Mark Greenbaum, an attorney and author recently wrote an opinion piece entitled, “No More Room at The Bench” that appeared in the LA Times, arguing that the ABA is allowing “unneeded” new law schools to open, and failing to regulate existing schools sufficiently. He believes the market for attorneys is saturated, and that the US Department of Education must step in to save the legal profession from itself. Mr. Greenbaum further suggests that the not-for-profit, academicly focused AALS should replace the ABA as accreditors of American law schools.

Mr. Greenbaum is not alone in his criticism of the ABA. Over 60 comments on the Wall St. Journal’s “Law Blog” coverage of this article demonstrated distrust of law schools’ reported employment and salary statistics, and a lack of confidence in the ABA’s ability to impartially police the same. Read the comments here.

With the above articles in mind, I ask a few questions -

1. Would we be having this discussion if we were educating law students to be capable practicioners on graduation day?

2. Is it more unsettling that law schools may manipulate thier employment statistics or that new graduates may turn to solo practice?

3. Why not limit the number of takers of the LSAT each year?

4. Is the American Association of Law Schools even interested in taking over accreditation responsibilities?

5. Aren’t new law schools the best place to change the way law students are taught?