Hurray for Law School Renaissances

In looking over our posts from the last year, I wish to provide my readers with some quotes that encapsulate the year it was:

Nicholas Allard, as quoted in the January 9, 2014 entry:

Ten years from now, people will look back at 2014 and say it marked the start of the new world of law, a renaissance where the respect and reputation of lawyers and law schools began to rise by measurable benchmarks...

 [glorious material omitted]


Nicholas Allard, as quoted in the November 11, 2014 entry:

We don't know what evidence you have to support this surprising (and surprisingly disparaging) claim, but we do have evidence about our own 2014 graduates, and it tells us precisely the opposite:  their credentials were every bit as good as our 2013 graduates, if not even better...our graduates were every bit as qualified as in previous years, and just as well prepared...In plan language, I disagree with you: It is not the students, it's the test.

 As Dean Allard no doubt learned, even the best renaissances sometimes have a rough go of it at the beginning.  In February, of course, he had no reason to believe that the nation's bar examiners would suddenly buy into the scamblogger myths and rig their standardized test to make this year's law graduates look less able.  

 I would be remiss as a respected journalist if I did not mention that Erica Moeser, "President" of the NCBE, "wrote" "something" of a "response" to Allard (without giving him the dignity of recognition for his efforts) in their most recent publication (see President's Page, p. 4).

I then looked to two areas for further corroboration. The first was internal to NCBE. Among the things I learned was that whereas the scores of those we know to be retaking the MBE dropped by 1.7 points, the score drop for those we believe to be first-time takers dropped by 2.7 points.... The decline for retakers was not atypical; however, the decline for first-time takers was without precedent during the previous 10 years.

There's a bunch of other garbage about the MPRE (LOL), the problems with using LSATs, etc., but to a common man law school apologist like myself, it reads like blah blah blah.  Blame the test, people.

Regardless of any setbacks caused by "psychometricians" (that can't a real thing!), the renaissance is well underway, as anyone can see by glancing at a job board or peeking into a courthouse, which I would never do, as my allegiance is to the legal academy.  The job market is thawing so much that there's going to be a lawyer shortage next year unless we can enroll more revenue conduits in short order.

Thank goodness America's law schools are capable of meeting the challenges of this renaissance, as they have done in all previous instances, readily observable by a judicial system that is the envy of not just nations, but entire planetary systems.

Allard's quotes don't just summarize 2014, but they set the stage for 2015 and beyond:  noble scholars leading a renaissance of justicing up the country with certain egocentric agitators concocting self-serving points in opposition.

Here's to 2015, where we will do everything we can to ignore the latter and enjoy the continuing renaissance (if I repeat it enough, it will be true).  And with faculties being like herds of buffalo shedding their slowest members,there'll be more alcohol for the rest of us who show up.

We're going to party like it's 18th century France, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.