The Business Of Law

Ralph Nader, crusading advocate for consumers, gave a talk recently at the University of Connecticut School of Law in which he blasted the legal profession and law schools for failing to adequately look out for “the administration of justice.”

Nader, who’s advocacy bona fides are without doubt, ripped into the system of legal education for spending too much time: “teaching substantive law, and too little encouraging students to think critically about why the law is what it is.”

Law.com has a nice write up of Nader’s talk here.

While I don’t necessarily agree with Nader’s politics on everything, I think he makes a great point here.  As I’ve written before, I think law schools spend too much time teaching lawyers about the way things are, and the black letter law, instead of talking about the underlying system of justice, and how we promote fairness and equality in society.  In many ways, our law schools are factories churning out widgets well prepared for the legal system as it is today, instead of how it ought to be.

If I can be so bold as to compare, I think our business schools (bias alert, I’ve got an MBA) do a much better job in their curriculum of trying to get young business leaders to think outside the box about the way the economy and business are evolving, rather than rigidly focusing on understanding the status quo.

Our economy and our profession are undergoing significant change.  Nader’s right that we need to rethink not only our business but also the way we prepare young people to enter it.  I’ll have more to say about that going forward. In the meantime, I want to know what you think.  Drop me a note, or leave a comment.