E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
Balkinization has been the site of three responses to the New York Times’ harsh critique of modern legal education – all largely apologetic. Come to the modern law school, David Levi and Jason Mazzone tell us, and you will see that the Times’ critique is out-of-date -- proliferating clinics and internships provide precisely the sophisticated practitioner-training that the newspaper is calling for. We live in (almost) the best of all possible worlds.
Sandy Levinson adds a characteristically iconoclastic note by putting Milton Friedman onto his list of intellectual heroes. He suggests that law schools be stripped of their monopoly on bar admission: it should not be necessary “to invest in three years of legal education” before a professional should be licensed to engage in “basic areas” like “uncontested divorces, simple wills, basic landlord-tenant,” among (how many?) others, which don’t require a three year “investment.”
This collective apologia represents a striking confirmation of Tony Kronman’s brilliant Lost Lawyer, and its diagnosis of the decline and fall of the lawyer-statesman ideal in America. My Kronmanian dissent, published as a letter in today’s Times, serves as a counterpoint. The truth is that, even in elite schools, it is astonishingly easy for law students to lose themselves in clinical work and avoid the sustained, and multi-disciplinary, course-work that should be required for the leaders of the next generation. We are adapting all-too-well to the temper of the Times – generating increasing numbers of anti-intellectual lawyers to express the growing anti-intellectualism of American politics. Posted
8:05 AM
by Guest Blogger [link]