Law school and "bad sociology"

Catching up on old news, I read an interesting and provocative article by Charles Rounds (professor, Suffolk University Law School) lamenting the decline of the “common law” subjects in law school. (HT: Law School Innovation.) Courses on the bread-and-butter common law courses ought to be at the heart of the law school curriculum, he says.

“Common law, of which agency and trust are critical components, is the bedrock upon which all our statutory and regulatory edifices are constructed. Unfortunately, the old required courses in the law—the courses necessary to master the law’s basic anatomy—have largely been crowded out by courses about the law. Almost every self-respecting law professor is now an amateur sociologist engaged in ‘ground-breaking’ and ‘cutting-edge’ scholarship that has a gender, race, or sexual identity hook. Those who are less sociologically inclined are likely preoccupied with some ultra-technical aspect of the Constitution, some piece of legislation, or a regulation. Many professors manage to cobble together entire courses around their preoccupations.”

Professor Rounds concludes that “law students at great expense are getting little more than bad sociology.”

What’s the solution? Professor Rounds suggests:

“This de-professionalization of the American law school, a phenomenon of profound concern to many in the legal profession, suggests that there is an opening for the for-profit sector. A bare-bones, back-to-basics for-profit law school staffed by seasoned scholar-practitioners may be the answer. The more boot-camp-like the better, in that the rigor will prepare future lawyers for the work they’ll actually confront in the real world.”

Rounds' comments raise some issues that I might quibble about some other time (should a law school curriculum be reduced to just nuts-and-bolts courses to prepare student for practice? I don’t think so). But I think he does raise some thought-provoking points about big issues facing law schools, especially in a difficult economy.

And, ahem. The Oak Brook College curriculum features the common-law staples prominently. The distance-learning methodology makes it possible for OBCL students to get real world experience working in law while still in law school. The faculty is comprised of practicing lawyer-teachers who know what really is happening in the real world. These are pluses that we OBCL grads sometimes take for granted, but shouldn’t.

And ending on a cheerful note, Professor Rounds thinks the future is bright for new approaches to legal education: "A for-profit law school that affords its students a thorough grounding in the fundamentals would soon win the respect and admiration of the hiring partners in the nation’s law firms. In time they would come to take with a grain of salt the puff pieces and propaganda of their non-profit alma maters, and of the American Bar Association which regulates them."