Dislocation

Yeoman links to two thought-provoking subjects.

The most recent is a link to this essay from Stay of Execution titled "Legal Lies," which Yeoman calls "The single best commentary on the nature of legal education ever written".

Ethical Esquire's David Giacalone responds to "Legal Lies" with a fairly thorough-going rebuttal, as well as more links and suggestions for further reflection.

I approach this back-and-forth from the perspective of someone who knew going in that the sort of law I wanted to do in the future wasn't going to pay worth a damn, and made my choices as to law school and financial aid accordingly. On the other hand, there's a colleague for whom I have great esteem, with a great heart and a working-class background, half-Appalachian, half-Polish-American, who couldn't have become a lawyer without incurring a ton of student debt, and yet went for Legal Services, not for the big bucks. He would like the other post from Yeoman, part of a series on social class in the New York Times, which links to a good story about Della Justice, a lawyer who came up from poverty in East Kentucky, and now works to straddle both worlds. The article from the New York Times requires registration; the article from Kentucky.com does not:

While most of her work week is devoted to commercial law, Justice spends Mondays in family court, representing families with the kind of problems hers had. She bristles whenever she runs into any hint of class bias, or the presumption that poor people in homes heated by kerosene or without enough bedrooms cannot be good parents.

Which leads me to one last link to this reflection prompted by that public defender rant from Craigslist: How do you rescue these kids...