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59 J. Legal Educ. 623 (2009-2010)
Response: More Complicated Than we Think

handle is hein.journals/jled59 and id is 631 raw text is: Response: More Complicated Than We Think Judith Welch Wegner Hats off to the Journal of Legal Education and author Daniel Thies for posing an exceptionally timely question: how should we rethink legal education given the current recession and severely constrained legal job market? As a co-author of Educating Lawyers,' the recent study of legal education conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, I have spent considerable time rethinking legal education from a different perspective, one that seeks to improve the quality of teaching and learning so as to strengthen the legal profession. I agree with Thies that changes in legal education are needed, and concur that current economic conditions are likely to fuel such re-examination. This short essay provides some additional background on the current economic dilemmas facing law students and legal educators, but also contests a number of Thies's assumptions and proposed solutions. It concludes by offering a different prescription for reform in the face of the current economic challenges, one that involves bifurcating the bar examination in order to improve the quality of legal education and reducing racial disparities, while assisting law students and law firms now facing bleak economic times. I. The Economic Problem. Prospects, Precursors, and Possible Solutions A. Prospects i. The Job Market The legal job market has been worse than difficult in the last year. Various sources confirm the current harsh reality. A number of legal newspapers report massive layoffs. For example, the National Law Journal's most recent survey of the NLJ 250 large firms concluded that 13.3 percent of large firm attorneys Judith Welch Wegner is Burton Craige Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C. Wegner served as dean of the UNC School of Law from 1989-i999, was president of the Association of American Law Schools in 1995, and a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching from 1999-2ooi. 1. William M. Sullivan, Anne Colby, Judith Welch Wegner, Lloyd Bond & Lee S. Shulman, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (Jossey-Bass 2oo7). Journal of Legal Education, Volume 59, Number 4 (May 2010)

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