Redesigning the American Law School

David Barnhizer, Cleveland State University College of Law

Abstract

In other industries when there is a decline or severe curtailment of the demand for their product we see companies downsizing, laying off personnel, bankruptcies and reorganizations, mergers to create greater economies of scale and even dissolutions. American law schools have to this point been able to operate largely without any required adaptation to the economic realities of demand for their product. For many institutions that “free ride” is ending. It will become increasingly clear that law schools are part of a rigid and intractable business system in the same way that the large firms and solo practitioners are driven by their need for financial resources required to sustain their conditions of operation. As those resources shrink, whether through reduced enrollments or declining state budgetary support many law schools will face economic challenges that generate significant impacts on how they operate.

The economic downturn being experienced in the US in virtually every area of activity is not a simple cycle but a transformation that demands a change in behavior and assumptions in many areas, including education. Until recently law schools have flourished in an insulated and parochial world exempt from real financial pressures. That is changing dramatically and the conditions will only intensify.

A new system is being created that will be more complex than the traditional approach that has characterized American legal education. For a substantial number of US law schools and faculty who have taken the security of their employment for granted it is like the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s “My Home Town”—“These jobs are going boys, and they ain’t comin’ back”. The new world of legal education will be dramatically changed and quite a few law faculty members will find themselves with reduced incomes, restricted tenure options, and higher teaching workloads. In many instances tenure track and even tenured law faculty will replicate the stunning experiences of millions of white collar workers in America’s industries who thought they had well paying life time jobs only to find themselves on the streets as their companies downsized or went out of business.