In a recent New Jersey Star-Ledger article, John Farmer, Jr., the dean of the Rutgers School of Law at Newark, says that although law students currently face great challenges with respect to employment, a legal education is still valuable.
In the article, entitled “The Real Value of a Legal Education,” Farmer identifies some of the problems of legal education. He notes that law school application and enrollment numbers are at a record high, leading some members of the bar to question how legal educators can admit such large numbers of students, knowing the uncertainty of the job market. According to Farmer, law schools should prepare students for the challenging job market, and law students should keep in mind that the job market is tough and that legal education is not an entitlement program. Farmer goes on to say that law schools should offer courses that focus more on practice, rather than theory. Moreover, the schools and students alike must be prepared to think more creatively about possible career opportunities that exist, both within and outside the practice of law.
Despite all of this, however, Farmer asserts that the value of legal education goes beyond economics: “It’s not about money; it’s about freedom. Legal education gives students what 99.9 percent of humanity yearns for but is denied: control over one’s own life. It is a license to make of your life what you may, to live the American dream to its fullest.”
Farmer closes the article on an inspirational note, pointing to a final, and important, value of legal education: “Lawyers express their individual freedom by helping other people protect theirs. There is no more honorable calling, and no better or more important education.”
