Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Schools for Misrule’

WSJ: John McGinnis reviews Schools for Misrule

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Northwestern law professor John McGinnis favorably reviews my new book:

American law schools wield more social influence than any other part of the American university. In ‘Schools for Misrule,’ Walter Olson offers a fine dissection of these strangely powerful institutions. One of his themes is that law professors serve the interests of the legal profession above all else; they seek to enlarge the scope of the law, creating more work for lawyers even as the changes themselves impose more costs on society.

Prof. McGinnis deftly conveys my theme about how embracing the cause of reformist legal critique helped serve law schools’ quest for academic respectability within the university, and he is particularly complimentary about the book’s discussion of law school clinics (“superbly describe[d]”). He is perfectly fair in observing that the book makes no attempt to evaluate some important recent developments such as the burgeoning of interest in empirical legal studies, even as I do devote considerable attention to other academic enthusiasms (like the ill-fated movement for race reparations) that he and I agree led to practical dead ends.

Most of Schools for Misrule is by intention backward-looking, an assessment of wrong turns and misguided enthusiasms that have led legal academia astray up to now. As Prof. McGinnis and I agree, things have been changing of late, sometimes in favorable ways. And that I hope provides much fodder for discussion as more observers join the debate.

P.S. Prof. Bainbridge has some kind things to say today as well. And I’ve got a general reaction roundup at Cato at Liberty, including those obsessively watched Amazon sales rankings, which are almost as bad a distraction for the author world as the U.S. News rankings are for the legal-academic. Yet more: Paul Caron/TaxProf, Instapundit, Above the Law, Kent Scheidegger/Crime and Consequences, Smallest Minority, Estate of Denial, Jeff Hadden/Detroit News, Memeorandum.

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Schools for Misrule: next week at Heritage and in Chicago

At NRO “Corner”, Hans von Spakovsky invites readers to my noon talk next week at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. And on Thursday the Heartland Institute in Chicago will have me at a lunchtime member event.

I’m also happy to announce that next Thursday night, barring news-related bumps, I’m set to appear on one of radio’s premier discussion shows, WGN’s Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg.

You can (and should) buy the book here, or at your favorite bookseller.

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Manhattan Institute podcast on Schools for Misrule

I spoke about my new book before a luncheon crowd yesterday at my former institute in New York City — several distinguished law professors were in attendance — and Jim Copland interviewed me afterward. We talked about how this book grew out of my earlier work, why international rights are such a coming area in law schools, and much more. The resulting audio podcast runs just over 10 minutes; you may need to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear it properly. You can and should buy Schools for Misrule itself here (Amazon commission as well as regular royalty benefits me).

On the radio front, I was a guest on Jason Lewis’s nationally syndicated (Minneapolis-based) show on Monday, and will be a guest today at 11 Eastern on Ron Smith’s show on WBAL Baltimore (audio).

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“10 Questions”: I’m interviewed by The Daily Caller

Just out in the DC-based Daily Caller: Jamie Weinstein interviews me about my work and in particular my new book Schools for Misrule. I greatly enjoyed the interview, which I think turned out as one of the best I’ve done in quite a while. Some points that come up:

  • George Mason University School of Law’s eccentric, in fact “almost Martian” hiring strategy (and I mean that last phrase in a nice way);
  • My predictions re: the return of ROTC and military recruiting to previously resistant law school campuses (already, it seems, borne out).
  • I recommend various books by Benjamin Barton, Steven Teles, Edward Banfield, Jane Jacobs and others;
  • The non-monetary costs of an overlawyered society;
  • The common academic (and philanthropic, too) background of sectors of litigation as diverse as school finance, Indian land claims, and environmental impact review;
  • The “international community” in rights law as “a slightly globalized variant of the voice of New York Times editorials.”

The interview seems to be a hit with readers; as of a few hours ago it was listed as the most-emailed item on the site. Read the whole thing here (& FrumForum).

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Scott Greenfield on Schools for Misrule

The deservedly popular criminal-defense and general law blogger weighs in on my new book. It’s a great review and these are some of my favorite passages:

…In Schools For Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America, Walter aims both barrels and pulls the trigger. The book is classic Olson, witty, caustic and facially challenging to the Academy. The poke in the ribs is unmistakable, and early signs are that it’s going to get a rise out of some of the more intellectually honest lawprofs….

While the use of law schools as an incubator of liberal politics may not cause you to break out in hives, you may find Walter to be awfully persuasive in challenging simplistic notions of right and wrong, good and evil, that characterize political correctness. If your interest extends beyond people applauding you for agreeing with them, and actually comes anywhere near achieving a better understanding of issues and interests at stake, then Walter’s challenge may give you pause to rethink your knee-jerk reactions. He may not turn you into a full-time libertarian, but he will add enormously to your understanding of what’s at stake and why the solutions aren’t nearly as clear and easy as you thought. …

…What Walter Olson offers in Schools for Misrule is a challenge to the Academy to clean up its act, stop teaching liberalism as the only good policy and keep their mitts off the minds of our future leaders. … it’s left to the rest of us, lawyers, pundits and those few lawprofs who have the guts to challenge their brethren, even in the typical tepid tones that characterize communications between intellectuals, to hold their feet to the fire.

I could raise a quibble here or there — “environment of overwhelming leftism” is a reviewer’s wording, not mine, and I don’t remember characterizing any recent American presidents as “extremist,” least of all Bill Clinton — but that would be churlish in the face of such a nice review. I’m going to send Scott the signed copy, too.

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Supplying a missing footnote

A reader of Schools for Misrule points out that the book’s endnotes (at p. 240) do not include a source for one of its statements (at p. 14 of the text) about law faculty political disparities. (“Democrats at last count outnumbered Republicans 28 to 1 on the Stanford faculty, 23 to 1 at Columbia….”) The omission was inadvertent; the numbers come from a study by David Horowitz and Joseph Light entitled “Representation of Political Perspectives in Law and Journalism Faculties” whose findings are summarized, among other places, in this Oct. 13, 2005 post at Paul Caron’s TaxProf. Sorry!

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Schools for Misrule review roundup

Professor Bainbridge has just opened his copy, and in the mean time has assembled some of the favorable reviews and summaries of Schools for Misrule that other leading bloggers have already printed. You can buy your copy of the book there or here (usual Amazon commission applies).

Robert VerBruggen has written a favorable review of the book at National Review, under the title “The Gilded Guild” (paywall). A few highlights:

…An important theme here is that in law, careerism is a powerful force. As a result, the worst left-wing impulses of the legal academy tend to stumble when they come into conflict with lawyers’ self-interest, and to succeed when they advance it.

In particular, as the book relates, law students themselves have served as an effective check on some kinds of ideological adventurism by law faculties when such adventurism threatens to deprive them of a serviceable legal education. On the other hand, there’s often less of a check on bad ideas when they advance the welfare of lawyers present and future:

… And that’s where we see the true genius of legal academia, and the legal profession in general: It manages to argue, on moral grounds, that it deserves more work, more money, and more power.

Yesterday I spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at the Cato Institute auditorium in Washington, D.C. Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the D.C. circuit was generous in his comments, and there was a lively Q-and-A with the audience. Cato will post the event as a podcast at its media site.

The radio campaign for the book also proceeds apace. I was on the Mike Rosen show out of Denver on Tuesday, and in the next few days will appear on Kevin Whalen’s WRKO show in Boston (Sunday), Cam Edwards’ national show, and Steve Malzburg’s show on NYC’s WABC (both Monday).

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Schools for Misrule: some early blog reactions

Several interesting reactions to my book already from around the blogosphere:

  • University of Illinois law professor Larry Ribstein (who commented at my speech there last week): “There was a good turnout and a lot of deserved buzz for this very interesting book. … The book deserves a lot of attention, particularly from law professors and their students as a source of critical perspective on trends in legal education. There is little doubt that the ideas Olson criticizes are hatched mainly in law schools rather than by practicing lawyers and judges, and have led to costly and questionable litigation.” And a response from Scott Greenfield, who says the book’s premise that law professors have great influence over the state of the law “warms the cockles of lawprofs’ hearts given that most of the legal profession considers their influence marginal at best.”
  • Ted Frank: “should be required reading for law students, and deserves a place on any Federalist Society member’s bookshelf.”
  • Alan Crede writes a lengthy and thoughtful review at Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog. He notes that on, e.g., the work of legal clinics, “the traditional taxonomy of liberal and conservative breaks down when you start to deal with many fine-grain legal issues.” And: “There are at least two law professors – Tim Wu and Elizabeth Warren (who is now in the Obama administration) – who possess rock star cachet in progressive circles” and can hardly be charged with any sort of airy unwillingness to engage with the demands of practical law reform. Crede generously concludes “whether you agree with Olson’s conclusions or not, there is a lot that you can learn from ‘Schools For Misrule.'”
  • Perhaps my favorite review so far (aside from the great one in Publisher’s Weekly) is from Ira Stoll at Future of Capitalism. It begins: “Of all the possible explanations for Barack Obama, one of the most intriguing is that, like Bill Clinton before him, he was both a law school graduate and a law school professor.” Stoll summarizes many of the book’s themes, particularly as regards “public interest”, human-rights and institutional-reform litigation, and includes this takeaway: “Any donor or foundation wanting to reshape legal education would find Mr. Olson’s book a fine place to begin.”

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Publisher’s Weekly on Schools for Misrule: “cutting-edge, hard-hitting, witty, astute”

My new book — officially out today — gets a great review in Publisher’s Weekly. “Part historical overview and part cutting-edge commentary. … This hard-hitting, witty account reveals the effect of law on the individual and the collective and astutely forecasts the future of law reform, in the academy, in politics, and across the globe.” Read the whole thing here.

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