Tuesday, November 08, 2005

The Mission

One of the books we're reading for a seminar of mine is YLS dean Anthony Kronman's The Lost Lawyer, where he complains that lawyers have become the kinds of amoral mercenaries you see them portrayed as on TV. It's long on everything but solutions, and the only bit of advice he offers students is to seek out private practice in small towns and backwater legal markets. Our professor siad he talked with Kronman about how Yale's loan repayment play was working, and the dean was delighted to report that most participants had hung out a shingle in small towns in Vermon and stuff like that.

The professor asked Larry Summers what he thought of this. The answer: "We don't want a penny of that money to go to neighborhood lawyers in Vermont! We're trying to run this goddamn country! Er, to train leaders. Yeah. Leaders."

This account comports with my experience.

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