Respect: An Observation from Ann Levine's Reasons for Going to Law School

Ann Levine, lawyer and capitalist feeding off want-to-be law school applicants, has published a new list of her reasons to go/not to go to law school. This reason to attend struck me as worth commentary:

4. Being important and respected

While I think some of her other reasons are suspect (e..g, if "money" is a reason NOT to go, why is "financial security" suddenly a reason TO go? Something can't be both a good investment and a bad investment for the same person at the same time), this one struck me as odd.

First, she links to a page from Notre Dame's website that talks about how lawyers are hated, many people go to law school for the wrong reasons, and that reasons such as "I wanted a profession with prestige, respect and status" are "problematic."

This, by itself, should raise a few questions. For example: Does it speak well of the University of Miami Law School to have a notable alumna completely misconstruing source material when said skill is a large part of legal argumentation? Would you hire someone who can't carefully read a simple webpage to help your child get into law school by reading their admissions essays? And does it speak well of the legal profession as a whole to have an ambassador at the gateway citing source material that (a) she apparently hasn't read thoroughly and (b) comes from such bastions of knowledge as Yahoo! Answers?

But more importantly, she's wrong. While the law may be important (I would argue essential), the over-supply of lawyers has rendered them replaceable on the individual level. And lawyers, as a whole, have not been respected for quite some time. Judges are respected; lawyers really aren't. A simple Google search got me this 2002 report from the ABA. Although this report does mention positive characteristics of attorneys, one would be hard-pressed to read it and conclude that being a lawyer brings vague and generalized "respect." And that was 8 years ago.

Miami Finds New Way To Boost Employment Numbers

Add Miami to the list of schools pumping graduates into temporary public interest positions in exchange for a small stipend in order to boost placement numbers.

Although the author put sarcasm in his title, improperly categorized it as a "recessionomics" thing, and missed that the law school has an incentive to place new graduates immediately (as opposed to helping the butchered classes of '08, '09, or '10), one has to appreciate the mainstream notice.

Additionally, one has to give some credit to Miami. Unlike some other institutions of "higher" learning that believe there to be little problem beyond the "short-term" recession, Miami has taken multiple steps to try and help its admitees, students, and alumni. I have no delusions that our problems would be solved if every school behaved exactly like Miami, but their course of action is certainly better than some of the "earth is flat" shills lining their pockets with government-backed tuition checks.