The Hard Business Problems Facing U.S. Law Faculty

By William Henderson
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
October 31, 2011

U.S. Legal Education is in the midst of a large, structural transformation. This structural shift is driven by a confluence of factors, which includes three significant trends:

1.The decline, or plateau, of the traditional time and materials legal services model
2.The politics of law school finance
3.A new generation of legal entrepenuers that are turning some aspects of law into process-driven products and services.

The trends above are going to require law schools to change. In what way? We can lower our cost structure, but that would only address some of the challenges. The only viable strategy is to retool. This entails rethinking what we teach and how we teach so that the value of the legal education--for students, employers, alumni and the public at large--is commensurate with our operating costs.

Institutional change is extraordinarily difficult. But I think it is extra hard for law schools. Law faculty have little or no experience making high stakes business decisions, yet we control curriculum and appointments, which are the areas that need major rethinking. Talk is cheap--and we specialize in talk. Like any other industry undergoing structural change, we need to objectively assess our situation and be prepared to take decisive action despite painful tradeoffs and imperfect information. For law faculty, our biggest risk factors are indecision and denial.

As I write these words, I can practically hear the skeptical sighs of my fellow professors. I am describing the world as I find it, not as I wish it to be. This is about making sound business decisions, not winning a debate. Here are the basic facts and analysis that we ignore at our peril. the rest