To JD Or Not JD …

// The Department of Education recently announced new rules that will increase transparency for graduate programs — including law schools. Now, peeps considering law school will have a much better sense of how much that J.D. is going to cost them and whether the juice is worth the squeeze, especially given how long and hard it can be to find that first job after passing the bar. Collection of the data begins next year.

Combine that information with bar passage rates, and prospective students should be able to make informed decisions about whether — or not — to go for the degree. Most readers of this column know all too well that law school is a huge investment of both time and money. Any information that helps peeps decide is a step in the right direction. Otherwise, some unfortunate law students may end up like the characters in John Grisham’s novel “The Rooster Bar,” which I found true to life, hilarious in spots, but sad in others.

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Should prospective law school students be able to use AI in law school applications? There seems to be a split of authority, with Michigan nixing its use. However, if you want to apply to Arizona State, you are free to use it. The silence you hear from other law schools is deafening.

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How would you define “greed” today? There’s penny-ante greed when some client pleads poverty and can’t pay the lawyer’s bills (we’ve all been there}. There’s greed on another scale altogether when Elon Musk claims that the law firm that represented him in his acquisition of Twitter (now X) is the poster law firm for greed. Musk is trying to keep his fee dispute with Wachtell out of arbitration.

Does the concept of “greedy lawyers” (and where have we heard that term before?) preclude the fee dispute being heard in arbitration? Discuss.

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Who is a “victim?” Ron DeSantis, presidential wannabe and Florida’s governor, is bewailing his Ivy League education as detrimental to his ambitions. His graduations from Yale and then Harvard Law have placed, in his mind, a “scarlet letter” on his forehead with the voters he seeks to wrestle away from The Donald. We should all be such victims.

How many lawyers would happily trade places for those pedigreed degrees? I see too many raised hands to count. How hilarious that those assets are now seen as liabilities.

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A New Jersey P.I. lawyer is calling himself the “funniest lawyer in New Jersey,” so dubbed after winning “contests sponsored by the bar association at Rascals Comedy Club.” I leave it to you to decide if that title is apt. His website doesn’t indicate which bar association and/or how many contests. Wouldn’t you want to know the answers to those questions?

Some good news for women general counsel. (About time). According to one 2023 report, women GCs are making approximately 8% more than the men.

Encouraging for sure but there’s still a long way to go for overall gender pay parity in our profession.

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What’s even better news is that the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economics professor. What did she win for? Her research into reasons for gender gaps in the workplace, due to labor participation and earnings. She’s only the third woman to win this prize, and it serves as recognition, finally, of what women have known for years:  having children penalizes women both in earnings and the ability to move forward in their careers. Nothing new there, but at least the Nobel adds credibility to what women have been saying for decades. As the New York Times reported, “Dr. Goldin has shown that most of the earnings difference is now between men and women in the same jobs, the Nobel Committee said. Notably, it kicks in after the birth of a woman’s first child.” Calling Captain Obvious.

Meanwhile, Biglaw is seeing an exodus of women lawyers for several reasons including mistaking women for paralegals (does that ever happen to men?), having children (see above), and the old — but clearly not forgotten — issue of sexual harassment, which still takes many forms.

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Anyone remember the Lewis Brisbois spinoff Barber/Ranen and how that firm imploded when emails of the labor and employment name partners became public knowledge? And that was just a few months ago.

And this is definitely good news: the NextGen bar exam, scheduled to debut in July 2026, will be a whole three hours shorter! Good news for everyone, especially those who need breaks or have physical issues that make sitting for long stretches difficult or impossible. We dinosaurs remember the three-day bar exam, which was a test not only of legal knowledge, and how to pass the multi-state, but a test of endurance.

Those three days were not only a “write” of passage, but a rite of passage as well. (Pun intended.) Driving a stake through the heart of an unnecessary marathon is long overdue.

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].

Topics

Biglaw, Jill Switzer, Law School, Nobel Prize