Practice Management

What do you do in a polarized political environment where everybody is attacked for the positions they take. Nothing is seen as innocent, and everything is viewed in some jaded way. There is nothing that is not suspect and conspiracy is seen in the most basic of things. We have Fox News vs. MSNBC, the Tea Party vs. the Coffee Party, Pro Birth vs. Pro Choice, and Conservative vs. Liberal. With it all comes rebuke, criticism, disfavor, disapproval, recrimination, repudiation, censure and denunciation. It is a charged atmosphere where anyone on the other side is portrayed as Beelzebub.  For example, there was a recent poll where 25% of Republicans see President Obama as the Antichrist. Not just a bad person, or misguided, or someone they disagree with, but the freakin' Antichrist! Nobody but nobody is spared the wrath of those who do not appear to follow the creeds. There is no tolerance, no understanding, no concessions, no benevolence, no mercifulness, and absolutely no understanding.

So, as reported by the New York Times and others, it can be of no surprise that the law school legal clinic is coming under attack.

It is a shame really because law students need someplace credible to learn their trade. Law schools are about free will where students have time to develop their own theories, narratives, beliefs, versions of things, and the skills to effectively manage these both for themselves and their clients. The problem is that where all of us should see this as a good thing, the most partisan among us see it as an opportunity to kill this infancy in its crib.

I wrote about his trend sometime back with Time To Jettison The Law School Legal Clinic, where it is suggested that to keep the practicality of the legal clinic in order to help make practice ready lawyers, we might have to remove the legal clinics from the direct control of the law schools.

Strangely, many politicians and other partisans believe that law students should not participate in controversial issues. Although, controversy represents most legal arguments.

Worse, shallow thinking partisans are acting to change the attorney-client relationship in order to fight these clinics. Attacks which would not be allowed against any law firm seem to be common fodder toward legal clinics.

If almost every issue is controversial, how then do law students get to practice their craft if they cannot undertake controversial issues.

Another source of retribution are courts which are starting to restrict law student access in their courtrooms.

It is really all a bit much.