Rant - Extremely frustrated with PREP (and legal education in general)

[CleanHands]

I see that today there is a thread about 1L woes and I don't want to draw attention away from that or compete with it, but last evening I decided to post a gripe about this when I had a moment. I am extremely frustrated and fed up.

This is something I didn't expect to do, because I was fortunate enough to have a clear idea of what I wanted to do with my JD from the outset and to have received numerous opportunities to pursue that dream. I actually am passionate about what I do, that being part of this profession has empowered me to do. But law school and now the bar course is managing to suck all that enthusiasm and motivation even out of me...so I can't imagine how bad it must be to have gone into law as a default "smart but unsuccessful and directionless person" thing, and to have fallen into a practice area for reasons like compensation without actually having interest in the work.

The cliché consensus opinion seems to be that 1L sucks but upper year law school classes are better because you get to choose your own adventure, so to speak. But I disagree; this was not my experience. I actually enjoyed and saw some value in 1L (as much of a grind as it was at times). But I grew increasingly bored and irritated and resentful of law school as it dragged on and saw the latter two years as mostly an irritating waste of time and money. Having jobs in my practice area that I loved since 1L summer probably contributed to this--I have always learned more in a week on the job than in a year of law school or bar course material, in addition to enjoying it far more and actually getting paid rather than paying for it.

I was very much done with law school by the time it was over, felt relief for a moment, and now I've learned PREP is FAR worse than law school ever was. At least in law school it was clear what the hell we were supposed to be doing. There are JD dean's listers and even medalists failing PREP assignments because instructions are unclear, scattered in half a dozen different places, and at times self-contradictory, and assessment criteria is vague and up to the arbitrary whims of whoever is grading a given assignment. Of course they give you so many kicks at the can that it's hard to fail for real, but it's tedious and extremely frustrating going through the process and having to resubmit assignments because you're only told what to do after you fail the first time around.

I find it absurd that I am putting my work on actual files--dealing with actual matters of import, with real-life consequences for real people--to the side, in order to conduct fake client interviews and write fake affidavits. With totally unclear instructions, arbitrary rules and seemingly random assessments.

The worse part is that the JD and bar course processes feel like pure protectionism on the part of the legal profession.

This career does not need an undergrad degree first.
A JD does not need to be 3 years long.
The bar course is an extremely irritating waste of time and effort.

Entry into this profession should really just consist of a one year black letter law "boot camp" akin to 1L, then the articling year, and a bar exam without a bar course. 90% of what we do is not more complex and doesn't require more education than, say, being an IT guy. All of this education and time and effort and expense just increases the cost of entry and has horrific implications for access to justice because it's the reason average joes need to pay lawyers $300/hr to deal with simple legal problems.

There's something to be said for complex, appellate level work or whatever requiring more expertise and know-how but really for most of what we do a few months of on the job training would actually provide superior training to what we have now for a fraction of the financial and opportunity cost.

I know that legal training used to be apprenticeship-based and that had its own issues as it was nepotistic, but this simply is a profession that is best learned on the job with real-world work. And 7 years of post-secondary education with an academic focus, and a bar course where you leave real, practical work to do fake work with terrible instructions and assessments, is an absurd path to entry.

[Eeyore]

I second this for PLTC. So much.

[epeeist]

I at least partly agree, in principle, that law shouldn't be a graduate degree - I'd prefer basic bachelor but maybe compromise is entry after 1 or 2 years another undergrad - and it should be comparable in price to other undergrad degrees. It's a manufactured artificial price and scarcity and antithetical to access to justice (which is about legal education not just availability of legal advice, and also, making it harder and more expensive to go to law school = part of why need to charge more to clients).

[Phaedrus]

PREP is a joke.

The intention to deliver useful legal training was there, I want to believe it was, but the execution was poor. The legal software training and summer Education modules are "cheatable", the Virtual Firm offers no interaction, and the assessment of tasks involving Province-specific legislation is often done by non-Provincial lawyers. And don't get me started on the piss poor attempt at address TRC calls to action. Answer a few m/c quiz questions in July, tell the program you're not a racist, and collect your ticket. 

That said, I do feel that the final assessment week is valuable. Being able to conduct research, prepare legal submissions, and draft applications on short notice are the bread and butter of lawyering - and being able to do so accurately and of sufficient presenting quality are fair requirements. 

[CleanHands]

7 minutes ago, Phaedrus said:

The intention to deliver useful legal training was there, I want to believe it was, but the execution was poor

I even question the intention, simply because a lot of the way student opportunities to give feedback are structured implicitly seem to discourage providing negative feedback. For example, in the foundation modules if you provide a low score in feedback you are required to submit an explanation, which is not required if you submit a high score. And then in the workshops people are asked to give feedback on whether various assignments were useful, in a virtual classroom with 30 other students and two instructors present. So of course everyone just says "yes" to move along and not create conflict and have to explain and defend themselves. When I or others were critical on certain specific points we were basically shut down (including when students pointed out unclear aspects of the material and the instructors just--incorrectly--denied that such features of the materials existed).

Edited September 29, 2021 by CleanHands

[GreyDude]

5 hours ago, CleanHands said:

This career does not need an undergrad degree first.
A JD does not need to be 3 years long.
The bar course is an extremely irritating waste of time and effort.

I won't speak to the other two points, but for Civil Law schools Québec (and McGill too, though it's complicated), the basic qualification is Cégep. Since QC high school ends at grade 11 and followed immediately by Cégep, which is is 2 years long (for pre-university programs), this can be thought of as roughly equivalent to getting into law school after doing well in your first year of university in other provinces. 

[CleanHands]

1 minute ago, GreyDude said:

I won't speak to the other two points, but for Civil Law schools Québec (and McGill too, though it's complicated), the basic qualification is Cégep. Since QC high school ends at grade 11 and followed immediately by Cégep, which is is 2 years long (for pre-university programs), this can be thought of as roughly equivalent to getting into law school after doing well in your first year of university in other provinces. 

Yes, similarly it's a first entry degree in the UK of course. And somehow their legal system seems to function just fine.

[BlockedQuebecois]

UK’s system is honestly better than ours, at least for commercial law. Especially if you think, as I do, that the split profession is a good thing. 

[Pantalaimon]

I'm not sure the UK is helpful to your cause, since they have a 1 year full-time bar course after law school. I would be shocked if there weren't similar complaints about their version of the bar course. Although googling it now it looks like they introduced a bar-exam style qualification route with two years of articling.

[PulpFiction]

8 hours ago, CleanHands said:

90% of what we do is not more complex and doesn't require more education than, say, being an IT guy. 

 I hope my family and friends don't figure this out - this lawyer gig is the only thing I've got going for me. 

[epeeist]

On 9/29/2021 at 5:49 PM, BlockedQuebecois said:

UK’s system is honestly better than ours, at least for commercial law. Especially if you think, as I do, that the split profession is a good thing. 

With some solicitors having rights of appearance, haven't England and Wales been moving away albeit slowly from a split bar? Not to be snide, but because of e.g. Scottish law differences, I'm a bit hesitant to refer to the "UK" system.

And, except for 6 specific reserved areas (including conducting litigation), non-lawyers may give legal advice - if we're looking at improvements, I see that as an extraordinarily unlikely, but in principle welcome step.

[Psmith]

On 9/29/2021 at 5:57 PM, Pantalaimon said:

I'm not sure the UK is helpful to your cause, since they have a 1 year full-time bar course after law school. I would be shocked if there weren't similar complaints about their version of the bar course. Although googling it now it looks like they introduced a bar-exam style qualification route with two years of articling.

I believe the one year course comes after undergrad only, which need not have been in law (!). So the example of the UK very much supports OP's argument for a "one year black letter law 'boot camp'". 

[Pantalaimon]

You can seriously get called in the UK having never done a law degree (even their undergraduate one)? I find that a bit hard to believe.

[BlockedQuebecois]

21 minutes ago, Pantalaimon said:

You can seriously get called in the UK having never done a law degree (even their undergraduate one)? I find that a bit hard to believe.

As of about a month ago. The requirements to become a solicitor in England and Wales are now: 

Quote

have a degree in any subject or equivalent level 6 qualification

pass both stages of the SQE assessment

two years' full-time (or equivalent) qualifying work experience

pass our character and suitability requirements.

To become a barrister you still need either a law degree or a graduate diploma in law, although once you're qualified as a solicitor you can become a barrister relatively easily by either completing a pupillage or passing an assessment and applying to transfer.

3 hours ago, epeeist said:

With some solicitors having rights of appearance, haven't England and Wales been moving away albeit slowly from a split bar? Not to be snide, but because of e.g. Scottish law differences, I'm a bit hesitant to refer to the "UK" system.

And, except for 6 specific reserved areas (including conducting litigation), non-lawyers may give legal advice - if we're looking at improvements, I see that as an extraordinarily unlikely, but in principle welcome step.

Yes, it's more of a permeable membrane than a strict wall, these days. That said, most solicitors don't seem to bother obtaining the higher rights of audience available—it's a fair chunk of change and effort if you're at a firm that is going to prefer instructing a barrister anyways. Plus solicitors earn more, long term, so there's not a ton of incentive to cut into the lower comped barrister work.

The really interesting thing about the UK is that they let law-adjacent fields transfer into the profession pretty easily. I'm all for letting non-lawyers do more legal work (particularly paralegals), but imagine the access to justice gains we would have if we gave paralegals a path to being called.