Law School Death Spiral?

A deteriorated market for their graduates – and a consequent shrinking number of applicants – is a big part of the problem, but far from all of it, according to Dorothy A. Brown, professor at Emory University School of Law, writing in the Washington Post. Another problem is the mechanism by which scholarship – that is,  articles by faculty – is produced, a system that is marred by perverse incentives and a selection process that engenders mediocrity. Moreover, now that law schools are no longer the institutional cash cows they used to be, the entire broken system ends up being subsidized disproportionately by low-income students. It’s a sorry picture and one that won’t change for the better, the writer predicts, until the system gets jolted by the closure of a top law school.