There has been significant comment recently about the high cost of obtaining a legal education together with the tough job market for young lawyers. Currently, a student must first obtain a college degree, which typically takes four or five years to complete, and then must complete three years of law school before being permitted to take a bar examination. Tuition at most schools is very high, and so students can amass a large amount of debt by the time they graduate. When the prospect of finishing school with so much debt is combined with the shrinkage in the job market, especially for jobs in the higher-paying law firms, there is reason to examine avenues for reducing the cost of obtaining a legal education.
One current proposal is to reduce the amount of required law school training to two years. For reasons noted below, I believe that there is a much better vehicle for addressing this problem. Instead of reducing the years in law school, I propose a substantial reduction in the amount of required general undergraduate education.
