Nichol: Rankings, Economic Challenge, and the Future of Legal Education

Gene R. Nichol Jr. (North Carolina), Rankings, Economic Challenge, and the Future of Legal Education, 61 J. Legal Educ. 345 (2012):

This essay is based on the keynote address Nichol delivered at the annual ABA law deans meeting in 2010. There he claims, in brief: “I believe, given the economics, that we are in for more than a modest dose of change in legal education — public and private, national and regional, elite and virtuously middle-tier. I also think that we are not as well positioned as we should be to deal with the unfolding challenge. We have gone far, in the last twenty-five years or so, toward breaking the bank, pushing costs beyond both call and sustainability. I doubt that we have done so to good end, that we have made optimum investments. I am quite sure that we have failed to bolster a mission in the common good.”