The First Year, They Scare You to Death

-- By AlexBuonocore - 16 Feb 2012

The Law School as Publicly Responsible

Mr. Morningside's Expensive Time

Law school is incredibly expensive. Tens of thousands of students pay tens of thousands of dollars of tax-payer secured debt to these institutions. These institutions, on the rationale of preparation, exclude thousands of the most expensive young adults (in terms of total societal cost of education) from contributing to society for the majority of three years. Assuming that these students would be contributing to society in some ways otherwise (perhaps a more difficult assumption since 2008), every second that a law student is not contributing to either her own development or the development of the law is deadweight loss to society. Given the amount of resources allocated to these students, both before and during law school, these wasted moments are incredibly expensive. Given this reality, it is striking how much time is wasted in law school in the form of uncertainty. Let me illustrate hypothetically. Robinson Morningside is a first year law student at Columbia Law School. For nearly a year before stepping foot into Manhattan, Mr. Morningside hears from friends, relatives, and the national media about the importance of first year grades. He becomes convinced that, if he does not get an A- in torts, then upon death he will pass a small fortune of interest-accruing, non-dischargeable student loan debt to his heirs at law. The problem, however, is that Mr. Morningside has no idea of how to score well in torts. He learns that the final exam is in the form of a three hour “issue spotter,” and he begins to abhor hours in the classroom because the professor never discusses how to do well on the actual test. Mr. Morningside quickly recognizes that any bit of information that cannot be squeezed into an issue spotter answer is all but irrelevant to his goal of achieving high grades. The law student spends hours and hours worrying about this mystical test and what he should write on it. These incredibly expensive hours could have been put to any number of different uses, including learning the law.

The Origin

Law students are advised not to worry about grades or job prospects, and yet they all do. The explanation comes in the form of the mountain of dollars that it takes to attend an American law school. A student borrowing two hundred thousand for law school (assuming absolutely no previous debt) will owe $2300 a month in debt payments over ten years at the federal subsidized interest rate of 6.8%. The non-dischargeable guarantee of owing nearly thirty thousand dollars a year in debt payments after graduation dramatically alters the student’s approach to law school. Law students generally were not professionals in previous lives. Many attend law school three months after graduating from undergraduate. Taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, without ever having earned a salary, creates incredible anxiety for the student. All of a sudden, the student needs the $160,000 salary upon graduation. The student needs to be in the top third of his class. The student needs the A- in torts. With a six figure Citibank in his dresser drawer, Mr. Morningside does exactly what we don’t want him to do. He busies himself worrying about the issue spotter, and the subtleties that make up the law pass right through his ears.

The Waste

The student, the schools, the courts, and the law firms all suffer as a result of this deadweight loss. Instead of learning the cases, the theories, or doing socially valuable pro bono work, our law students worry about their debt, their tests, and their interviews. If schools are socially responsible and firms are interested in acquiring higher quality talent, then perhaps they should consider a completely alternative evaluation system to the issue spotting exam. That is, if they actually do wish to reward the careful and rigorous study of law that we all presume makes a great advocate.

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