The other thing, which Law Student brings up, is that students don’t start paying their loans until after graduation – just when the true monetary value of their education becomes evident. Those loans are paid to a third-party loan provider (not the law school), so there is little economic incentive for a law school to use its money wisely and even less economic incentive to price its tuition in accordance with its students’ earning power.

The solution to the last part is the exact opposite of the government’s current path, though: far better for it to require law schools to provide loans to their students, rather than having the government do it.

BC: Granted, there are fly-by-night schools out there that a lack of accreditation properly warns us against, but there are nonetheless non-accredited schools providing competitive legal education at a fraction of the tuition as at accredited schools, in no small part because they don’t jump through the ABA’s hoops, and accreditation is somehow a non-factor in driving tuition? Again: I’m not so sure.

This may be heresy here (except maybe to David Kopel who is getting ready to teach Con Law at DU as an adjunct), but one of my pet peeves with ABA accreditation is its strong push against adjunct professors, who cost a lot less, but often have a lot more real life experience in the relevant area of law.

I had civil procedure from an adjunct who had practiced civil litigation for 30 years, and could show us how the rules applied in real life. I had criminal procedure from a sitting judge who had spent 20 years on the bench seeing every trick in the book, on both sides. This was someone who had spent maybe 3/4 of his time trying felony cases over those 20 years. And I took criminal law from a top criminal defense attorney, whom you occasionally see as a talking head on TV. 20 years later, I still remember him telling us that often the difference between 1st and 2nd degree murder is that the former is typically far less bloody than the later – which is why I never was convinced of O.J.’s guilt in those murders. The time line was too close to be a crime of passion, but the murders were far too bloody to be crimes of premeditation. And, therefore, on my part, a reasonable doubt. These guys knew their subject matter far better than most tenured professors would in their areas of expertise.

Sure, I had a lot of great tenured (or tenure track) professors too. But some of my worst classes were taught by tenured professors who were well beyond their sell-by date, but had tenure, so what could anyone do about them? They had to teach something, and as a 1L, you didn’t have much choice.

I’m not so sure. I mean, if you take a critical look at the ABA’s accreditation criteria, it quickly becomes apparent that they’re heavily influenced by a kind of “this is what law school looked like when I went through it, and so this is what it should look like for all time” traditionalism that has little bearing on the quality of legal education delivered to students — for example, the ABA’s resistance to distance learning.

Granted, there are fly-by-night schools out there that a lack of accreditation properly warns us against, but there are nonetheless non-accredited schools providing competitive legal education at a fraction of the tuition as at accredited schools, in no small part because they don’t jump through the ABA’s hoops, and accreditation is somehow a non-factor in driving tuition? Again: I’m not so sure.

Assuming of course you don’t mean ALL professors, do you mean most law professors? A substantial percentage? It might be a small, visible minority, right? Just how widespread are things like rankings obsession?

Topic for another post and threat, I know.

What does that statement from the ABA mean? When I first read it, the only thing I could think of that it would refer to is expanding clinic programs, but I’m skeptical that all or even a large percentage of law schools are expanding their clinic programs (though maybe I’m just wrong about that).