The Pope Center is pleased to release this commentary piece by Suffolk University Law School professor Charles E. Rounds Jr. In it, Professor Rounds explains that law school is becoming less and less valuable for future lawyers as courses that should be essential, such as agency, are relegated to elective status if they’re offered at all, and students are increasingly lured into courses that are “about the law.” Rounds argues that instead of getting the groundwork they need, future lawyers are increasingly spending their time on law courses that are just “bad sociology.”

Like higher education generally, legal education has become extremely expensive while at the same time becoming less valuable for students. As Thomas Sowell has often said, education is dominated by the interests of the producers rather than the interests of the consumers. We see that in law schools just as we do in undergraduate colleges and universities.