Editor’s note: On January 11, 2013, regular Am Law Daily contributor Steven J. Harper weighed in on Case Western Reserve University School of Law dean Lawrence Mitchell’s recent interview with Bloomberg Law. Here, frequent contributor Matt Leichter offers his take on Mitchell’s latest media foray.
In November 2012, The New York Times published an op-ed in which Case Western Reserve University School of Law dean Lawrence Mitchell defended the value of a law degree. The piece was not well received because it disregarded inconvenient, contrary facts. For example, Mitchell cited the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook‘s projection that lawyer job growth between 2010 and 2020 would be “about as fast as the average for all occupations,” but omitted the Handbook’s next sentence, which plainly states, “Competition for jobs should continue to be strong because more students are graduating from law school each year than there are jobs available.”
