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Last weekend, I attended my 25th law school reunion at Cornell Law School. Given that the class of 1988 was Cornell’s centennial graduating class and a relatively significant silver anniversary, there were not many in attendance. Out of a class of 175 students, only 19 of us showed up—a number that’s even less impressive considering that 3 of that group work at Cornell and live in Ithaca. However, although the vast majority of my classmates—at least 80 percent—went straight to big companies in big cities after graduation, five of the 19 who returned for the reunion started and ran our own small businesses. .
The statistics are even more interesting. All five of us who own our own companies have been in business for six years or more. All of us have at least one full-time or part-time employee, while two employ five or more attorneys.
However, what do you think the dean focused on when he talked about the state of legal education and career prospects for graduates? A percentage of lawyers are directed towards large firms followed by public interest firms. The dean also noted that, like many other law schools, Cornell funds eleven post-graduate public benefit fellowships to mitigate the effects of the current economy on new graduates.
Make no mistake – public interest work is important, but funding students to work for free doesn’t make much sense in the long run. Public interest positions occasionally lead to full-time work (or funding is freed up so the organization can hire, or contacts lead to jobs). But otherwise, it seemed to me that funded positions merely delayed the inevitable unemployment until a year after graduation—beyond the time frame in which post-graduation employment statistics are typically collected.
The bottom line is that law schools get very little return on the money they spend paying graduates to work for free, save for post-graduation employment statistics. Likewise, I question whether the individual law school incubators that are popping up around the world are doing much to create new jobs for law school graduates. Incubator programs, in theory, help new soloists jump-start their practice. But in reality, they’re just subsidizing the individual so they can handle the endless supply of cheap cases coming through the door, rather than marketing training, networking, and attracting high-quality work.
If law schools want to teach students to take responsibility and be entrepreneurs, they need to think entrepreneurially themselves. When law schools fund projects, they should focus on those that lead to jobs for new graduates. This means that law schools should invest in individual and small companies started by their graduates.
Investment can take many forms. At the most basic level, just as law schools fund public interest scholarships, they should fund internships and partnerships at sole proprietorships and small firms—either fully or on a matching basis (where the firm pays $15 to $25 an hour and law school matches). . The intern can shift low-level research or replace citation review work to free up the lead attorney for marketing and expanding that work. Or the intern can be tasked with basic marketing projects such as researching and writing blog posts or articles that can help attract new customers.
However, law schools can go one step further. They can identify companies with growth potential and provide the kind of support that Ycombinator provides to its incubator clients (financing must be in a way that does not hinder external investment – and can be in the form of loan forgiveness or be payment for services that help reduce company costs). In return, invested companies will commit to hiring and training graduates.
Let’s face it: Law schools aren’t exactly smart when it comes to spending money. While I enjoy a good law review article, they shouldn’t come with a $100,000 price tag when any idiot, including myself, can whip up a publishable piece for a few hundred bucks a cover. Collect the citation review by a summer associate or contract attorney. . While I understand the importance of tenure to ensure academic freedom, does it make sense for law schools to offer tenure in a dynamic era where the ability to pivot and remain agile is far more important than stability and, worse, boredom? I
Ultimately, the sustainability of a law school depends not on its academic achievements, but on the success of its graduates—both those who end up with large grants and those who are able to hire and train law school graduates. Law schools that want graduates to take it back need to pay it forward by investing in solopreneurs—the engine of growth in the legal profession—and those who are loyal to their law schools. the sign
