The Trouble with Lawyers

by Deborah L. Rhode

Overview

By any measure, the law as a profession is in serious trouble. Americans' trust in lawyers is at a low, and many members of the profession wish they had chosen a different path. Law schools, with their endlessly rising tuitions, are churning out too many graduates for the jobs available. Yet despite the glut of lawyers, the United States ranks 67th (tied with Uganda) of 97 countries in access to justice and affordability of legal services. The upper echelons of the legal establishment remain heavily white and male. Most problematic of all, the professional organizations that could help remedy these concerns instead jealously protect their prerogatives, stifling necessary innovation and failing to hold practitioners accountable. Deborah Rhode's The Trouble with Lawyers is a comprehensive account of the challenges facing the American bar. She examines how the problems have affected (and originated within) law schools, firms, and governance institutions like bar associations; the impact on the justice system and access to lawyers for the poor; and the profession's underlying difficulties with diversity. She uncovers the structural problems, from the tyranny of law school rankings and billable hours to the lack of accountability and innovation built into legal governance-all of which do a disservice to lawyers, their clients, and the public. The Trouble with Lawyers is a clear call to fix a profession that has gone badly off the rails, and a source of innovative responses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190217242
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	843,211
File size:	320 KB

About the Author

Deborah L. Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, the director of the Center on the Legal Profession, and the director of the Program in Law and Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University. She was the founding president of the International Association of Legal Ethics, a president of the Association of American Law Schools, a chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, the founding director of Stanford's Center on Ethics, and a former trustee of Yale University. She is the nation's most frequently cited scholar on legal ethics.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Conditions of Practice Chapter 3 Access to Justice Chapter 4 Diversity in the Profession Chapter 5 Regulation of the Profession Chapter 6 Legal Education Chapter 7 Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"This is a well-researched book and, in many ways, makes you proud to be British - we in England and Wales can sit back smugly and say we are ahead on diversity, regulation, complaints and training." — David Pickup, Law Society Gazette

"The Trouble with Lawyers is well indexed and written in a lively, engaging style. Rhode intersperses anecdotes with statements of facts in a way that makes for an inviting text. Who should read this book? Everyone contemplating becoming a lawyer, college prelaw placement advisers, law school librarians and placement officers, and anyone interested in legal ethics and the practicalities of the legal profession should read The Trouble with Lawyers." -Elizabeth A. Greenfield, Law Library Journal

"This important book should be widely read and could lay the foundation for a significant reform agenda. Highly recommended." -J. A. Pierceson, University of Illinois at Springfield, Choice

"Rhode's interesting book The Trouble with Lawyers represents a comprehensive account of the challenges which face the American Bar and will be of great interest to English Counsel. This is an important book at an important time for the legal profession both here and abroad so do read it carefully as it could affect your own future. Thank you Deborah for a great contribution to the continuing debate." Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor, Richmond Green Chambers

"[An] honest, well researched account of the spectre of decreasing public access to justice that is resulting, inter alia, from an unsustainably increasing number of law schools, law students, and lawyers in the United States." -Magdalene D'Silva, The Modern Law Review

From the Publisher