Every Friday an editorial board member speaks with a prominent figure from the University or surrounding community. This week, Trey Bright sat down with John “Jack” Boger, dean of the UNC School of Law.
S ince Boger became the dean of UNC’s law school in 2006, the “aspiration to be the finest truly public law school — with all of those words meaning something” has echoed throughout the halls of Van Hecke-Wettach Hall and the UNC School of Law.
In recent years, law schools across the country have seen application rates fall by more than 10 percent. Despite this national trend, the UNC School of Law saw its applications increase by 2.5 percent this year — making UNC one of fewer than 40 schools in the country that saw their number of applications increase.
Gov. Pat McCrory recently stated in an interview with The Daily Tar Heel that there might be too many lawyers graduating from universities and suggested that funding be redistributed elsewhere. Boger would agree with the Governor that overproducing attorneys is a mistake, but he challenges the conclusion that state investment in public law schools should decline and urges prospective law students to look closely at the evidence before shying away from the profession.
“There is reduced employment in North Carolina. ...It’s not at all clear to me that that’s a permanent change,” he said. “We have no desire to produce law graduates from Chapel Hill who don’t get a job, and we are doing reasonably well in our placement ... But there are only two law schools in the state, North Carolina Central and UNC at Chapel Hill, that offer tuition levels low enough to allow graduates to return to the State’s many smaller communities that need legal services or to enter government service without crushing debt.”
Furthermore, the commonly told story of a glut of lawyers in our country may not be giving a broad enough picture — one that compares lawyers to those with a similar level of education.
“My information suggests that people who have Ph.D.s ... have a significantly lower entry level of employment success than lawyers do at the trough of this recession. ... I think entry level employment for all 22 to 26 year olds right now in many fields is depressed and is a big challenge. I would say a person ought to think hard about law school, and the actual professional career looks attractive. And if they are willing to do the hard work and are bright enough, it is still a very promising career.”
