The 'Overcrowding the Profession' Argument and the Professional Melting Pot

Abstract

In 2012, fourteen law schools operated in Israel: four within universities and ten at private colleges. The number of law students at colleges and accredited attorneys who graduated from the colleges greatly exceeds the number of university law students and alumnae. There is consensus among the leadership of the Israel Bar that law colleges (the newcomers) are responsible for Israel’s overpopulation of lawyers and for the legal profession’s decline in prestige. Twenty years after the first law colleges were established, the time has come to inquire whether this argument of overcrowding of the profession presents a new ‘discovery’ or rather the recycling of a standard dynamic between professionals and legal education institutions. The present article examines this issue by evaluating several options: is the profession’s ‘over-crowdedness’ argument an attempt to protect the public, an attempt to prevent competition and to elevate status or rather – as has not been previously suggested – is it an artificial argument aimed (perhaps also unconsciously) at creating a professional melting pot?