In today’s Raleigh News & Observer, I have an op-ed piece in which I follow up on the recent Pope Center study arguing in favor of reducing barriers to entry into the legal profession.
There is no good reason why law school should have to last three years, or any particular length of time. Free competition in preparation for a legal career would be far more efficient than the one-size-fits-all approach that most states have at the behest of their bar associations.
In fact, a good argument can be made that the legal profession should not be subject to licensing at all. (Those who do any legal work, no matter how simple and no matter if they do it well, are subject to prosecution under “unauthorized practice of law” prohibitions.) Licensing adds nothing to the protection consumers have against incompetence in the free market, but it reduces their range of options considerably.