Failing Law Schools, by Brian Z. Tamanaha: A Review
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Abstract
This review of Brian Tamanaha's Failing Law Schools argues that the book has considerable strengths and is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary legal education, but also has serious shortcomings and suggests reforms of questionable desirability. The burden of the review's argument is (1) Tamanaha's analysis is insufficiently sociological. Confounding cost-related problems facing law schools and peculiar to them with problems confronting higher education generally and hence unlikely to be correctable by law schools acting on their own. (2) It similarly ignores the degree to which changes in the law and the legal profession have placed new and costly demands on legal education. (3) Tamanaha's suggestion that legal education be reduced to 2 years to cut costs puts the cost horse before the educational cart and has little to commend it.
Recommended Citation
Lempert, Richard, "Failing Law Schools, by Brian Z. Tamanaha: A Review" (2014). Public Law & Legal Theory Working Papers. 443.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/pub_law_archive/443