Below are excerpts from my old masteral thesis (c. 2000) which compared the US and Philippine legal professions. Readers might find them useful.
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INTRODUCTION
In 1960, there was one lawyer for every 627 people in the United States of America. In 1988 there was one lawyer for every 339 people.
During the last half of this twenty-eight year period, the number of lawyers in the United States of America increased at a rate that was more than five times faster than the rate of growth for the general population.
It is estimated that the USA now has more than one million lawyers.
Although the US recession in the late 1980s up to 1990 was accompanied by a drop in the demand for legal services, in 1991, for the fifth consecutive year, the total enrollment at US law schools accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) actually increased. (Dean Robert C. Clark, “Why So Many Lawyers? Are They Good or Bad?”, Fordham Law Review, Vol. LXI, No. 2, November 1992, pp. 275-302).
Not only has there been an extraordinary increase during the last four decades in the number of lawyers in USA, but there has been a great measurable growth in the amount of legal services consumed and in the amount of laws and rules produced by the US Government.
In the twenty-five year period after 1960, the population of the United States grew by 30 percent.
In the same period, the number of lawyers increased by almost 130 percent. In the same twenty-five year period, the percentage of the US Gross National Product (GNP) devoted to outside legal services more than doubled.
In the same period, the amount of law and rules increased exponentially, as suggested by the following data: pages added annually to the Federal Register increased by 270 percent; pages added annually to the West Law regional reporters grew by 149 percent; pages added annually to the federal reporters grew by 336 percent (about 93,588 pages of federal cases added in 1985 alone); and the full-time staff of the fifty-five major federal regulatory agencies grew 176 percent, and their budgets increased by 237 percent. (Clark, supra, at page 276).
In addition to changes in the number of lawyers, there were interesting and profound changes in the organization of the law profession in the United States.
On average, US law firms became bigger and were more likely to have branches in multiple cities, both in USA and other countries.
From 1975 to 1989, the top fifty US law firms went from an average of 133 attorneys per firm to an average of 476.
In the course of a generation, there has been a dramatic change in scale of many aspects of the legal world: the amount and complexity of legal regulation; the frequency of litigation; the amount and tenor of authoritative legal material; the number, coordination and productivity of lawyers; the number of legal actors and the resources they devote to legal activity; and the amount of information about law and the velocity with which it circulates. (Clark, supra, at page 277, citing Marc Gallanter and Thomas M. Palay, Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm [1992]).
When counting lawyers in the United States, one typically considers persons who have completed law school and been admitted to the bar in one or more states.
But only a minority of these individuals actually appear in court on a regular basis.
Most of the rest perform a wide range of law-related tasks such as counseling, planning, and deal-making. In addition, some of those admitted to the bar have gravitated into rather distantly related roles, such as that of corporate officer, real estate developer, or executive in a government agency. (Clark, supra, at page 279-280).
ESSENCE OF LAWYERING
Lawyers create, find, interpret, adapt, apply, and enforce rules and principles that structure human relationships and interactions. (Clark, supra, at page 281).
It is important not to equate lawyers with litigators, or with professionals who practice law in courts.
Most American lawyers are not litigators and yet the tasks that these out-of-court practitioners specialize in are connected to a comprehensive and reasonably coherent notion of what constitutes lawyers’ work.
The knot that properly ties together the myriad activities of so many practicing lawyers is that they are often engaged in handling rules, norms, and principles that define the rights and duties that people and organizations have with and toward each other. (id.).
There are at least six distinct arenas of normative ordering.
One is legislation.
In the American society, lawyers are disproportionately involved in legislation, both as legislators and as lobbyists and advocates of new statutes.
A second and related arena is administrative rule-making.
Lawyers participate here as the rule-makers and as the advocates.
A third arena is private deal-making, which comprises the many phases of negotiating and drafting agreements.
A fourth arena is counseling and planning.
Lawyers interpret rules and norms (both publicly and privately created) for a particular client, and advise the client about action to be taken in light of the rules.
This category covers a vast portion of what many American lawyers actually do.
A fifth category is dispute resolution through non-judicial means such as arbitration and mediation.
These activities also involve the enforcement and adaptation of norms.
The last but not least arena is litigation or the enforcement of rules by courts. (id., at page 282).
Legislation, administrative rule-making, private contracting and deal-making, counseling and planning, mediation, arbitration, and litigation all involve the processing of rules and norms that structure and stabilize human relationships.
Lawyers are specialists in normative ordering and they are members of a recognizable profession that has all the attributes classically attributed to a profession by the sociologists: a long and cumulative tradition of specialized learning, a requirement of special training, strict and clear entry points, mechanisms to assure independence and self-regulation, and so forth. (id.).
GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN LEGAL PROFESSION
Dean Robert C. Clark, dean of the Harvard Law School, in his aforementioned article (supra, at pp. 282- 302) discussed some theories that helped explain the phenomenal growth and expansion of the American legal profession:
1. Individual and Social Decline. - This refers to the widespread decline in the moral fabric of society. It can be argued that there has been a breakdown in the efficacy of non-legal forms of social control such as the family, the neighborhood, the school, and the major religions, with a resulting increase in reliance in law.
The growth of law is seen as a compensatory substitute for forms of social control that have been generally weakened by various forces and trends in American society.
In other words, since the family and the schools are unable to make people behave, the criminal justice system must give it a try.
Under this theory, reducing reliance on law and lawyers would make things worse rather than better, unless other forms of social control were instituted or rebuilt.
2. Lawyer-Created Demand. - This refers to the capacity of lawyers to induce demand for their own services.
In a sense, one lawyer can breed work for another.
Law suits and many transactions are two-sided and a lawyer on one side creates demand for a lawyer on the other.
3. Market Imperfections. - This refers to imperfections in the market for legal services.
The imperfections in the market for legal services operate to increase rather than decrease the amount of such services that are consumed.
The main culprits are asymmetrical information and moral hazard (two terms taken form the economic analysis of law.
They are also key factors at work in the market for medical services, a market that has seen far
greater growth in the last 30 years than the legal profession.
The patient cannot easily judge which set of actions has the best ratio of benefit to cost.
The whole point of a rational doctor-patient relationship depends on informational asymmetry.
One goes to a medical professional in large part because the professional has intensive specialized training and knows more about what should be done.
If the professional has an incentive to err on the side of more rather than fewer services as physicians do when they operate on a fee-for-service basis, the patient is not in a good position to second-guess the recommendations.
Compounding this tendency is health insurance.
To the extent it is available, then neither the patient nor the physician has a financial incentive to exercise any restraint.
They face what economists call a moral hazard.
They may choose to consume more medical services than are needed or reasonable.
In the aggregate, this blunted incentive or moral hazard effect may mean that society will over-consume medical services.
In the case of lawyers, many clients of lawyers have both poor ability and poor incentives to monitor professional services.
When lawyers charge on a fee-for-service basis, too much legal work may be produced.
Many clients choose to err on the side of excess by spending more on legal services than may be really optimal for their business or legal transactions, especially if they are covered by legal insurance policies.
Many corporate clients now insist on itemized bills and fixed rates (instead of hourly rates) for certain types of service; shop around among law firms; and bring more legal work in-house, where it can be more closely monitored.
Despite these cost-cutting measures, the basic problem of over-consumption of legal services has not been solved.
The informational asymmetry is greater than that of the last century now that the legal system is so much more developed and complicated.
New areas of regulation have been created and their existence creates information problems for lay persons, who are driven to seek the advice of lawyers and to endure the agency problems of the lawyer-client relationship.
4. Greater Interaction and Internationalization. - The increasing rate of interaction across national borders (globalization, liberalization, and privatization) is correlated with the growth of law. International trade and finance law is one of the fastest areas of growth in the market for legal services.
Movements of people across borders have made immigration law one of the fastest growing areas of law practice.
Technological advances in and the lowered relative costs of communication and transportation have resulted in greater interaction among people and entities across borders.
Greater interaction and internationalization have increased the demand for normative ordering by lawyers (contracts, negotiations, etc.).
Informal social controls or nonlegal controls, e.g. reputational standing in the local community, are hard to sustain in a world of rapidly expanding and quickly shifting relationships, and the intervention of the specialized services of lawyers to structure such relationships (normative ordering) is more increasingly required.
5. Increased Economic Wealth. - In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a great increase in the real or inflation-adjusted income of Americans, as well as significant growth in productivity and average GNP.
The increase in economic well-being of Americans after World War II has resulted in the appearance in the late 1960s and early 1970s of massively important and complicated regulatory initiatives in health care financing and regulation (Medicare and Medicaid in 1965); safety (Occupational Safety Health Act of 1970); environmental quality (National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Clean Air Act of 1966 and 1970, and Water Pollution Control Act); pension security (ERISA in 1974); and other areas that previous generations might have considered matters of secondary importance.
Deregulatory initiatives in the American economy have added to increased demand for legal work.
It takes enormous effort to dismantle a regulatory system and work out all the consequences, and lawyers are the workers most qualified to do the job.
The economic downturn in the late 80s and early 90s led to bankruptcies, restructuring, and reorganizations, all of which increased the demand for legal work.
In other words, new legal work is created by a bust as well as a boom, because governance mechanisms are disrupted by either sort of change.
However, law suits may take a swing upward in an economic downturn, but large upswings in overall legal activity seem to depend on economic growth.
The essential factor in explaining the growth of legal activity is simply social or economic change that puts into question the rights and duties of persons toward one another, thereby creating demand for normative ordering to settle the uncertainty.
6. Greater Diversity in the Population. - Greater diversity in the population leads to more and new regulations.
Multiculturalism has produced more law and increased consumer demand for specialized services of lawyers.
Being the economic superpower of the world, the USA has attracted massive annual immigrations of professionals and skilled workers of different ethnic origins.
This has led to major initiatives in immigration law, social security law, medicare law, labor law, tax law, criminal law, and administrative regulation, all of which, in turn, had increased the demand for more legal services.
7. Greater Involvement in Complex, Formal Organizations. - When economic activity or, for that matter, any other human activity, is carried out by a large formal organization (such as a business corporation, a nonprofit corporation, or a government agency), it will more frequently make sense to hire a lawyer to engage in normative ordering rather than to have nonspecialists do it.
This is because there are economies of scale in performing the kind of tasks that lawyers do.
After some threshold level, when an organization is large enough, using specialists in normative ordering, that is, lawyers make economic sense.
The work of lawyers can often create an increase in real economic well-being by reducing transaction costs.
The work of lawyers are not essentially restricted to assisting in zero-sum games.
Their work is not parasitic and wealth-consuming or wealth-destroying.
Normative ordering often makes people better off, and it often leads to a net increase in well-being.
From 1967 to 1987, the portion of the receipts of the legal services industry contributed by businesses increased from 39 percent to 51 percent, while the share purchased by individuals dropped from 55 percent to 42 percent.
In the 80s, corporations accounted for 88 percent of business receipts.
Although the litigation explosion is blamed on greedy tort plaintiffs and their avaricious lawyers, the fact is that from 1960 to 1988, there has been a disproportionate increase in the extent to which litigation in federal courts is comprised of businesses suing one another in disputes arising out of their contractual dealings, intellectual property claims, and similar matters.
AMERICAN LEGAL EDUCATION
Overview
An American law student enters law school, for a three-year Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) program, only after having received an undergraduate degree, which can be in any discipline.
Until the 1900s, the predominant model of US legal education was the apprenticeship model.
In 1879 the American Bar Association (ABA) advocated legal education through professional law schools rather that the apprenticeship model.
Modern US law schools have become committed to practical skills training, and there has been a burgeoning of courses in legal research and writing, advanced drafting, and trial, pre-trial, and appellate practice, and in law school clinics and externship programs.
(See: Toni M. Fine, AUS Legal Education: A Model for Japanese Education Reform?, Waseda Proceedings of Comparative Law, Vol. 3 [2000], Tokyo: Institute of Comparative Law, Waseda University, pp. 51-93).
There are two requirements for a license to practice law in the USA.
First is a showing of competence.
This is satisfied by a showing that a person holds a JD degree from an ABA-approved law school, and by achieving a passing grade on a state’s bar exam.
Most states administer a two-day bar exam.
One day is devoted to the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), a standardized multiple choice exam which tests six areas of law: Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts.
The other day of testing involves essays on a wider range of topics.
Most states also require the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), consisting of multiple choice questions on legal ethics and professional responsibility.
More and more states are including a practice component in which the examinee is given a case file and asked either to answer questions about the file or prepare a specific document involving the case file. (id., at p. 82, citing John Caher, “Skills Test Added to New York Bar Exam”, New York Law Journal, March 2, 2000; cf. www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/baradmission).
The national average passage rate in US bar exams in 1998 was 70 percent.
The state with the lowest pass rate is California, about 51 percent.
Utah and New Mexico have the highest pass rate, around 90 percent. (id.).
Qualification to practice in any one particular state is limited to that state alone.
In order to practice in another state, one must either petition a court for an order allowing pro hac vice appearance before the court or must be admitted to the bar of that state. (32 Am. Jur. 2d Federal Courts section 6333 [1995]).
Some states have reciprocal agreements so that a license to practice in one state entitles one to petition for a license to practice in another state without having to take the bar exam.
The requirements differ from state to state. (id., at p. 83, Notes 106-107, cf. www.abanet.org/legaled/publications/compguideonline/cgchart10.html, July 6, 2000).
Straight lecture method so common in Japan and many other countries is virtually unheard of in the US.
The Langdell method, devised by Christopher Columbus Langdell, Dean of the Harvard Law School in the late 19th century, is the most common teaching method in all US law schools.
It is based on a scientific study of appellate court cases.
It involves a Socratic dialogue between student and professor, during which the student would be asked to present the case, answer questions about the decision, and respond to hypothetical questions posed by the professor. (id., at pp. 57-58).
There have been certain changes in the teaching methods in US law schools.
The reading of case law is no longer the exclusive method of teaching US law.
While the case law method is still prevalent in US law schools, faculty members more and more are integrating problem-oriented approaches with the reading of case law, as reflected in the changing nature of course materials.
The Socratic method, often decried as being humiliating and isolating to students and thus counterproductive, has taken a new dimension, with many law professors adopting a more humane approach that involves dialogue rather than a rigid, authoritarian model of inquiry. (id., at pp. 58-59).
Seminar classes, which are smaller classes about a specialized subject matter, have become increasingly popular in US law schools.
Law classes traditionally were held in large lecture halls with as many as 100 students. While large classes are still very common, seminars are growing in use.
Rather than engaging in a Socratic dialogue, seminars tend to rely on discussions among the students and the faculty.
Individual students may be required to make presentations to the class.
Students are often required to write papers for a seminar course rather than take the typical in-class exam. (id.).
US Law Curricula
There are fewer required courses (basic, doctrinal courses) than ever before, and a greater number of specialized courses are available, especially for upper-class students, which include interdisciplinary courses, courses that tend toward the theoretical, courses with a global focus, and courses that are skills-based.
The first year program generally includes contracts, civil procedure, criminal law, property, torts, and a course in legal research and writing.
A handful of US law schools have experimented with changes in their curricula by allowing first-year law students to select one elective, or have begun to interpose international, foreign or comparative elements into the first-year core courses.
Most US law schools now require that students take Constitutional Law and Professional Responsibility, and many require that students complete a significant written work before they are awarded a JD degree.
Students largely are able to shape their own curriculum for the final two years of law school. (id., at pp. 50-60).
More and more courses are interdisciplinary in nature, with a focus on law and economics, philosophy, social sciences, or history, for example.
Law schools in the past 10 years or so have also begun to teach about the different movements in law, such as public choice theory, critical legal studies, critical race, and feminist scholarship.
There are myriad courses that are global in nature, meaning that they deal with foreign, comparative and/or international areas of law.
Some courses at US law schools either teach the legal language of another country or region, or are offered in foreign languages, recognizing the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity in the global marketplace. (id., at pp. 60-61).
Skills courses have also taken an extraordinary importance in US legal education in recent years.
Legal research and writing courses are now required as part of the first year curriculum at every US law school.
Clinical legal education has also taken an extraordinary importance.
Clinical courses are generally imbued with public purpose, e.g., criminal defense, public benefits, juvenile rights, family law, elder law, human rights, criminal prosecution, and endless other topics in the public interest.
Clinics generally combine in-class simulated client and, often, live client components.
More advanced clinics allow students to represent clients in court or in some other advocacy context.
Many state court practice rules contain specific provisions that allow student representation when the student is closely supervised. (id., at pp. 61-62).
In the matter of law school admissions, it should be noted that in the USA an applicant’s undergraduate grade point average and his score on the standardized law school admission test (the Law School Admission Test or LSAT) are the most important factors used by the law schools in making admissions decisions. (id., at pp. 88-89).
In the matter of accreditation of US law schools, the American Bar Association (ABA) is the law school accreditation body.
The ABA is not a government organization.
It is accepted by the US Department of Education as the nationally recognized accrediting agency for US law schools.
Established in 1878, the ABA had long been devoted to improving legal education in the USA.
In 1921 the ABA adopted a statement of minimum standards for legal education and published a list of law schools that complied with those standards. In time, this became the ABA accreditation process.
The ABA initiated the formation of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) in 1900.
The AALS is the learned society for law school professors and top-level administration. (id., at pp. 89-90).
Law Faculty
US law professors tended to have little or no practice training, although this may be changing slightly.
Law professors are also becoming more diverse in their experience there are more law school professors with social sciences backgrounds, advanced degrees in fields other than law, and even significant business or other industry experience. (id., at p. 63).
As the old adage publish or perish suggests, law professors are under tremendous professional pressure to write.
Scholarship has become the most important factor in the determination of tenure, promotion, and other measures of advancement. (id., at p. 64, citing “Report of the AALS Special Committee on Tenure and the Tenuring Process”, 42 J. Legal Educ. 477 [1992]).
In the past, law review articles dealt with issues of practical importance, but today have swung far towards the more theoretical and jurisprudential.
Modern legal scholarship has been highly criticized for being of little use to anyone except law professors, who use the articles primarily to rate the author for job selection, tenure decision, and other faculty benefits. (id., at pp. 64-65, citing Kenneth Lasson, "Scholarship Amok: Excesses in the Pursuit of Truth and Tenure”, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 926 [1990]).
Nowadays, US law professors are far more diverse and include substantial numbers of women and minorities.
There is also a growing number of professors in US law schools from abroad.
There are many more law professors who are known as activist lawyers or lawyers who otherwise have high name recognition.
These professors are often touted to attract students and funding to the law school. (id., at p. 65, citing W. Frank Newton and James Eissenger, “Something Old, Something Borrowed, Something New: Law Schools of the Future”, 63 Tex. B.J. 32 [2000]).
Law professors earn substantially less than their counterparts in private practice@. One 2000 study found that law professors earned >an average of $102,513.00 at private institutions and approximately $98,829.00 at public institutions@. (id., at p. 66, citing Today’s Update News@, NY Law Journal, May 3, 2000; "In Focus: What Lawyers Earn", National Law Journal, June 14, 1999).
There are certain fringe benefits to law teaching.
Some are intangible, such as the extraordinary flexibility in scheduling one’s work day.
There are tangible benefits, such as attractive subsidized housing or other forms of remuneration.
There are also benefits that promote scholarship.
These include sabbaticals, paid research assistants, research leaves, research grants, modern electronic aids, and librarian assistance.
Law professors, schedules often allow them time to pursue lucrative projects outside of the law school: in law firms, consulting, and book writing@. (id., at pp. 66-67, citing Clark Byse, “Fifty Years of Legal Education”, 71 Iowa L. Rev. 1063 [1986]).
Probably the most valuable benefit available within the US legal academe is tenure.
After several years of teaching and producing scholarly work, an associate or assistant professor may be awarded job security for life.
Law teaching today is a far more popular career path than it was years ago. (id., at p. 67, citing Andrew Popper, “The Uneasy Integration of Adjunct Teachers into American Legal Education”, 47 J. Legal Educ. 83 [1997]).
Most law schools employ adjunct faculty.
Adjuncts are part-time instructors who come to campus to teach one or more courses per semester.
They are often private practitioners, public interest attorneys, or jurists.
The presence of adjunct faculty members allow law schools to offer a wider range of courses and
provide an element of practical experience that full-time professors are often unable to offer.
Adjuncts for the most part are not well paid, at least as compared with their full-time faculty.
In recent years, efforts have been intensified to ensure the high quality and a level of professionalism@ on the part of law school adjuncts. (id., at p. 68, citing Karen L. Tokarz, “A Manual for Law Schools on Adjunct Faculty”76 Wash. U.L.Q. 293 [1998]).
Faculty committees exist in most US law schools to assist the deans.
The faculty committees are charged with responsibility for specific administrative duties: admissions, financial aid, curriculum, faculty hiring and recruitment, student discipline, faculty discipline, etc..
Students in most law schools are given membership on committees that most directly involve student matters and issues of student interests. (id., at p. 69, citing Byse, supra).
Law Schools: Funding, Competition, and Marketing.
Tuition has increased significantly in US law schools.
However, law schools need to raise more and more money to develop academic programs and physical plant.
Tuition alone is not sufficient for most law schools to operate.
Donations account for about 20 percent of the budgets of US law schools.
Law schools now have professional development and fund raising offices which are responsible for the fund raising activities of the school.
Law deans also take on a major role in fund raising; some see fund raising as the dean’s primary responsibility.
Major targets of fund raising efforts are law school alumni, foundations, professional associations, law firms, and other philanthropic groups and individuals.
Naming or the designation of a program or space to a person or institution greatly stimulates contributions to a law school.
Concerns have been raised about the possibility that big donors may influence academic content and the fact that only the big law schools, because of their popularity, receive the bulk of the donations. (id., at pp. 70-71, citing Deirdre Shesgreen, “Law Firms are Shelling Out Big bucks to Law Schools, Raising Concerns About Undue Influence”, Legal Times, Jan. 27, 1997; Scott Medintz and John E. Morris, “When Your Alma Mater Comes a Callin”, American Law, Feb. 1996, p. 18; and Kenneth Pye, “Legal Education in an Era of Change: The Challenge”, 1987 Duke L.J. 191).
Law schools have become marketing entities and are extremely competitive in recruiting students and professors.
They are also competitive as to their informal rankings. While there are no formal rankings, there are several private services that purport to determine the prestige and quality of all ABA-approved law schools.
The most dominant of the law school ratings is that published each spring by the US News and World Report.
The American Association of Law Schools (AALS) has questioned the validity of such informal ratings. (id., at pp. 71-72).
Cost of Legal Education
Tuition for one year at a US law school can exceed $28,000.00 at private law schools and $25,000.00 at publicly funded schools, or $19,000.00 for in-state students.
It has been estimated that a student will need more than $125,000.00 to pursue a three-year law degree.
Between 1979 and 1995, law school tuition nearly quadrupled. (id., at p. 72, citing Evelyn Apgar, “New Jersey Law School Tuition Soars”, New Jersey Lawyer, Jan. 10, 2000; William P. Hoye, “How To Finance a Career in Public Interest Law”, National Law Journal, August 1994).
Majority of US law students finance their education through loans, some of which are backed by the US Government. Students may receive up to $18,500.00 in federally guaranteed loans. (id., at p. 72-73, citing Ann Davis, “Graduate Debt Burden Grows”, National Law Journal, May 22, 1995).
Some law schools have loan forgiveness programs under which students that work in public service jobs after law school are not required to pay back some specified portion of their loans.
The programs are designed to remove some of the disincentives from entering the public service.
In 1988, US law schools awarded $276,619,382.00 in scholarships.
There was an increase of 199 percent from 1988 to 1999 in the amount of grants and scholarships awarded by US law schools. (id., at p. 74, citing Ed Finkel, “Three Law Schools Offering Financial Aid”, Chicago Lawyer, October 1994, p. 77; Lewis A. Kornhauser and Richard L. Revesz, “A Legal Education and Entry into the Legal Profession”, 70 NYU Law Review 829 [1995]; and cf. www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/grants [July 5, 2000]).
Summer employment (summer associates in law firms) for upper year law students is lucrative.
Summer associates’ salaries in 2000 was $20,000.00 for a 10-week summer. (id., at p. 75, citing Sahara Stone, “Salary Hikes Benefit Summer Associates”, NY Law Journal, June 5, 2000, p. 7; Barry Glassman, “Taking the Long View”, Legal Times, May 29, 2000, p. 36).
In 1999, there were 125,184 JD students and 5,889 post-JD students enrolled in ABA-approved law schools. (id, at p. 75, Note 88, cf. www.abanet.org/legaled/statistics/miscstats, July 5, 2000).
In 2000, the average law school graduate put up about 16 percent of his salary into law school debt payments. (id., citing Ann Davis, “Graduate Debt Burden Grows”, National Law Journal, May 22, 1995).
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