by RICH CASSIDY on NOVEMBER 28, 2011
The point of this series of posts is simply this. We have a huge access to justice problem. We also have a serious problem with legal education: it simply doesn’t actually prepare students to practice law. If every problem is an opportunity, together these problems can solve, at least to a large extent, one another.
Law schools can help their students and the public, by teaching students how to practice law, and in particular, how to serve the needs of low and middle income clients.
Most law students will not — and should not — end up practicing law for an elite law firm. Those law firms serve a narrow range of clients: mostly large corporations and institutions, and few very wealthy individuals.
Small businesses and not-for-profits, and individuals with moderate and even low incomes, represent the overwhelming mass of potential legal business. Graduates don’t come out of most law school programs equipped to serve clients, least of all moderate and low income clients. But they could. In my last post, Are Law Schools About To Start Teaching Law Students How To Practice Law?, I identified a number of models that are already in use to prepare students for practice.
And on another level, at nearly 20 law schools, courses are or have been taught that address the policies, methods, and barriers to providing access to justice for people of low and moderate incomes. The ABA Delivery Legal Services Committee describes these efforts at its web page, “Teaching Access to Justice.”
It’s not clear where the leadership could come from to change American law schools to really serve these ends. But, should it choose to do so, the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is in a position to be very influential through the law school accreditation process.
As has been mentioned above, there already are a number of law school programs that can help equip students to serve low and middle income clients. In my view, the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar should foster a spirit of creativity and experimentation to find out just what kinds of programs work best. Then it should modify the accreditation rules to put all accredited law schools on a new and even plane that will permit, or perhaps even require, that law students to be ready to address the legal needs of the great mass of the market when they graduate.
Rich