Not Everyone Works for Biglaw: a Response to Neil J. Dilloff

Lawrence Friedman and Louis Schulze

In Saul Steinberg's famous New Yorker cover, “View of the World from 9th Avenue,” Manhattan dominates more than half the page; receding in the distance, beyond the narrow blue band of the Hudson, lies everywhere else. In his recent article, The Changing Cultures and Economics of Large Law Firm Practice and Their Impact on Legal Education, Neil J. Dilloff paints a similar picture of the legal universe: just substitute “Biglaw” for Manhattan and every other public and private practice setting for the rest of the world.

Steinberg's aim was satire, but Mr. Dilloff's is not. In making recommendations for changes in legal education, he takes the perspective of Biglaw and what Biglaw needs, beginning with the premise that, “[h]istorically, a large number of law school graduates sought employment in the nation's largest law firms.” From this premise he reasons that “one of the functions of law schools is to produce graduates ... who can enter a large law firm and be successful.” Accordingly, he argues that “[t]he challenge for legal education is how best to prepare students for [the] brave new BigLaw world.”

Even assuming the accuracy of Mr. Dilloff's premise--that most law school graduates seek to work in large law firms--it would not necessarily follow that law schools should seriously consider changing their curricula to prepare students for Biglaw practice. Rather, it would make more sense to base curricular decisions not on where law students desire to work, but on where they actually are likely to find work. And where the majority of them will find employment following graduation is probably not with Biglaw.