Commentary on Judge Edwards’ “Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession”

Perhaps this little piece should be entitled Grace Notes rather than Commentary because I agree with so much of what Judge Edwards had to say in the Michigan Law Review. When I first read his piece, I have to say I was quite skeptical of his methodology, namely, running a survey past a group of former law clerks who, by virtue of their own super achievement, primarily in so-called elite law schools, quite easily could have ethereal points of view. But in typical Edwardsian fashion, the judge made appropriate disclaimers, and the clerks’ comments seemed to me, for the most part, quite practical and realistic. Apart from the article’s theorization – with most of which I readily agree Judge Edwards’ reliance on two of my favorite legal education scholars, Paul Carrington and Robert Stevens, his reliance on the very same treatises of which I too think most highly, and his basic putdown of critical legal studies scholarship, 5 led me to a more sympathetic second reading.