The current "law school crisis" poses a number of serious challenges to the legal academy, and how law schools should respond is hotly debated. One common suggestion is that law schools should reform their curriculum to emphasize the development of practical skills through experiential learning, rather than emphasize what is described as the impractical, theory- and doctrine-heavy book learning of the traditional law school curriculum. Employers are said to be more likely to hire those with substantial skills training. This paper provides a simple empirical examination of that basic hypothesis. To summarize the paper's key finding: there is no statistical relationship between law school opportunities for skills training and JD employment outcomes. In contrast, employment outcomes do seem to be strongly related to law school prestige.Orin Kerr discusses the paper here, saying: "I’ll be interested to see how other empirical legal studies scholars respond to the paper, and whether they think its conclusions hold up."
Paul Caron notes the paper here, where a reader observes that some schools cook the numbers by hiring many of their own students so they report them as employed, and Jason responds in the comments.
AND: Instapundit says: "It's Potemkin diplomas all the way down."
ALSO: Here's Elie Mystal at Above the Law:
पोस्ट्स
