April 24, 2006
The ABA and the Alternatives
Dave Hoffman explains why, while he is skeptical about ABA mandatory-accreditation he supports making the bar exam more difficult:
We've three options: regulate law school so that it is hard; rejigger the Bar until it is a real barrier, or change the rules to make malpractice claims cheaper to bring and easier to win. Of the three solutions, making the Bar much harder is the most efficient by a mile. Screening is almost always cheaper than remedial action. Screening by a licensing exam is surely better than micro-managing the content of a legal education.
This seems to risk the same sort of error that the teachers' unions frequently do. While upfront screening may be cheaper in accounting terms than any sort of system of accountability, there are two very real problems with setting up a hard barrier up front and then relaxing oversight after the hump is cleared.
1, Faithlessness. In theory, the bar screens for people who will be able and zealous lawyers. In reality, there is no guarantee that the zealous and able will decide to be zealous and able, given all of the other demands on their time and the limited information of many of their clients, unless there is some sort of accountability. For the obvious example, consider why we don't just elect the President by supermajority to a life term.
2, Guild capture. I had thought it common knowledge that the bar exam and similar "professional" licensing exams largely serve as artificial barriers to entry promoted by current members of the profession in order to keep the supply of labor low and therefore to keep its cost high. (That is why so many states require expensive and long education programs before one can even take the bar exam). That's certainly the historical purpose of law licensing, and I see no evidence that it has acquired a new more benign role in our society. The ABA doesn't help the poor obtain lawyers-- it, combined with the excessively costly barriers to entry imposed at the state level-- chokes away any hope of a large supply of cheap medium-quality legal advice.
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Poem of the Night
from Iubilate Agno, Christopher Smart
Benjamin Britten, ed.
For I am under the same accusation
With my Savior,
For they said,
He is besides himself.
For the officers of the peace
Are at variance with me,
And the watchman smites me
With his staff.
For the silly fellow, silly fellow,
Is against me,
And belongeth neither to me
Nor to my family.
For I am in twelve HARDSHIPS,
But he that was born of a virgin
Shall deliver me out of all,
Shall deliver me out of all.
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V for Vendetta
I saw the much-maligned V for Vendetta today, which I had been excited about ever since reading the source material last year. I thought it was pretty good, as did my more squeamish companion. Of course, this is a move that's hard to watch unless one has the habit-- bred from years of novels, nerdy role-playing games, or the like-- of being able to enjoy a good story in which all of the characters are somewhat evil. And because the movie is only good, not great, (and because V is transformed into a much lighter and nicer guy than the anarchist he is in the comic book) this wouldn't be the place to start.
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Kids Today
In my day, the hot new publication on Chicago's campus was a poetry magazine named Euphony (which regularly rejected my awful submissions). Now The New York Times has a story about Vita Excolatur, The U of C's semi-porn magazine. (You can order back issues here). A quote:
"We're the ugly campus, and damn it, we're hot too!" declared Ms. Rutherfurd, 21, a junior and Vita's editor in chief. "It's distinctly U. of C. There's no Miss January. There's a hot girl — and she's reading a book!"
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