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Abstract:
American legal education has been enormously successful, fueled by high enrollment, high tuition, and a seemingly endless supply of new students. This article suggests that the model is not sustainable over the long run given the current model of education and financing. Other than the handful of highly prestigious or very low cost schools, most institutions face a precarious future. The issue is one of value; prospective students, faculty, and the public look to prestige in making decisions. This leads schools to engage in a race for higher rankings. In the short-run, schools can dress their outward appearance, but doing so fails to improve their actual quality. This failure ultimately places the school in jeopardy if costs continue to rise and job prospects do not keep pace with increased cost. The article concludes that most schools have neither the prestige nor low cost to survive without providing real value to their students. They will fail unless they radically change their business models and adopt new business techniques, including reducing the cycle time to adulthood, diversifying their customer bases, joining international consortia, partnerships, and distance learning projects, and considering mergers, acquisitions, and going out of business sales. The article proposes that schools establish real missions to build better professionals.

legal education, reform, higher-education finances

Abstract:
Legal education is evolving from a traditional model of shared governance focused on teaching, scholarship, and service to concerns about our stakeholders: students, graduates, donors, regulators, etc. Market sensitivity may indeed be a superior metaphor to organize us than one relying solely on the faculty-centered holy trinity of teaching, scholarship, and service.

But the market metaphor fails to embrace the spirit and nature of higher education. The market conjures up too deep a commitment to selfish ends. This essay suggests another metaphor that may more comfortably fit our schools. I argue that the next step is to delineate our responsibilities as academic fiduciaries - a definition more closely comporting to the way we must act than either as self-interested governors or market actors. First, I discuss the move from faculty centered enterprises, to commercial enterprises, to an emerging trust model. I then define this trust and the consequences of a fiduciary model for every beneficiary of the trust. Next I turn to what a new law school culture might look like and the various forms it might take. This is not merely a question of metaphor, or of nebulous institutional culture. The essay suggest a variety of practical ways that a law school - its faculty and administration - can be successful as fiduciaries: advancing the legitimate ambitions of the school and its faculty through a spirit of trusteeship rather than of self-dealing. Finally, I argue that this model may be the only way for our schools to continue to prosper in the years to come - and the risk to our futures if we persist along the current path.

Law Schools, fiduciary, stakeholders, measuring success