I wish I had the financial wherewithal to join this lawyer in his crusade. Sadly, I’m poor, so my voluminous words on the topic will have to suffice. I can tell people not to go to law school, but this lawyer is willing to pay people to avoid the enterprise.
As part of a project called “Anything But Law School,” a Chicago attorney is offering a $1,000 scholarship to a winning undergraduate who chooses to pursue any post-graduate education besides law school. It won’t make a difference, but it certainly makes a point…
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Matt Willens of Willens Law Offices started the Anything But Law School campaign because he says, “Too many of our best and brightest are pursuing a career where there just aren’t any more seats at the table.” Now that’s the kind of protectionism you wish the ABA would engage in. There are too many lawyers with too much debt. Willens explains this in a clear-headed way to the Sacramento Bee:
“Lawyers don’t finish their education when they graduate,” says Willens. “They need extensive training and mentoring to develop their skills. But when new graduates hang a shingle because they can’t find employment, their clients are wronged and their own growth is stunted. They never reach their potential and the profession suffers. Many will never be employed in the profession at all.”
I spend so much time reading the detritus from defenders of legal academia that I sometimes forget how clear and obvious the problem is. There are too many law graduates and not enough law jobs. The end.
To be eligible for the scholarship, you have to fill out an application and write a short essay explaining why you are doing something other than law school. I can only hope that the winner will write about how he or she was going to go to law school, then thought better of it, and instead intends to do something socially useful or economically viable.
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Really though, this should be a scholarship offered by the ABA. Any organization representing lawyers should be paying people to go away.
Willens Law Offices Offers “Anything But Law School” Scholarship [Sacramento Bee]
2014 Willens Law Offices Anything But Law School Graduate [Willens Law Offices]