law degree.
Mainstream consumers of legal services, otherwise known as paying clients, would be shocked by the evolution that has taken place in the nation’s elite law schools. Instead of producing lawyers capable of helping clients, these schools now turn out leftist activists who are most competent at using transformational designs to upend centuries of legal traditions and institutions, including, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution itself.
And the following was already true when I was in law school, and everybody there knew it:
Simply, lawyers from so-called “lesser” law schools are likely to be better trained to practice law in court and represent clients than the ones graduating from elite law schools.
The article goes on to describe course after course at Yale with a solely leftist bent:
Don’t think there are conservative counterparts to the avalanche of leftist curriculum at Yale that I am cataloging here. There aren’t, period. And only a tiny minority of the courses relate to the actual practice of law — the real challenges for which people hire lawyers. But even those appear to have a deconstructionist bent.
This change got going in the 1980s, and by the late 1990’s it was well on its way. Just as in colleges or any other institution, once a critical mass of leftists takes the reins, the process accelerates and the takeover is just about complete. It has affected our entire legal system and is responsible for the disparity between the number of lawyers willing to fight for leftist causes versus the number of lawyers willing to oppose them.
“The so-called top law schools are nothing like they were when I attended one.” #Humblebrag 🙂
Two of my kids are lawyers and both are lefties. I was disappointed that none was interested in Medicine but my first wife complained so much about life as a doctor that I should not be surprised. Now that 60% of medical students women, I see many marriages between classmates, which makes sense. Two of my female students invited me to their weddings.
“Law and Economics” was supposed to be the conservative counterpart to Critical Legal Theory. What happened to that? For that matter, what happened to Critical Legal Theory? Was it all just repackaged as Critical Race Theory?
It will be interesting indeed to observe what will happen (possibly very soon) in the case of Amy Wax, without question one of the most brilliant law professors at any of the Ivies. She has been under investigation for some time on spurious grounds, and it is very likely that the cowardly dean of U Penn’s Law School will be ruling against this tenured and very distinguished professor for “thought-crime” and “wrongthink”.
j e,
Amy Wax is a brilliant and courageous American.
Again, Republican state legislators can address this problem, but they do nothing.
1. Redefine by statute the degree and certificate programs available at the state’s law schools, and permissible degrees at the private law schools in the state.
a. The preparatory work consists of two certificates, an arts-and-sciences certificate which can be completed in a calendar year and a business certificate which can be completed in six months. Private law schools could require a baccalaureate degree, but state law schools would not.
b. Define the standard law degree as a ‘working lawyers degree’ which is about 50 credits in length and can be completed in a calendar year. Provide a glossary which lists the courses which compose a working lawyers degree/
c. Allow law schools to set up certificate programs in specialized areas of law for law firm employees. These can range from a three week workshop to a calendar year course in tax law. You could have two paces for these programs, one pace for the state law school and one for paralegal training at state colleges.
d. Provide for a judge’s degree consisting of theoretical courses of interest to appellate judges and their clerks. The glossary of permissble courses would be less restrictive than that for the working lawyer’s degree.
e. Define in law a legal scholar’s degree, while usually refraining from setting one up in your state system. These would consist of thesis supervision.
2. Ration berths at the state law schools. The total number of berths for the sum of entering classes should be equal to ~3.75% of the number of working lawyers in the state.
3. Allow people to take the state bar exam without cadging a law degree.
4. In re the state law schools, have the number of faculty (FTE) equal 8% of the number of students. Set a minimum percentage of faculty FTE to be provided by clinical faculty – i.e. working lawyers who teach on the side part time or retired lawyers teaching part time.
5. Pay all faculty according to the same formula: f + p + s + b + t, where ‘f’ is the baseline all faculty get (consisting mostly of benefits), ‘p’ is the number of preparations you’re expected to do in the coming semester, ‘s’ is the number of additional sections you’re expected to teach, is the total number of students you’re expected to teach, and ‘t’ is a special increment for those sitting on endowed chairs or hired-to-tenure. You’re compensation for a semester is delivered in six monthly installments. If your anticipated teaching load differs from your actual teaching load, increments or decrements will be added to your paychecks for the last half of the year.
6. Whether clinical or regular, faculty at state schools generally work on renewable contracts. Instructors work on contracts of < 6 semesters, lecturers of 6-12 semesters, and professors with continuous tenure. A grant of tenure requires that a prospect have contributed to TIAA-CREF for 23 years (FTE), have reached the age of 55, and have been in service at some law school for a minimum of 12 years. Tenured positions are rationed and a new one cannot be awarded until an old one has been declared emeritus. Granting tenure requires a candidate's work be examined by outside auditors, the approval of a committee chaired by the law dean, and the approval of the university board.
10. Require all law schools provide prospects with an audited report on the % of their graduates who pass the bar after one, two, three, or four attempts and the distribution of those of the last 12 graduating classes between various sorts of employment (small law, midlaw, big law, in house counsel to businesses, prosecutor's offices, state attorney-general's offices, in house counsel to government agencies, public interest 'firms', clerks, judges, non-legal occupations, &c.).
Your software excised about 30% of my post. Most salient segment is that faculty members who qualify for full Social Security, qualify for Medicare, and have paid into TIAA-CREF for at least 35 years (FTE) are declared emeritus and their teaching responsibilities limited to filling in for faculty on leave and when there is a vacant position.
“Simply, lawyers from so-called “lesser” law schools are likely to be better trained to practice law in court and represent clients than the ones graduating from elite law schools.”
I didn’t litigate a whole lot (I was a patent attorney), but enjoyed the little that I did. One of my fondest memories was in a week long jury trial. I represented the defendant, and after the plaintiff rested his case, after 3 days, I moved for a directed verdict. Wrong term, but the judge made allowances. Opposing counsel asked “What?” I was asking the judge to dismiss any of their claims that they hadn’t introduced any supporting evidence for, since their case in chief was now closed. I then proceeded to go through each element in the jury instructions for each of their major claims, and point out which ones had no supporting evidence. The judge announced that he was taking it under advisement, and I could start my case. An hour later, he announced that he was granting most of my motion, dismissing most of their claims, and with that, they would not be the prevailing party (eligible for attorneys’ fees). He was calling an early lunch so we could discuss the case between us. Their attorney went through the various stages of grief, then they settled.
I had spent the entire litigation up until then hearing how he was Letter of the Coif (top 10%), Law Review, etc, from a much higher ranked LS, and had been litigating full time for over a decade. This wasn’t rocket science, but rather just a nugget from one of my adjunct profs’ war stories. Adjunct profs who had real day jobs, practicing law, or sitting on a bench, and taught law in the evenings. That attorney had been proud of having gone to a law school that eschewed teaching their students how to actually practice law, or using adjuncts.
Yeah, law schools…
Hey, what about judge schools?
This particular judge doesn’t know what Brady v. Maryland is all about.
(Tell me yer surprised. And then take a guess who just nominated him…Go on! Take a wild guess!!…)
“Another Biden Judicial Nominee Gets Embarrassed by Sen. Kennedy With One Question”—
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2023/03/22/another-biden-judicial-nominee-gets-embarrassed-by-sen-kennedy-with-one-question-n2621006
Well that explains a lot: sure sounds like a Democratic judge (um, that’s right, Judge Roberts) “phenomenon”.
(To be sure, soon it’ll be “We don’t need no steenkeen’ laws” coming down the Democratic law-school, judge-school, politician-school pipeline….)
he’s an nlrb drone, rubber stamp with a little glue, with a 49/49 senate, kamala will have to break the tie,
so apparently the proud boys had an fbi informant as one of their defense witnesses,
The change was well on its way in the early 90s, as I graduated from a moderate/conservative law school (University of Texas) in 1994 and I’d say the faculty was at least 75% liberal. Some didn’t push an agenda, but you knew where they stood and wrote to the audience on your exams (especially Constitutional Law).
“Instead of producing lawyers capable of helping clients, these schools now turn out leftist activists who are most competent at using transformational designs to upend centuries of legal traditions and institutions, including, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution itself.”
It takes a Judge(s) to rule in favor of “transformational designs” that upend centuries of legal traditions and institutions, including, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution itself.”
Any judge who so rules demonstrates their unfitness for the office they hold. By definition, no ruling can be legally legitimate that is not consistent with the US Constitution.
this is what obama was taught by bell and other professors, and what he imparted at the university of chicago,
before this, the white shoe lawyering for gitmo detainees, coordinated with 60s radical ratner of center for constitutional rights, their latest release was effendi al sharbi, released back to the kingdom,
So it appears the American educational system, from pre-K to post graduate (law schools in particular) has signed on to the liberal agenda.
Question for the commentariat here: can something turn this around? Or have we just become a very wealthy Soviet state? How ironic would it be that the USA becomes a Soviet Republic AFTER the USSR fails?
It’s always been the claim (or joke) that Yale doesn’t really teach law. Taking a slightly wider perspective, most law students are not particularly interested in politics: they just want to get decent jobs and make good money. In the middle ages, a decent job required attending a university run by the church. Did the students absorb and internalize Christian dogma? Ask yourself, how many medieval student stories and songs reflect religious fervor? Today, getting a decent job today requires listening to a lot of leftist professors babble nonsense, but how many lawyers and bankers do you know who want to redistribute income?
It was either 1972 and 1973, when the entire group of candidates taking the state bar exam in Sacramento California failed the ethics portion of the exam. This had never happened before.
Might be interesting to note that these people were the first wave of full fledged hippies. Oh well . . .
In the middle ages, a decent job required attending a university run by the church.
==
That’s a weirdly anachronistic statement.
y81:
There are tons of true believer leftist lawyers. Doesn’t have to be 100% of law school graduates to do a lot of damage.
None of this radical perversion of jurisprudence would have been possible but for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and that assertion is based on my reading of Christopher Caldwell’s book The Age of Entitlement.
Breaking news – which miguel already covered from a different source.
IIRC Cohen is / was an attorney, which doesn’t speak well of his law school days.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/03/22/bombshell-2018-letter-delivers-a-gut-punch-to-manhattan-das-case-against-trump-n720083
“Leftist law schools…”
Leftist + [ANYTHING] will soon be an oxymoron—that is, if it isn’t already.
Except, that is, for Leftist Criminality. Leftist Destruction. Leftist Cruelty, Leftist Masochism. Leftist Perversity….
Here’s Steve Kirsch:
“…the CDC knew in advance ivermectin and HCQ worked to stop SARS-CoV-2…”
https://twitter.com/stkirsch/status/1638687485847896069?cxt=HHwWioC8vcLl5L0tAAAA
H/T Lee Smith Twitter feed.
And it looks like another metaphor alert!
‘E-bikes flagged for ‘destructive and deadly fires.’ Democrats want to create a tax credit for them;
‘ “The tragic loss of life from battery fires is heartbreaking and preventable,” Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr. said in December.’—
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/house-democrats-propose-1500-federal-tax-credit-e-bikes-after-series-battery
“For the good of all Americans, you have to help us burn down this country!”
So… it’s all about ‘lawfare’ and $$$
Auntie Analogue:
A thousand times yes to Christoper Caldwell’s _Age of Entitlement_ which I’ve been urging on people — without much success — since its publication. I think people are afraid to touch it fearing the “racist” label, but its target is bad legislation. Unless we grasp how much the entitlement paradigm (not just for race, btw) has supplanted the traditional one of equal justice for all, we will make no progress. No one will enforce the constitution if its principles don’t mean anything to them anymore — and to younger people brought up in the age of entitlement, left, right or center — they don’t.
Most discussions of cleaning up law schools, appointing judges, etc., don’t take into account how much the law itself has already incorporated these principles. It’s no longer a question of simply enforcing what’s on the books.
Peter Wood’s _Diversity: The Invention of a Concept_ is also excellent.