Writing in Newsweek, James Huffman, dean emeritus and formerly the Erskine Wood Sr. professor of law at Lewis and Clark Law School in Oregon, says that demand has declined by 40 per cent since 2010 and that law schools have 33,000 fewer prospective students than they had five years ago. As a result, he says that legal educators need an entirely new business model.Mr Huffman states that the longer legal educators remain in denial about the true magnitude of the financial crisis they face, the more devastating will be the crash. 'It should be obvious to even the casual observer why the existing business model is broken for all but the well-endowed, elite law schools,' he says, pointing out that a quality legal education could be provided at half of today’s average tuition.
ABA failing on legal education
He believes that the American Bar Association is failing to address the issue. 'Law schools need to be 'freed from the heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all ABA accreditation standards. Although the ABA has just completed a comprehensive review of the standards and has made some changes intended to give law schools greater flexibility in meeting those standards, there remains little room for true innovation, he says. The following steps are necessary as a starter if law schools are to survive and students are to cut their debts.
- Cut faculty numbers in half by requiring faculty to devote most of their time to teaching.
- Eliminate tenure and take advantage of a highly competitive market for law professors.
- Reduce law school from three to two years.
- Stop the facilities arms race which sees law schools expanding.
- Take greater advantage of online instruction technologies.
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