KONEFSKY — Volume 62, Issue 3

American legal education and practice face serious systemic challenges that extend beyond cyclical economic downturns to fundamental structural problems. The authors examine pressing issues confronting law schools and the profession including unjustified complacency in legal education, widespread financial challenges faced by law students and graduates due to high tuition and mounting debt, and severely diminished employment prospects for new lawyers. These interconnected crises require law schools and the profession to reconsider their aims and purposes. A constructive approach begins with understanding the legal profession's role in promoting social mobility and pursuing human flourishing, justice, and public interest. Konefsky and Sullivan argue that current commentary on legal education often focuses narrowly on immediate industry demands rather than broader societal goals. The authors critique solutions based on panic, fear, or opportunism, favoring instead sound prudent reflection rooted in understanding law's connection to human flourishing and democratic society. They advocate examining how legal education shapes and serves the profession's aims, and reconnecting legal practice and legal education to human development and justice. The article addresses inequality beginning in childhood and emphasizes that educational opportunity disparity remains fundamental. Rather than accepting narrow economic analysis, the authors urge considering law's role in preserving access to justice and supporting legal system opportunities for all citizens.

Topics: Legal Theory · Legal History · Administrative Law

Keywords: legal education · legal profession · law schools · student debt · employment · access to justice · professional responsibility