competence? That’s the opportunity most (but not all) schools continue to miss, and it’s one that new providers will exploit.
4. Status. This is, in some ways, the most important vulnerability, because it goes to the heart of the current legal education system. Defenders of the law school status quo will say that these foregoing points are very nice and all, but they’re also irrelevant: law schools’ ability to innovate is utterly constrained by external factors.
Two factors in particular dominate the conversation, in the United States at least: the ABA accreditation process and the US News & World Report rankings. The former mandates a minimum amount of infrastructure investment to obtain and maintain accreditation; the latter holds so much sway among applicants and recruiters that schools are forced to act foolishly (and sometimes illegally) to squeeze their programs into the rankings’ pre-defined mould. A third factor, receiving increasing attention recently, is the role of the university itself, which counts on the law school as a steady and ever-increasing source of revenue and which places immense pressure on law school administrators to keep the money flowing in.
Combine these external forces with the internal albatrosses of faculty self-interest and institutional inertia, the defenders say, and there’s no blaming law schools for acting the way they do. And perhaps they’re right.
But I can tell you this: that doesn’t matter an iota to the disruptors that are targeting law schools right now. They’re thrilled to see so many arbitrary constraints on legal education incumbents, because they can choose to be entirely free of them. They can ignore ABA accreditation or the US News rankings if they wish. They can refuse to enter a losing game, to accept the same shackles that are paralyzing law schools. Think about it: why would they want to acquire the incumbents’ handicaps?
The biggest advantage that legal education disruptors have today is that they can enter the market unencumbered by the legacy burdens of law schools. They don’t have to be big, important, recognized and expensive — they don’t need “status.” They can be small, modest, flexible and affordable — or at least, they can start off that way. They can align their strategies with the interests of their target market, not those of their teachers or their affiliated academic institutions. They can negotiate directly with Bar admissions officials and satisfy them as to both the academic and practical merits of their degrees. They don’t need to compete for all “the best and the brightest” applicants, whatever that means: they can target the students they want to attract and the employers (law firms, law departments, governments, individual clients) they want to connect those students with.
Innovators don’t duplicate the existing model; they improve it. No new private legal enterprise today would copy the AmLaw 200 partnership model,
and no new legal education provider would copy existing law schools. Disruption in legal education is poised to come from innovators that reject the standard assumptions about what a legal education provider looks like, where it’s housed, who it employs, who it recruits, what it teaches and how it’s taught.
That, I think, is how you kill a law school. You come to understand, better than the law school does, exactly what business it’s in, exactly what its inventory is, and exactly who its customers are. And then you figure out where the law school has failed to meet those needs, and you rush to fill the gap.
So, then — how do you save a law school? If you’re in a school today and you find this scenario frighteningly plausible, you’re probably wondering what you can do. Here are my brief closing suggestions about self-destructing a vulnerable model.
1. Make it clear that you’re on the side of the angels. Law schools are weathering one of the most intense instances of continuous negative publicity the legal marketplace has ever seen, although many schools seem blissfully unaware of it. Don’t underestimate the power of publications like Above The Lawor the “scam blogs” to create the lens through which your markets perceive you. Right now, many law schools are viewed (with some justification) as either actively antagonistic to students and the profession, or quietly complicit with
those that are. As you kick off your efforts to reinvent your school, make sure that your honest, well-meaning efforts are publicized and that you are seen to be on the “reform” side of the ledger.
2. Send differentiating signals to both recruits and recruiters. Law schools get into trouble when they forget what business they’re in: getting paid by students to help them obtain gainful employment in the legal field. (Sorry, but that’s what their business is.) Most law schools have forgotten this, and maybe yours has, too. Those few law schools that have achieved clarity in this regard are carving out new brands that will appeal to these players (Washington & Leefor its practice-based third year, Michigan State for its computational legal studies, University of Miami for LawWithoutWalls, etc.). Create a standout innovative feature — a bridging program, a CPD offering, an Innovation Center, a solo incubator, or something brand new — and join with a private-sector partner to deliver it.
3. Change the weather around your faculty. Intransigent professors, in many cases, may simply have to be waited out for a period of generational change. But there’s no reason you can’t accelerate the attrition process. Encourage changes to the school’s strategy and direction, introduce more practice-related courses, increase dialogue and project partnerships with practitioners and in-house counsel, provide more guest-lecture spots for local sole practitioners, and so on. Basically, change the environment surrounding your faculty — the “tone”
of the school — wherever you can. Your faculty members might still consider the law school to be their retirement property, but if the weather clouds over, they may be motivated to move to sunnier climates sooner rather than later.
4. Think hard about blowing off the US News rankings. Most law deans would probably blanch at the thought of dropping out of the US News lists, fearing a catastrophic response from both applicants and recruiters. But I think every school should at least consider it, if for no other reason than to regain some self-respect and control over your destiny. Look closely at the US News criteria and ask yourself: do they align with what we’re trying to do here? Is it fair to our students, our faculty and our mission that we dance to this tune? If the answer is no — and in many cases, it will be — then I think it’s time to leave the dance floor. Build an airtight publicity and communications campaign explaining why you’re ignoring US News from now on, with supportive testimonials from high-profile employers, and test-drive it with major donors. Then go do it.
5. Think equally hard about whether to keep ABA accreditation. This would be far more difficult for most law faculties to justify dropping, and maybe impossible, given various jurisdictional requirements. But the same principles that apply toUS News apply here: do the requirements of ABA accreditation line up with the key strategic drivers you feel your law school must feature? If they don’t — if they cause you to spend more than you can afford on things