The most interesting thing about the State Bar’s 16th annual ethics conference on May 19 was not the series of panels, valuable though they were, but the brief keynote speech of UC-Hastings Dean Frank Wu, whose law school hosted the event.
In 18 succinct, plain-spoken minutes, Wu made the case that America’s law schools, including his own, are churning out way too many new lawyers into a job market that won’t be able to absorb them. Wu pulled no punches: Unless law schools substantially scale back the size of their student bodies, he said, they will be “doing a disservice to society and to our own students.” He saved his strongest criticism for the ongoing creation new law schools, calling it “appalling” and “irresponsible,” and accused some schools of engaging in “the educational equivalent of predatory lending.”
