Growing Demand for Minority Lawyers?! Say What?

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Florida law schools are fretting drops in minority enrollment.

Scholars say more minorities need to study law at a time when many are pursuing careers in health sciences and business.

There's a growing demand for minority attorneys, as many members of the public seek lawyers in criminal and civil cases who look like them and can relate to them through cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

In addition, law firms want to diversify so they can better compete globally and build trial teams that can make effective cases before racially diverse juries.

I have little doubt that there's a real demand for attorneys with multicultural language skills. But the barrier there is purely communicative, and may actually inhibit access. It's not merely ethnic or racial.

It's really, really stupid to claim that there's a "growing demand" for a racial subset of a profession when the profession as a whole is producing a 40% excess every year without proof of abnormal consumer behavior.

I'll concede that people would prefer to be represented by people who look like him, and I'll also concede that given candidates with equal qualifications, firms in many areas would take a minority for diversity reasons.

But there's scant proof that either (1) minorities bypass legal services that they would purchase if they had a minority to fill their need or (2) minorities pay more for services by someone who looks like them. In other words, my casual observation is that the value of minority representation is greatly overvalued by the media and the academic elites who have no real conception of what actually happens at ground level. It's an ivory tower fantasy; in fact, in some cases, I would suppose minorities would want a white representative in court if they truly feel the court is prejudiced. And nevermind that a 40k-a-year "shit"law lawyer has more in common with most blue-collar minorities than an east coast elitist biglaw washout, but I digress...

The point is that there really isn't a "growing demand" unless a minority could theoretically open up shop and immediately siphon off business merely by being a minority who looks like his clientèle. Given the current legal climate, I just can't see that happening. No unsourced article premised on interviewing unnamed law school administrators about the unspoken wishes of a population can change that.

Sure, in an ideal world, the bar would reflect the population and people could choose among experienced lawyers of all racial and socioeconomic compositions to find the perfect person for them. In reality, we live in a world where experienced, competent attorneys happen to be disproportionately white and male. New entrants, minority or not, have an uphill battle going against that establishment, and consumers know the difference, or find out rather quickly. Minorities may find it easier to nab associate positions at bigger firms, but it's not like corporate clients are going to change firms because someone found a black guy to hire, which means there isn't any more job security for minorities than the white males. Both have to pull their weight. And let's not forget that minorities are coveted by most corporations if they have the right business credentials.

To me, telling minorities to give up business and healthcare to study law is nothing short of irresponsible. Healthcare has signs that it's a durable career of the future. Law will still be around, but it's the weakest and least versatile of the three areas. Any non-white/Asian minority who can score higher than a 160 and get into a top 50 school, I would encourage to go to law school if they wanted to be a lawyer and could find a reasonable tuition price. But no way, no how, should "weaker" parts of the applicant pool be heading to law school on the supposition that there's an untapped market out there that wants a minority face to represent them. For a kid who gets a 150 LSAT, minority or not, law is a bad idea. There's no two ways around it, and fantastical dreams of ivory tower six-figure dorks can't change that.

My opinion on this would change if the article actually bothered to have statistics that minorities were in demand in the labor market. Instead, it does nothing but spout admissions figures at Florida law schools, as if that really matters. Hopefully, no one will read the "growing demand" line and actually take it to mean "growing demand" in the economic sense.

On the Harvard Law Review Electing an Openly-Gay President

I fully support gay equality, and I think the people who fight tooth and nail to deny gay people the privileges of their heterosexual counterparts are honestly mentally damaged. I think the minority of people still out there who just don't accept gay people or think it's kind of hedonistic choice aren't going to have their minds or their behavior altered by a low-circulation journal's actions.

Thus, I'm less enthused than others at the news that the Harvard Law Review elected its first openly-gay President. But Harvard apparently thinks it's worth making a fuss over. Here are the first three paragraphs of Harvard's brief official online release:

The Harvard Law Review has elected Mitchell Reich ’12 as its 125th president.

“Mitch has proven himself as an outstanding editor — insightful, hardworking, and deeply committed to the Review and its community,” said outgoing President Zach Schauf ’11. “He will make a superb president, and I look forward to seeing him guide the Review in the year ahead.”

Before attending Harvard Law School, Reich graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in Classics and Political Science. He is a native of New York, and is the first openly gay editor elected to lead the Review.

Harvard placed his sexuality in the same paragraph as where he is from and where he went for undergrad. His law school accomplishments? Where he has worked? What area he plans to practice in after attending this professional school? Who his significant other and family are? These qualities deserve no mention. But his vague sexuality - what sex organs he prefers to play with - has suddenly become basic demographic information.

At my own law school, I don't know everyone's sexuality, nor do I care to. Some are transparent about it, either incessantly talking about their spouse or purposely fitting into established stereotypes. But with others, it's one of those personal details you wouldn't necessarily know without knowing the person well, or unless they were notorious in their bedroom-hopping and became the subject of gossip.

This is fairly normal and is, of course, an obvious difference between sexuality and race. With race, possible discrimination is much easier. Subconscious racism is an intellectual possibility. But if you don't subjectively know someone's gay (even if they're "openly" gay), how can one discriminate against them? In the past, I've worked with people for months without knowing their sexuality. I might have had educated guesses if pressed, but nothing I'd bet money on, and a few revelations one way or the other have genuinely surprised me.

But overall, I just don't care. I'm not more likely to vote for someone because they're gay or because they're straight. And although I know the white supremacists have to find their lawyers somewhere, I imagine there are very few law students who would hold one's sexuality against him or her. As a result, a law review electing a gay man isn't really a milestone at all, because there's really no tide that the individual is swimming against. It's not going to surprise anyone or change anyone's behavior towards the sub-group.

But of course that doesn't stop people who like to pretend milestones happen every day and have undue significance. Take, for example, Vivia Chen's take for AmLaw Daily:

Could Mitch Reich be the first openly gay president of the United States one day? Well, if history is a clue, it's possible. Harvard Law School just announced that Reich, a second-year law student, has been elected president of Harvard Law Review--the first openly gay person to lead the journal in its 125-year history.

President Obama, as you might know, was the first black person to head the school's Law Review back in 1990.

Right.

The thing about "milestones" is that the word is not just a synonym for "that which hasn't happened before." The event has to mean something. It has to change a mass of people on some individual level, like making baseball's owners collectively realize that they can employ African-Americans.

There are at least three reasons why this doesn't qualify as a milestone, or even something that would be news-worthy. The first is that I can practically guarantee you that, as a matter of statistics, someone homosexual has led the Harvard Law Review in the last 125 years. The second is that this is hardly the first openly gay law review editor in chief. Heck, there are schools in far more conservative parts of the country than Boston that have had journals devoted to gay rights for 20 years. I have a hard time believing that no gay people have run that one, meaning no "barrier" was broken by Harvard's selection.

But wait! you might say. The Harvard Law Review is a prestigious publication, the most prestigious of all prestigious law reviews!

And that brings me to my third reason this ain't no milestone: no one reads or cares about the bleeping Harvard Law Review. Here is a search trend chart comparing the Harvard Law Review's search interest to the openly-gay and completely-inane Perez Hilton's:

And here's one comparing the Harvard Law Review to openly-gay writer Andrew Sullivan's:


The Harvard Law Review's website gets about the same number of hits as Third-Tier Reality's. If Nando suddenly came out of the closet, would it be front page news? Is it news when a gay author sells 1000 copies of a book? But somehow a homosexual becoming president of a journal with a very, very low non-academic circulation is a news-worthy event.

The further response here is probably that the Harvard Law Review (a) has influenced legal policy for over a century and (b) has been the springboard for successful people, like Obama. Both of these are a poor reason to see this as a milestone of gay rights. If influence on policy is what matters, there should have been a two-decades long celebration as openly gay people became accepted in the D.C. hierarchy and in some corporate officerships and directors' spots. If this is the standard, the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" was a major milestone, but at the end of the day the Harvard Law Review is still an insignificant outpost in the middle of obscure land. As for the fact that famous people have served on it before, well, Abe Lincoln chopped a lot of wood and once ran a convenience store.

The truth is that the Harvard Law Review is, was, and always will be, part trade journal and part house organ. It, like all law journals, is more concerned with stocking resumes and providing an outlet for professorial bombast than actually advancing scholarship or educating the public. If it operated under normal capitalist conditions, it would fail, or at best be a struggling, obscure journal.

Of all the people hailing this as a milestone, I would venture to guess that less than 1% have actually read anything published in the Harvard Law Review. I would guess only a fraction could actually name a Harvard Law Review President other than Obama. Its significance stems solely from the public perception that the Harvard Law Review does something prestigious, noble, or worthwhile. Like many perceptions about the law, it's in error.

I mean to take nothing away from Reich. I know it's an honor, and I know how much hard work goes into getting that little tag on the resume.

But I feel mildly sorry for him that we live in a world where his sexual preferences - a very personal aspect of one's life - have become a newsworthy item and a de facto marketing point for his university because people want to believe that the Harvard Law Review is something more than it is.

But it's hard to feel sorry for him when he himself understands the non-relevance of his sexuality while agreeing it is "significant:"

Reich says that being gay is a non-issue for the Harvard Law Review community, but that he recognizes the significance of the election. He says that while he was in high school, before coming out of the closet, he found it hard to picture achieving his dreams and be gay at the same time.

“If I had seen someone who was the president of the Harvard Law Review and [also] openly gay, that would have been helpful to me,” Reich says.

Seriously? When Reich was in high school, Harvard's own state had an openly-gay Congressman and New York had an openly-gay federal court judge. I understand the importance of seeing people with your own immutable characteristic doing well in life, but unless you're a legal masochist, both Congressman and Federal Judge are superior positions to doing anything on a barely-read law review. Furthermore, I can't imagine the average gay high school youth today gaining a damned thing from this guy joining an elite academia club that maybe 0.1% of real-life high school students actually care about. Most conservatives lump the Harvard Law Review in with the academia types who are already going to hell for supporting homosexuality, so it's a complete non-event (conformity with the reality they already believe in) for the overwhelming majority of anti-gay parents.

When an active NBA player comes out of the closet, that will be a newsworthy, courage-giving, mind-changing moment. But this? Have some self-awareness, Harvard.

Because ultimately, whether or not this is a milestone should really hinge on whether or not it affects the standing of other gay people, e.g., if it gives the irrationally-conservative mom and dad the power to accept their child's sexuality or if it gives the youth the courage to be himself or herself without anxiety.

I just don't see this event doing that in any regard. I can't imagine Harvard does either, aside from seeing the positive publicity that would shine upon them if they made this individual's sexuality a matter of public concern.

Eric Holder Takes the Bullcrap Express to Montana

From The Missoulian:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that students at University of Montana's School of Law opt for careers in public service, urging them to consider "what we owe to our community, to our country and our fellow citizens."

"Today I call on each of you to choose action, to choose compassion," Holder said Wednesday.

What a load of schlocky crap.

First of all, although I've heard this weary refrain spouted from God knows how many self-righteous judges and professors, I've never once heard any sound justification for it beyond assuming the conclusion (i.e., that lawyers just "owe" non-attorneys and should bless them with public service).

Second, paid public service jobs are in incredibly high demand. Government and public service organizations turn away people who really want to work in public service all the time, so there's really no reason to "call" on people to work there, unless, of course, he expects people to work for free.

The legal profession "owes" absolutely nothing to the community, or the country, or our fellow citizens. In fact, many attorneys wouldn't be able to represent their clients well if they felt any kind of debt to society. Because law school is not a public service training ground. It is a professional service training ground. If you happen to represent the government, then your interests coincide. If you represent BP or a health insurance company, they probably do not.

But why do people like Holder (and, unfortunately, the people who run bar associations) continually think that lawyers should, as a normative value, give away their service for nothing? Why do lawyers owe more of a duty to the pubic than doctors, dentists, plumbers, grocers, farmers, auto repairmen, electricians, or any one else with specialized knowledge? Lawyers are no better suited for non-judge/AG public service than successful businessmen. Why are they especially "called?" Because the elites just decided that we collectively have this duty that they don't have the time to do themselves? Because it gives a feeling of elitism to be able to give your service away for free while 1/3 of your recent professional entrants have no work? Because elite lawyers want to believe - falsely - that they control access to justice?

I'm lost as to why people like Holder find it even remotely appropriate to tell trainees with 50k+ in debt and no jobs lined up that they have a duty to give back what they don't even yet (and may never) have, especially when it's to their collective economic disadvantage.

But that wasn't all for Holder.

Holder's talk marked the kickoff of the law school's centennial year, and he used it to highlight another anniversary, the swearing-in a half-century ago of Robert F. Kennedy as U.S. attorney general at the age of 35.

"I have been thinking a great deal about that moment and the extraordinary years of ballot drives, freedom rides, free schools and civil rights breakthroughs that soon followed it," he said.

Such activism, he said, "may be America's oldest - and perhaps finest - tradition. Since our nation's earliest days, young people - and, specifically, young lawyers - have been using their knowledge and training to stand up for justice."

Um...yeah. Okay, first of all, Robert Kennedy didn't have much to do with anything that actually happened in the 60s. Top-down civil rights initiatives, yes. Cuban Missile Crisis - yes, he more or less handled that. A great politician? Absolutely, but it's nothing more than mythmaking to give him credit for "the extraordinary years . . . that soon followed." Brown v. Board and Cooper v. Aaron were already done years before Kennedy was in the national spotlight. The foundations of the civil rights movements were in the 50s. And considering the politics of the time, I can't see an alternative Nixon administration and/or other A.G. doing a damn thing differently regarding the freedom riders or the other developments in the early 60s. And all of that would have happened with or without "young lawyers" who aren't particularly trained "to stand up for justice." (Who, except a vapid tool, has to be "trained" to stand up for justice, if that's their calling?)

It's such a blatantly egocentric view, i.e., "the guy in my shoes was a huge part of that," the implication being that Holder is something much more than he is.

But not everyone was trained to be so skeptical to see Holder's words as such blatant bullcrap.

First-year law student Dustin Leftridge of Missoula said he found Holder's message "incredibly inspirational."

"A call to service by the attorney general" dovetailed perfectly with his own idea of success in the legal profession, Leftridge said. "It's much more than somebody with a flashy Corvette and a nice suit."

Good God. I don't even know what to say.

Professor Donates $6 Million to Law School for Scholarships, Gives Me Reason to Rant About Tuition and Universities

From the Oklahoman:

NORMAN -- University of Oklahoma President David L. Boren has announced the largest one-time contribution in the history of the OU College of Law – a historic $6 million gift from OU Law Professor Emeritus Frank Elkouri and his wife, Edna Asper Elkouri, to support student scholarship programs in the college.

My usual reaction to people donating large sums of money to a law school is "blech!" With so many places to put your money, it kind-of disgusts me when rich people pour it into a system that's so broken, especially when the donation comes from a rich law professor and especially when it's used to construct some new building. Such donations smell of not being made from humanitarian interests, but rather out of some desire for the rich person to slap their name on a new building or auditorium in an egocentric, old-age proxy for sexual arousal. Worse is when their donations bankroll the meaningless research of law professors.

But my cold hear warmed to Mr. Boren when I saw that he was wanting to use his donation to support scholarships for students. In an age where tuition prices are pricing the middle- and lower-class out of responsible higher education, I think that's the only virtuous way to donate to a university. And although I'm cynical, I'm not compeltely dismissive of things like this:

Professor and Mrs. Elkouri said they were grateful to have scholarships while they were in law school, and they hope their gift provides similar opportunities to students today.

“We wanted to do for the students what we couldn’t do for those who helped us,” Professor Elkouri said.

Bravo!

But what stuck out to me in the article was this paragraph:

“Generations of students will benefit from this generous gift,” said [OU President] Boren....

"Generations?" Who the hell are you kidding?

Six million may sound like a lot. But currently, OU tuition is at $28,000 for out-of-staters and $14,000 for in-staters. A $6 million dollar scholarship can give full rides to 215 out-of-state students and 430 in-state students. Or it could give half-tuition scholarships to 430 out-of-state students and 860 in-state students.

But that's only on a one-year basis. On a 3-year basis, you cut the numbers by 1/3. And that's not even factoring in living expenses or the rise in tuition.

For comparison's sake, OU currently enrolls 500+ students every academic year.

And if anyone wants to argue that the scholarship fund will grow over time and provide more opportunities for students down-the-road than may be apparent now, I would like to point out that tuition at OU has risen 50% for out-of-state students and 90% for in-state students over the last 6 years according to LSTB. You couldn't even get that return investing in high-risk mutual funds, much less the bonds that universities shove their endowments into.

Between tuition inflation and state expenditure cuts, the money will not go as far if it's saved. Fewer students will benefit.

The OU President knows this reality. He knows quite well that $6 million isn't going to be around in 15 years, and yet he began a sentence with the word "generations." He did not say "hundreds of students" will benefit." He chose "generation."

Why?

It seems to me that much of the appeal of high education depends on this "timeless" quality. That this is the way things have been for 150 years and when you go you'll pay it forward to the next generation. Elderly donors can be persuaded to part with their money much easier if they believe that they're contributing to something that will extend long past their earthly demise.

It's nothing more than marketing to bring more investment into the university scheme. In fact, one could argue the Elkouris of the world are, in a way, getting lied to as much as the students. Their investment won't last long at all, and once their dead no one on campus will care about them.

For education to return to its proper role in the United States, it seems to me that myth (and similar ones) probably need to perish.

So I applaud to Elkouris, but their contribution must be put into perspective. It's wonderful that they're helping students achieve the same things they did, especially against a system so biased against new entrants. But its impact will be minimal, and in truth OU will probably wind up shifting the money they would have spent on scholarships to other wastes of money, like increases in salary for administrators.

This is, after all, big business, and not some rah-rah wonderland where generation after generation gets the same education with the same impact at a low cost. We need to get through to the 50+ crowd that it isn't the way it was way back when.

ChicagoNow's Michael Helfand on Law School and the Myth

ChicagoNow has a nice little blog written by attorney Michael Helfand that has now weighed in on the situation with law schools:

The number of law school graduates is increasing, even though the number of jobs has decreased. And even for those who do get jobs, not many are earning the $150,000 a year they thought they would. It's a myth. And the reality is especially harsh for those with huge loans to pay off.
...
Our society has this idea about lawyers - that they all make a lot of money and have prestigious careers. Like many things, what you see on TV or in the movies is not reality.

Helfand got his J.D. from the Chicago-Kent College of Law (ranked 67th or so in USNWR) and has been practicing law for 13 years.

So, for all those of you who think it's just the bitter recent graduates who can't find work that are complaining, it's not. At least from what I've observed, there's a widespread consensus among Gen. X and Y attorneys that the field of law as advertised by law schools and the Disney Corporation is as mythical as Never Never Land.

Supreme Tautologies 101

Yesterday, Justice Scalia gave an interview/lovefest at the Federalist Society's something-or-other, and had this to say about why he hires almost exclusively from the high and mighty Ivies:

He then reprised his somewhat controversial defense of elitism in law clerk hiring: “The best minds are going to the best law schools. They might not learn anything while they’re there [laughter], but they don’t get any dumber.”

(Note how Scalia did not use politically correct terminology. The PC approach calls for referring to the “highest ranked” law schools rather than the “best” law schools.)

As an initial matter, I respectfully disagree that law school can't make one dumber. It can, and it does.

But what is this basis for determining the "best" law schools? I suppose it's rankings, historical prestige, and alumni. Given his joke, it's not the quality of education (e.g. "Harvard can take a 160 LSAT and make him a better lawyer than Stetson."). He seems, without question, to be of a nature-over-nurture belief. That's fine; I am, too.

But if Justice Scalia believes in nature over all, doesn't that imply that the best schools are wherever the best students have gone previously? So wherever the best minds go are the best schools, and the best schools are wherever the best minds go? Can you be any more tautological?

Again, it's depressing to see a member of a body charged with rationally interpreting the law so sincerely flawed in its reasoning. Of course, I don't actually believe Justice Scalia is dumb or irrational. On the contrary, he's highly intelligent. I just think it's obvious that he's rationalizing his naked elitism in a rather puny attempt.

If you want to hire "the best minds," why not have some objective criteria that goes beyond the name of the school? Why not just go to LSAT scores? Why not give a generalized knowledge and intelligence test to anyone wanting to apply? Besides, if you're hiring from the pool of appellate clerks nationwide, you're already dealing with "the best minds" and you shouldn't have to use "Harvard" or "Yale" as a lazy-ass short-cut to weed the applicant pool.

I say all this because at my own top 100 school, there are approximately 10-15 people in each graduating class who are fully qualified to compete at any T-14 in the country. Approximately 8-10 of them could have gained admission out of undergrad (167+ LSAT, 3.5+ undergrad GPA). Why did they go TTT when they could have gone T-14?

First is full-tuition scholarship money and second is that you learn the same darned law at the TTT while being the faculty darling and being first in line for every opportunity the TTT has. Almost every TTT in the country pays to bring in these "ringers" to up their LSAT medians.

I'll fully admit that a school like Pepperdine is not as "good" of a law school as Cal or Stanford, mostly because the average student at either Cal or Stanford would mop the floor with the average student from Pepperdine. But there's no doubt in my mind the top students at Pepperdine would compete and possibly be the top students at Cal or Stanford, mostly because in terms of pre-law intellectual ability they were likely indistinguishable and the law schools really don't advance that innate intellectual ability Justice Scalia so craves.

This is not 1940 or even 1980. It is not Ivy-or-bust, either in undergraduate or in graduate school. Just as intelligent minds wind up in all sorts of undergraduate locations, bright people get lured into going to schools outside the T-14 for any number of reasons. In an age where the private T-14s cost 40k a year, it's completely plausible that a highly-intelligent student would choose a degree from a respectable lower-ranked school for $0 in tuition than take out $120k in debt. And there's evidence that this has been happening; one only need to note that the award winners at Moot Court and Trial Team competitions routinely come from lower-ranked schools. It's not like Georgetown or Wash U. send their chaff to these things. It's just that, now, the very top students at TTT would fit right in at a T-14 and possibly wind up at the top. Assuming that those students would finish lower at the higher-ranked schools is nothing more than baseless speculation based on elitist presumptions.

Perhaps if Justice Scalia were truly open to more objective criteria to discover "the best minds," he would have realized this a long time ago. Instead, he perpetuates his superstitious and elitist beliefs that best minds = best schools = best minds, perpetuating silly superstitions. It should go without lengthy explanation that irrationalities backing elitism that smacks in the face of promoting candidates on true merit is to the detriment of the entire legal system.