Should Lawyers Have Their Own Version Of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ For Law School 'Pedigree'?
'Pedigree' shouldn’t and doesn’t matter. What matters is the kind of lawyer you become
Steven Chung’s recent post about the closing of Whittier Law School was a perfect eulogy. I, too, am a graduate of Whittier, but some 30-odd years before him. Take a trip with me in Professor Peabody’s wayback machine to the 1970s, long before most, if not all, of the ATL readership was alive. I had written my own requiem for Whittier when the school first announced it was closing.
Most of the lawyers in this country are what Bill Henderson calls “people lawyers,” those who represent individuals and small businesses in cases that are what I call “one-offs.” One divorce, one bankruptcy, one estate planning, and so on. Clients come for help for these kinds of cases and there is usually no repeat business, but possible future referrals. These are the cases that have composed the bread and butter of so many lawyers’ practices for so many years. Whittier was that kind of law school, a “people law” school.
Just thinking back on my law school class, there was those of us who went into government (both the DA and PD offices), and one enterprising duo set up an unlawful detainer practice. Many of us went into solo or small firm practices, doing exactly the kind of work representing people, not big hulking behemoth corporations.
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Ha, but you reply, none of you were ever hired by Biglaw, which wasn’t even a term coined back then. (I don’t know if any of the “Biglaw” firms then even had enough lawyers to qualify for the term.) We were not naïve about hiring practices at the “chichi” law firms.
One of the reasons that most of us became lawyers was for autonomy, for independence, for the ability to represent people to the best of our abilities or to fire those clients who wouldn’t take our advice or who complained about the bills once too often. That is enormous freedom, and one of the reasons that many lawyers practicing in this country are either solos or in small firms. (I’ve never understood how lawyers, who have a reputation for being independent, can shoehorn themselves into the corporate milieu that Biglaw has become. But that’s a topic for another time.)
In the early days, Whittier classes were composed of second careerists, those who had decided that there had to be something more rewarding, more challenging, and yes, even more lucrative than what we had been doing. Granted, it was a lot easier in those long-ago days to switch careers and to attend law school without incurring ginormous debt. We had no illusions about Biglaw careers. No one bothered to even interview at such places, as rejection was a fait accompli. We knew that we didn’t have the purportedly important credentials such as law review or Order of the Coif, but that didn’t matter to us.
We knew what we did have: a legal education that allowed Whittier to enjoy for a time the highest bar passage rate in the state. We understood the law and what it took to be a lawyer. For the most part, our classes were not taught by academics, those far from the maddening crowd of practice, but by adjuncts who balanced their practices with teaching us not only law, but about real life situations they faced as lawyers.
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Some of the early Whittier graduates were appointed to the Superior Court, the Court of Appeal, and the United States District Court for the Central District, despite the lack of “pedigree.” The school’s alumni today include judges and general counsels, but mainly lawyers practicing in the trenches.
Until a decade or so ago, I thought that pedigree referred to dogs, not people. I was misinformed. If I could cartoon, I would draw a pure-bred Golden Retriever puppy (not that I know what a purebred looks like, but work with me here) sitting anxiously at the feet of a lawyer who barks (pun intended) commands to the puppy, who looks confused and uncertain. “Pedigree” shouldn’t and doesn’t matter.
What matters is the kind of lawyer you become, the kind of lawyer you are, 10, 20, 30 years out. In fact, there is a school of thought that thinks that where you went to law school is irrelevant, that pedigree should be confined to canines. There’s evidence that a focus on law school pedigree does not help firms hire successful attorneys.
Malcolm Gladwell thinks that once out of law school, lawyers should adopt a version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Employers shouldn’t ask where you went to law school, and you shouldn’t tell them where. Works for me and probably many others. Law school pedigree confers a false sense of security about a person’s ability to be a good lawyer.
Whittier is gone. A lamentable bar passage rate doomed it, since if you didn’t have a ticket, you didn’t get to participate. I lay at least part of the failure at the feet of the school. Declining enrollment, difficulties in finding jobs, tuition increases, and student debt all contributed. However, at the end of the day, it’s the bar passage rate that controls a school’s success, and Whittier either should have flunked students out who didn’t have a decent chance to pass or provided more help to those who were floundering.
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Many Whittier grads today are solos and small firm lawyers, the kinds of lawyers we need if we ever have any hope of increasing access to justice — in other words, “people lawyers.” Kudos to Whittier, which had a very diverse student body, a pipeline for the profession in terms of diversity and inclusion, something very much needed if the profession is to reflect ever how we truly look. The more inclusive the better.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. 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 dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].
