Old People

Elitism Puts Our Profession In Peril

There is one aspect of the election result that I think applies to our profession.

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Businessman with crown sitting at deskI am not going to talk about the election; there are many others, including on Above the Law, who are far better qualified to talk about the election and its meaning. However, I think there is one aspect of the election result that I think applies to our profession. What is that? It’s the “anti-elitism” that showed up loud and clear in the result. 

Our profession suffers from elitism; it permeates every aspect of practice. Where we went to law school and how we ranked affects our abilities to get jobs, move up the ladder, become partner, or whatever goals we have.

The irony is that there’s all this hand-wringing, hair-pulling about “access to justice.” Do you really think that those from elite law schools are necessarily going to devote their lives to providing that access when they’re staggering under the weight of student loans?

If this election has shown anything, it proves that polls were just numbers and they were wrong. So, how can a law school truly determine whether a potential student will succeed? LSATs and GPAs never tell the whole story about whether success is inextricably linked to those factors. Take it from me; they don’t.

They don’t tell the stories of individual prospects who have succeeded to date against amazing odds. One example–many applicants are the first generation to graduate college; some of them speak English as a second language. (I am awed by those who face the additional challenge of learning the law in their non-native language.)

Why should their dreams of being lawyers be denied because some admissions officers at “elite” law schools think that these candidates have no chance? Oftentimes, candidates apply to law school as second career choices; they’ve worked and decided that what they want to be are lawyers. Those older students have the motivation that younger students can lack. They often choose law school as a “default” right after college, a three year deferment, so to speak. (Millennials don’t know from “deferments;” ask anyone who graduated college during the Vietnam war and before the draft ended.)

Just as people spoke about a “revolution,” that is, the need for change evidenced by the outcome of the 2016 election, I think it’s time for a law school revolution. I’m not the first, nor will I be the last, to point out the consistent failures of law school education. Read this book (affiliate link) if you have any doubt. In fact, read this book even if you don’t have any doubt. 

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The vast majority of lawyers in this country do not practice in Biglaw; they serve the communities from which they came or they serve the communities that they now call home. Regardless of which it is, or some other factor, many, many lawyers who didn’t go to elite law schools are superb lawyers. Clients don’t ask a lawyer where she went to law school, what her GPA was, whether she was on law review or Order of the Coif. Clients are not impressed by those credentials. What impresses clients is a lawyer’s ability to listen and to solve the client’s problems in efficient and cost-effective ways. That’s why clients need lawyers. It’s personality and performance, not pedigree, that matter.

However, the big corporate clients will want that pedigree, even if it doesn’t mean that the lawyering is one bit better. Corporate clients can hide behind the Biglaw firm if the result is not the hoped-for outcome. How many lawyers will ever represent those big corporate clients? Think about it.

Full disclosure: my J.D. is from a law school that would have been in the bottom tier, had there even been tiers in dinosaur days. Our professors were practicing lawyers, not academics who had decided that the rough and tumble world of practice was not for them. We learned from those who did.

The law school taught to the bar and it flunked out two-thirds of my incoming class at the end of the first year. I can hear horrified susurrations (look it up). However, all but one of us passed the California Bar on our first tries, and the one who didn’t passed the second time. So, our class had a 100 percent bar passage rate within one year. We’ve all had successful practices in various ways; we’ve been solos, small and/or mid-size firms, government lawyers, in-house counsel, and other permutations.

Probably none of us would have ever become lawyers had the door been barred to us because of mediocre grades and LSATs. Would the profession been better off without us? You tell me.

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On to the revolution: legal education needs to change now. We need to figure out ways to make law school education more affordable and more accessible. We need to provide an abundance of practical training so that, if students either want to or have to, they can hit the ground running. We need to figure out ways that applicants of whatever age, who have motivation and persistence and raw talent, have the chance to succeed in law school. We need to increase the diversity pipeline not only in admitting students to law school, but post J.D.; how to retain talented minority and women lawyers a decade out in practice.

What do I know about change? I’m a dinosaur, but as Bob Dylan sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” And I was at Berkeley in the late 60s. If you know anything about the social history of those times, you don’t need to know any more than that.

So, I’m all for a law education revolution. Just as voters wanted change, law schools need to change now. Elitism shouldn’t have any place in our profession. Where you graduated from law school and your class ranking, assuming you were even permitted into law school, shouldn’t be the determining factors about your lawyering ability.

Do clients who use Legal Zoom or other providers who are eating the lunches of our traditional ways of practice ask about a lawyer’s pedigree? What do you think?

old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer is closing in on 40 (not a typo) years as a active member of the State Bar of California. Yes, folks, California, that state west of the Sierra Nevada, which everyone likes to diss. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see old lawyers, young lawyers, and those in-between interact — it’s not always pretty. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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