Talked to a friend from law school last night. He's a lawyer out in Arizona. He said that he attended a meeting with the local bar on the issue, as well as some other issues. The problems go beyond poor graduates with enormous debt. The number of applicants to law schools around the nation have fallen. Some schools have adjusted and reduced class size. Others just reduced admission standards so that they can keep the dollars flowing in. This has resulted in lower quality graduates. This led to falling Bar passing rates, which means grads with all of the debt but none of the license to practice law.
Now, add this. A lot of the same firms who aren't hiring as many associates are also not hiring interns. A lot of internships have dried up as money went other places. I swear to you I learned more about being a lawyer during my internship than I did in three years of law school. Without that experience, a lot of grads have plenty of academic knowledge and no real world knowledge.
The results...poorer quality graduates without any practical experience, with thousands of dollars in debt suddenly coming due, who are flooding into the market. Where do they end up? Criminal law, trying to get trial experience they can sell to a firm and as many billable hours as possible to make money. So they end up as prosecutors and defense attorneys, mucking up the criminal justice system which is already heading to Hades in a hand basket. You get prosecutors who charge the hell out of cases and push for plea bargains so they can get a high conviction rate, and defense lawyers who don't know what they're doing taking on a ton of cases so they can bill more, and pushing to plead out more cases.
Take away for us? Better find a good criminal defense lawyer now before you need one. As an armed citizen in the world these days, the prospects for needing one seem to be getting far more likely.
