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Meanwhile, at least one attorney thinks that the problem is not that we need better law school candidates. Writing in Newsweek, Allen Mendenhall, a staff attorney to an Alabama supreme court justice and a doctoral candidate in English at Auburn University, argues that we need fewer barriers to entering the legal profession — whether law school or bar exams. It is, he argues, “unclear how memorizing often archaic rules to prepare for standardized, high-stakes multiple-choice tests that are administered under stressful conditions will in any way improve one’s ability to competently practice law.”
A better model for legal education, rather than burdening young lawyers with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, Mendenhall argues, is the apprenticeship model that was common in the 19th century, the system that turned Abraham Lincoln into an attorney. “The legal community and consumers of legal services would be better served by the apprenticeship model that prevailed long before the rise of the bar exam,” Mendenhall argues. “Under this model, an aspiring attorney was tutored by experienced lawyers until he or she mastered the basics and demonstrated his or her readiness to represent clients.” Separating the wheat from the chaff doesn’t require expensive and rigid licensing systems, Mendenhall adds.
“Today, with services like Amazon, eBay, Uber and Airbnb, consumers are accustomed to evaluating products and service providers online and for wide audiences,” he argues. “Learning about lawyers’ professional reputations should be quick and easy, a matter of a simple Internet search.”
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