Making the Decision to Go to Law School
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You think law school may be for you? Join the crowd. In 1950, there were about 220,000 lawyers in the United States. By 1960, that number had jumped to 285,000, then to 355,000 ten years later, to 542,000 in 1980, and to about 850,000 today. At this rate the profession may top one million lawyers early in the twenty-first century. The nation's population is also growing, but not as fast. In 1960, there were 627 Americans for each lawyer. The ratio was 572 to 1 ten years later, 418 to 1 in 1980, and 310 Americans per lawyer in 1990. A ratio of 275 to 1 is likely in the year 2000. As you might expect, the number of people entering law school and the number of law schools have also increased. In 1963, nearly 21,000 students entered the first year at 135 accredited law schools. A dozen years later, 39,000 students entered 163 accredited law schools. In 1988, 175 accredited law schools received nearly 43,000 new students. In 1994, 177 schools admitted more than 44,000 new students. The number of first law degrees awarded by accredited schools nearly quadrupled in the quarter century from 1964 to 1989, jumping from about 9,600 to 35,700. Six years later (1995), the number of these degrees totaled nearly 40,000. The composition of the profession is also changing because of the increase in women and minorities. This change can clearly be seen when we look at legal education. In 1963, of the nearly 47,000 law students enrolled in the 135 law schools then accredited by the American Bar Association, only 3.7 percent were women. In 1994, when 129,000 students were enrolled at 177 accredited law schools, 43.2 percent of the student body were women. Minority enrollment in American law schools has also advanced. In 1977, 5,304 African-American students were enrolled in American law schools. By 1994, that number increased to 9,681. Corresponding numbers for Hispanic students are 2,531 (1977) and 6,772 (1994), and for Asian and Pacific Island students, 1,382 (1977) and 7,196 (1994). How do we explain the astonishing popularity of law? What are the reasons to choose legal training and then, predictably but not necessarily, a career in law? What are the reasons not to do so? What in your view do lawyers actually do? Where did you get your ideas? Like most law school applicants or new law students, you probably have a favorable image of legal work. It may have been drawn from the press and popular culture. Or perhaps a relative or family friend is a lawyer, enjoys the work, and tells interesting stories about it. Maybe your interest in law school was sparked because prelaw or other advisers told you that skills you revealed in college or on a job would make you a good lawyer. The income, status, and prominence that lawyers enjoy—and the attention the law itself receives—are further lures to many. So is the expectation that it is possible through law to foster change that will make the world more just and fair. My purpose is not to tell whether any of the usual reasons for attending law school is “good” or “bad.” But many law students and law school aspirants partly misconceive what it means to be a lawyer—to spend a life doing the work of a lawyer. Still others may lack a firm concept of the work. This chapter, among others in the book, is directed at that gap. Unless a close relative or friend is a lawyer or one has worked in a law office for some time—and perhaps not even then—how is a law student or law school applicant likely to have acquired a fair sense of what lawyers do, of what he or she will do as a lawyer? Two sources of information are our culture and the classroom. Let us distinguish here between work and role, between what lawyers actually do and the way lawyers are portrayed. Popular presentations of lawyers encompass mainly their roles—he fought for justice, she made the government act honorably, he saved an innocent man, she closed down a large industrial polluter—and portray their work—what they do day-to-day—only incidentally. Depictions of the work, when they occur in books, on stage, in films, on television, or in the press, whether presented as fiction or fact, are dramatic. They emphasize the glamour and ignore the routine. It has become a cliche to say that Perry Mason is atypical, in fact apocryphal. But Perry Mason is too easy to write off. Our recognition that Perry Mason is fantasy does not mean that we have become hard-nosed realists about the legal profession. Every tense TV trial scene, every play or movie, such as Jagged Edge, The Verdict, Kramer vs. Kramer, Witness for the Prosecution, The Caine Mutiny, and Twelve Angry Men; every book or newspaper (or television) account of a momentous trial, such as those of John Hinckley, Jr., 0. J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Mike Tyson, Oliver North, Jean Harris, Sacco and Vanzetti, or William Kennedy Smith; every trial lawyer's selected memories of his life in court, such as Louis Nizer's My Life in Court, Edward Bennett Williams's One Man's Freedom, Alan Dershowitz's The Best Defense, Gerry Spence's Gunning for Justice, F. Lee Bailey's The Defense Never Rests; every TV series about the adventures of lawyers (“L.A. Law,” “Murder One,” “Law and Order”) or law students (“The Paper Chase”) creates an image of lawyers and their work that must impress anyone not familiar with the more routine daily tasks of practicing lawyers. And that's before we get to the novels of John Grisham and Scott Turow.
Source Publication
Looking at Law School: A Student Guide From the Society of American Law Teachers
Source Editors/Authors
Stephen Gillers
Publication Date
1997
Edition
Rev. and expanded 4
Recommended Citation
Gillers, Stephen, "Making the Decision to Go to Law School" (1997). Faculty Chapters. 1290.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1290
