The good folks at NRO’s Phi Beta Cons have taken notice of some of the problems in legal education, and today they link to a piece in the Washington Examiner where a Harvard Law grad (natch) argues for abolishing law schools…or, more realistically, for making them optional.

NRO’s George Leef comments, “Law school is a high barrier to entry that does not ensure competence, but simply drives way up the cost of entering the legal profession.”

Fair enough. Your humble Blog Goliard agrees that much of law school is pointless, and that reforms are badly needed.

But is it really a good idea to be reducing barriers to entry to a profession that is already way, way, way, way, way, way, way oversupplied with people?

The bottom line is, it is at once way too easy, and way too expensive, to become a licensed attorney. We need to raise the barriers, while at the same time making them more cost-efficient and also more tightly bound to actual competence to practice law.

My dream proposal would be the following:

1. 1) State bars shall no longer give any weight to ABA accreditation of law schools.
2. 2) Nor shall they, nor anyone else, give any consideration to US News rankings. Anyone who knows anything has known for a long time now that the whole business is fraudulent. Kill the rankings now…kill them with fire!
3. 3) The one-year law school model—which maverick schools were already pioneering, before the dead hand of the ABA started weighing down innovation and diversity in methods and approaches—shall be revived, even by some well-established institutions.
4. 4) State bars shall admit individuals to the bar exam upon the presentation of:
5. 1. a) A diploma from any law school that the bar, in its sole discretion, considers acceptable. The bar could maintain a list of schools considered acceptable in all cases; a list of schools considered unacceptable in all cases (and be bold about it! if a school’s bar passage rates have stunk for years, put them on this list!); and then allow a graduate of absolutely any other institution anywhere to petition individually to have his or her degree accepted.
   2. b) A certificate of completion from a reputable bar-preparation company. As with the previous item, I would suggest keeping a continually-updated list of acceptable and unacceptable firms.
   3. c) Proof of a certain amount of time spent as an apprentice, clerk, intern, or paralegal, accompanied by the endorsement of one of a select number of longtime members of the bar, to whom will be appointed the task of evaluating lawyers-in-training and their readiness to take the bar exam and enter practice.
6. 5) The bar exam shall be made considerably longer and vastly harder; and the greatest share of time (and largest portion of the grade) shall be devoted to applied tests of practical lawyerly skills. (For instance: “Good morning and welcome to day five of the bar exam. Each of you is being handed a packet which contains details of a fictional married couple with children. Your task is to provide the family with appropriate wills, along with any other estate planning and advance directive documents which may be appropriate. These documents will be due at three o’clock.”)