Prof. Jeffrey Harrison Hates Law School Innovation, Market Capitalisim

The title is about the only conclusion would could make from reading Harrison's latest angry-citizen letter to the Gainesville newspaper.  In short, Harrison - at the elite University of Florida - wants to merge all of Florida's public schools into one.

It’s time for the irrational way that Florida delivers legal education to change. There can be four campuses but one set of admissions guidelines, one acceptance letter per applicant, one admissions office, one PR department and one diploma that does not distinguish among campuses.

Gee, I wonder which marque would be the survivor of this deathmatch?

Harrison, as readers may know, runs an opprobrious legal education blog.  His latest shock-jock piece nicknames the former deans of his own institution things like "Champagne Man" and "The Can Kicker."  These are law deans, distinguished public servants who deserve our respect and admiration.  He criticizes things like class bias and regulatory capture as-if they are negatives.

Thus, it should be no surprise that his letter to the editor shows a startling lack of respect for the core concepts of market competition and law school innovation.  See, law schools are like fast food chains.  Many are like McDonalds.  But sometimes, you don't want McDonalds, and for those times you want to get your burger and fries at Burger King, Wendy's, or Sonic.

Harrison is basically a Big Mac-peddler telling the world it doesn't need the Whopper, the Baconator, or those two idiots on the commercials who hang out at Sonic all the time because they're mutually repressing their homoerotic feelings for each other in the most inconvenient way possible.  But the point is that sometimes, you want a little variety.  You want a more experiential dining experience, or maybe one where the burger is injected slightly differently to simulate the practice of eating real beef.  You aren't always in the mood for the daunting Socratic questioning of McDonalds: "Would you like to try our ___________?"

In any event, this is America.  We value competition.  It drives our finest people to do great things in the never-ending quest to get more sales.  We don't need intrusive government telling the citizens of Florida that they can only have their choice of eight (8) law schools.  The sunshine state deserves the full eleven.

If anything, Florida needs three more.  Pensacola needs a law school, and I think Jacksonville and Tampa would be better served with additional public school options.  To think that they need to be cut in such an environment for government efficiency is just communist.