Missing the big picture...

Like most current law students, I flip through “The National Jurist” when I'm bored It is usually right there between classes. One of their features is called “Good and Bad.” In this feature the editors name people or institutions who had either a good or bad month and why. Apparently, January was a good month for prospective law students. Before you get too excited, I checked and this does NOT mean that they are shutting down TTTs, lowering tuition, or providing more transparency in employment statistics.

According to the National Jurist, prospective law students had a good month for two reasons: the University of Delaware announced that it hopes to enroll students in a new law school by 2015, and Kaplan is going to open up a law school in Washington, D.C. Because when I think of American cities and metro areas that don't have enough law schools, D.C. is the first city to spring to my mind. And Delaware... while I'm not 100% familiar with the Delaware market, I know that in addition to Widener the Philadelphia area law schools send a fair number of their graduates to Wilmington. So I'm not sensing a huge unmet need for lawyers there.

Neither of these two stories are breaking news, but this is just an example of how out of touch people in the industry really are. Just because it will now be easier for prospective law students to get into law school does not mean that is a good thing for them. So I guess among other things it was a bad month for long term perspective.

In case anyone is curious, it was also a good month for “World Domination” due to the ABA considering accrediting foreign law schools. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

NOTE: I could not find the “Good and Bad” feature online. It could be that it is only in the hard copy of the magazine.