An American Bar Association committee studying the “problem” of law schools, recently issued a draft report. Among other things, the authors posited that some of the cost of law school was driven by the need to hire and retain faculty who spent a lot of time doing research and writing scholarly papers. There seemed to be a tone in the report that some of this writing was not needed and that time might be better spent teaching practical skills and serving the public.
Taking shots at legal scholarship is not new. Chief Justice John Roberts told a judicial conference in 2011: “Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something.”
