Law, Lawyers, and Law School: Perspectives from the First-Year Class.

Abstract

The insidious if not iniquitous impact of law school education celebrated in novels and media has undoubtedly influenced much of the public to believe that its effects on legal institutions are extremely deleterious. Reinforcing this view are impressionistic reports of legal education by law professors and students as an anxious, combative, and degrading experience culminating in cynical, avaricious lawyers stripped of their passion for delivering justice. Thus, David Reisman, law professor turned sociologist, wrote that law students get stupid in the sense of constricted 'weltanschauun' and prey to fundamental complacency; 1 and Soia Mentchikoff, law professor and dean, advised wives of first-year law students that their husbands' personalities will become aggessive, more hostile, more precise, more impatient. 2 Ronald Pipkin concluded from his review of student-authored literature that students see law school as inculcating mindless obedience to authority causing excessive anxiety, stress, boredom, cynicism and the development of psychological defenses incompatible with later ethical practice. 3 In the words of one first-year student surveyed for the study reported here: