In Another View: Lock the Law School Doors Dan Slater argues that law schools are admitting too many students, but praises UM Law Dean White's (relatively unsuccessful) attempt to get incoming students to defer for a year.
This summer, in the staid world of legal education, where curriculum is uniform and scholars are trained in the art of like-mindedness, one dean hatched a contrary plan.
In a memo to incoming students, Patricia D. White, the dean of University of Miami School of Law, surmised: “Perhaps many of you are looking to law school as a safe harbor in which you can wait out the current economic storm.” She then urged them to “think hard” about their plans and offered incentives for those willing to defer for one year.
Apparently, though, the tide would not be stemmed:
32 students took Dean White up on her offer to defer, [so] the school is still left with a first-year population of 527 — 35 percent more than last year’s incoming class.
I hope the legal job market has turned around by '12. I think it will be better than it is now, but the question is, how much?
I can’t comment the legal job market specifically, but I’ve spent the day trying to figure out how bad employment will be in November 2012 given that we seem to be heading into a third jobless recovery.
The short answer: potentially bad enough for Obama to lose re-election (but probably not to a Republican).
I’m extrapolating a 14 million job shortfall from full employment in November 2012. George H.W. Bush lost re-election in 1992 with a 9+ million job shortfall at election time, George W. Bush won re-election despite a 5 million job shortfall.