Young lawyers may soon get representation on the committee that accredits law schools.
Later this week, the Council for the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will discuss a proposal from the ABA Young Lawyers Division to add two voting members to the Council’s ranks. The YLD has asked the Council to reserve two of the 21 Council spots for young lawyers (under 36 or within 5 years of graduating law school) not employed by a law school.
The YLD did not ask to directly appoint individuals to the Council. The proposal suggests that the Council’s nominating committee ensure the slots are filled by qualified individuals who meet the proposed criteria. To create permanent spots, the Section would need to amend its bylaws — a laborious process that may take several years. However, the Council can choose to follow the substance of the proposal in the meantime for the upcoming terms, beginning with August 2018, by recruiting two new at-large members who meet the YLD’s proposed criteria.
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The current process has not produced members who meet the proposed criteria. With the exception of the law student on the Council, whose membership is baked into the bylaws and on the chopping block, not a single member graduated law school in the last 26 years. The median JD graduation year was 1979, with three earning their law degree in the 1960s. Most young lawyers were not yet in kindergarten when the greenest members graduated law school in 1990.
A Council with an indistinguishable makeup from the current group has responded to external pressure and their internal moral compasses to hold law schools accountable for unethical choices in recent years. But the Council cannot rest on its laurels either. This June, for example, the Council blundered when it took puzzling actions that diluted the quality of employment statistics, arguably to the sole benefit of some elite law schools. The Council reversed course after significant backlash, but the Council lost some credibility among important constituents and even several of its own members.
The YLD proposal ensures that fresh perspectives have a seat at the table in public and private sessions. This may limit preventable mistakes. I sincerely doubt that the Council would have approved its anti-transparency measures when nobody was watching if the YLD proposal had been implemented last year. But it also may help the Council approach legal education’s principle challenges of exorbitant costs and falling bar passage rates differently. Younger members with less entrenched views on legal education may prove to be ideal collaborators for members of the Council who have devoted long careers to legal education.
The YLD proposal was spearheaded by Tom Hillers, an Iowa attorney and current president of the Iowa State Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. It passed with overwhelming support and represents a serious assertion of interest in the future of our profession. As the Council considers restructuring to increase its efficiency and effectiveness, it should do more than note the YLD’s interest in the important business of regulating legal education. Restructuring should also not be an excuse not to advance at least the intent of the proposal: representation of young lawyers on the Council starting in August 2018.
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Kyle McEntee is the executive director of Law School Transparency, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to make entry to the legal profession more transparent, affordable, and fair. LST publishes the LST Reports and produces I Am The Law, a podcast about law jobs. You can follow him on Twitter @kpmcentee and @LSTupdates.