Friday, August 28, 2009

Why Law Schools are Failing Attorneys and the Legal Industry

A very interesting post on the New Lawyer blog. Stephen Fairly writes that law schools are failing the 43,600 attorneys who graduate from them year after year... A bold statement?

This is taken directly from his article: "I truly believe law schools are failing most of the attorneys who depend on them to show them how to be a successful attorney. I have heard that around 85 per cent of lawyers end up in a small law firm at some point in their career. The number of new solo practices that open up every year far outweighs the number of attorneys who are now entering big law. If you do not even know the fundamentals of setting up a law practice (from a business perspective), how to build relationships with referral sources, the principles of excellent customer service, and specific strategies for law firm marketing and business development how can you reasonably expect to succeed in this dog eat dog environment?

Bottom line: You cannot...unless you depend on someone else to feed you, thereby making you a helpless and hapless dependent.For those of you running or working at law schools who follow me (yes, I know who you are) here is my challenge to you: Is this really the best you can do? You are the institution whereby almost every single person who wants to practice law must go through—you are the first line of defense for the legal industry... and you are failing them."

Click here to read the remainder of the article.

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