California’s governor just vetoed a bill that sought to force law students to do 50 hours of pro bono work as another requirement for admission to the California bar. Here is an excerpt from a description of SB 1257, which passed in the State Senate and the State Assembly:
This bill would additionally require an applicant, prior to admission, to complete at least 50 hours of supervised pro bono legal service, as specified, in order to supplement the applicant’s legal education with practical legal work experience. Upon completion of the pro bono legal service requirement, the bill would require an applicant and the supervisor, as defined, to complete and sign a form confirming completion of the pro bono service.
California’s governor, former attorney Jerry Brown, vetoed it because he said it would create too big of a burden on already debt-saddled law grads. That is, of course, ridiculous, because if you can withstand 100-plus weeks of legal education, adding five more 10-hour days is not going to push anyone over the edge. He was right to veto the bill though, because it was stupid, not because it would burden students.
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As a practicing attorney, if a law student calls me and says, “I need to supplement my legal education by getting my 50 hours, can I work on one of your files for a week?,” it will lead to no good. It will take me 15 hours to supervise, and probably 10 hours to redo a project that would take me only 10 to 15 hours to do in the first place, unless it’s something like removing staples from documents I intend to scan, but then that’s not really furthering that student’s education. So, it’s no benefit to me as a practitioner to have a baby lawyer pop his or her head into my office for a week. Does 50 hours of work effectively supplement the law student’s education though? That’s not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is: How do we find ourselves in a situation where someone pays $200,000 and gives up three years of their life to learn how to be a lawyer, and after three years is still in the position of needing an extra week to learn the basics?
It’s no secret that law school does not prepare you for the real world. In fact, it’s almost a bragging point that the curriculum is so theoretical, academic, and philosophical that it doesn’t bother itself with the in-the-weeds pedestrian matters of real life. It barely prepares you for the licensing exam, which is the only time in your legal career that it will not be malpractice to sit and vomit as much legal jargon into each paragraph as you can, as fast as you can, without referencing any research materials. Imagine if doctors graduated with only a philosophical understanding of hypothetical situations when it would or would not be appropriate to prescribe antibiotics. Instead, medical students are practicing with cadavers and doing real hands-on things, and we are arguing philosophical points about whether POTUS is allowed to appoint major cabinet members without the consent of Congress. I think the circle of lawyers that will ever be in a position to challenge POTUS’s selection of cabinet members is very, very small, but it’s mandatory 1L and bar exam stuff.
It’s a nasty cycle too. The lack of practical education makes it difficult for new grads to get jobs. It makes it so that they need years of on-the-job training and mentoring before they can become self-sufficient, and even longer before they can become efficient. So, it’s not that the legal field does not need them, it’s that the legal field is too busy to waste their time and money getting baby lawyers up to speed. I get that the point of law school is to make you smarter and more analytical, and once you are smart enough, you can Lexis or Westlaw something and then plug it into a template or sample brief someone else at your firm has written. But wouldn’t it be great if instead of teaching you just one sliver of what you needed to know, law schools also taught all of what you need to know? Or at least the foundations of what you need to know?
Here are a few suggestions, not for entire semester-length classes, but things new lawyers should understand before they graduate:
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- How to bill your time and draft billing descriptions and use billing software.
- Civility and how to draft an email in a way that wouldn’t look bad attached as an exhibit to a motion.
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Jeff Bennion is Of Counsel at Estey & Bomberger LLP, a plaintiffs’ law firm specializing in mass torts and catastrophic injuries. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of San Diego’s plaintiffs’ trial lawyers association, Consumer Attorneys of San Diego. He is also the Education Chair and Executive Committee member of the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technologysection. He is a member of the Advisory Council and instructor at UCSD’s Litigation Technology Management program. His opinions are his own. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by email at [email protected].