As part of his campaign to lower college costs, POTUS Obama recently weighed in on the law school cost debate:
President Barack Obama says law schools in the U.S. should cut down to two years instead of three to cut costs for students.
Obama says students do most of their classroom learning in the first two years of law school. He says the third year would be better spent clerking for a judge or working in a law firm.
If by "third year," he means some sort of glorified externship while the student remains enrolled in law school, I'm not sure I see the point. If he means that students should graduate after two years, I'm inclined to agree. If you can get an MBA in two years, you should be able to get a JD in two. Personally, of course, I think law should be an undergraduate major with a 4 or maybe 5 year course of study leading to a Bachelor of Laws degree that would qualify one to sit for the bar exam. Graduate law study would be reserved for future academics, policy wonks, and so on.
