New lawyers can pass the bar without ever practicing client interviewing skills
Evidence
Legal education used to follow Langellian theory, where formal study was followed by extended apprenticeship with a practicing attorney. This model has been discarded, as firms can no longer afford to hire young attorneys to work on mundane, repetitious legal tasks. In addition, most law schools do not require students to participate in legal clinics or any other supervised experiential learning. The result is that an individual can graduate from law school, take and pass the bar examination, and begin serving clients right away— which many do, as almost two-third of all lawyers practice in small or solo firms, where direct client contact is the norm. A new attorney, in other words, might try a serious case without ever having trained at interviewing clients or witnesses, drafting letters or contracts, or writing and arguing motions. In short, defense attorneys can be both overeducated (in terms of relying on legalese) and undereducated (in terms of the practical business of reassuring and working with clients). The result can be significant miscommunication. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 683
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: Connects to the apprenticeships-vs-formal-education tension seen in the Champagne Fairs reading about entry control and trade institutions.
- SEED: Angle: the apprenticeship void in American legal education as a structural cause of courtroom miscommunication.
Related
- New lawyers may try serious cases untrained in client communication (similarity 0.93)