What will the next generation of criminal defense lawyers look like?

No, I’m not talking about their race or gender.  Only rich, elite corporate clients care about such things.  My clients, on the other hand, don’t care about my skin color or whether I run a BIPOC-compliant operation.  Rather, they want to know if I can draft and argue a motion to dismiss, negotiate a favorable plea deal, and, most importantly, effectively try a case to a jury.

Instead, the question I’m asking is this: What will the next generation of criminal defense lawyers look like in the courtroom?  Unfortunately, law schools are doing their best to turn out lawyers who are as sensitive and fragile as humanly possible.  It almost seems as if it’s their primary goal to do so.

For example, when Trump won the election in 2016, students at U. Michigan Law School started to go apoplectic.  The school’s response should have been: “Calm down. If you can’t even deal with your preferred political candidate losing an election, you won’t be able to handle practicing law—especially litigation, and especially criminal law.”  But rather than using that commonsense response, the fragility industrial complex swung into action and created a “safe space” for their soon-to-be-practicing lawyers to deal with the trauma of Trump.  The safe space had bubbles and play dough.  I kid you not.

And what about in the classroom?  When I went to Marquette Law a quarter-century ago, students had to be prepared for every class.  You had to walk in with an understanding of the assigned material.  If you didn’t know which end was up, you could get called on and be embarrassed in front of everyone.  (And, if it happened more than once, it could hurt your grade.)  The obvious solution to this potentially stressful situation was to be prepared for every class.  Problem solved.  Literally, the solution was preparation.  But today?  Some students don’t want to work anymore.  As one litigator and law school lecturer learned when visiting another law school recently, here’s how it plays out today (emphasis added):

A student had a tri-folded cardboard name tag in front of him. No big deal, I thought, in a big class professors might need those and while I don’t use first names many of my colleagues do.

 

Then he explained there are three colors: green for willing to talk, yellow for being on the cusp of being willing to talk, and red for not being prepared.  I was stunned — the idea of a law school class where students could opt out of being called on!  Judges don’t let you put up the red light when you don’t want to answer.

 

I can’t quite put my finger on the causation. Do law students demand to be treated like fragile children or do law faculty start treating them that way? Either way what a joke—in practice the vast majority of the class stays on yellow.

That is almost unbelievable.  If I hadn’t first read about the fragility at Michigan Law, I wouldn’t have believed what I was reading.

Things are looking bleak, to be sure.  And to put a capper on this post, here is what’s happening at Michigan State Law School, courtesy of one of my favorite websites, the College Fix.  The MSU Spartan logo—which is a symbol of school spirit, the last B1G (Big Ten) national championship in college basketball, and a great team in the greatest sport of all time, college football—is being removed from all law school marketing materials.  Why?  Because it could be a trigger for would-be students who have been sexually assaulted.  Here’s how you say it in academic-speak:

More trauma-informed intentionality with respect to marketing materials and admissions events: removing the MSU helmet and providing sufficient physical space at events to be mindful of potential triggers for survivors of sexual assault.

Seriously, I now think that people are just making things up while smoking pot.  If not, then my earlier phrase, the fragility industrial complex, is appropriate. (Yes, I coined that, and I want credit; I’m “streets ahead.”)

But if the Spartan logo really “triggers” you, then for your own good, and for the good of would-be, prospective, future criminal-defense clients, please do not go to law school.  And if you do go to law school, do not go into criminal defense.  There will be prosecutors and judges.  It is a highly adversarial system.  And the abuse, irrationality, and “triggering events” that await will be intolerable for you.  You will be miserable, if not frozen in panic and inaction, and the MSU Spartan logo will, by comparison, look like a peaceful field of lilies.

For the rest of you, it’s not too late.  Just go home, read my article on Stoicism for defense lawyers, take that whiskey bottle “halfway to the label,” and put the day’s events behind you.  Tomorrow is another day, and the battle starts anew.