Affordable law school in our best interest

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/01/2016 (2631 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Concern over an increase in the cost of tuition for law school is unlikely to find much sympathy outside law students and lawyers. It’s safe to say lawyers aren’t seen as a particularly vulnerable group. The quiet discussion about raising tuition at the University of Manitoba’s faculty of law hasn’t faced much scrutiny outside the confines of the school itself, but the consequences of an increase have implications for all Manitobans.

A number of factors have conspired over the last few years (primarily pressure from the university’s administration to cut costs) to create a situation in which a significant increase in tuition was deemed necessary by administrators. The most recent proposal would take tuition from approximately $10,000 to $16,000 over three years. This is a big jump for students who are already often walking away with more than $100,000 of debt.

In 2013, the National Self-Represented Litigants Project reported that in many courts, more than 50 per cent of people are navigating the legal system without a lawyer. Canada’s top judge, Beverley McLachlin, has referred to this lack of access to justice as a “crisis.”

A 2013 Canadian Bar Association report on unrepresented litigants paints the distressing picture of a large number of working Canadians (with incomes as high as $60,000) not able to afford legal counsel, with its attendant consequences.

But what does increased law school tuition have to do with the increased number of “self-reps”? Why should we worry about the cost of going to law school? Aren’t these students the future lawyers that are pricing themselves out of the average citizen’s reach? In fact, it seems clear the cost of legal education has a great deal to do with the crisis in access to justice.

The cost of a legal education encourages more and more students to focus on areas of the law that are the most profitable, or forgo practising law at all. This leaves key areas of public interest where lawyers are most needed — such as family law, public interest litigation, civil litigation and criminal law — under-serviced.

The idea that has justified increasing tuition in law schools is the perception law school remains a “golden ticket” for those admitted. The assumption is once a student is admitted to law school, they’re on their way to life in the upper-middle class. This is increasingly not the case for many young lawyers, who find themselves struggling to pay student loans, competing with out-of-province and out-of-country graduates for the limited number of articling spots at firms. The consequences are clear: higher rates of young lawyers are dropping out of the profession, taking their legal training and using it in another field.

The stress of trying to earn a living as a lawyer, while paying off student loans, buying a home and starting a family, have become increasingly unrealistic. The debt students take on when going to law school also makes starting their own small firms almost impossible. But tuition keeps increasing because of a belief it doesn’t matter.

How do we reverse this trend? Law schools need to do a better job of advocating for the public benefit lawyers provide. There’s both a moral imperative and a business case for the value of lawyers.

Ensuring access to justice through the provision of affordable legal services is surely essential to our commitment to the rule of law. And providing timely and affordable legal services also makes good financial sense. Whether it’s ensuring the court process runs smoothly (self-reps worsen delays and cost the system more) or ensuring small business get affordable legal advice early rather than winging it and then having to pay when they get into legal trouble down the road, there are practical reasons to want legal advice available at an affordable cost.

Law schools will tell you they need the money to fund their programming, but they ask students to bear the costs without making a case to governments and the public about why lawyers serve the public interest. There is a reason medical school tuition is cheaper in Manitoba than law school despite the fact a law school is less expensive to operate. The medical profession has effectively made a case that training a doctor is in the public interest. The legal profession has not made the same case about training future lawyers.

With debt from law school as high as it is, few students support an increase in tuition. They need their professors, their administrators and the rest of the legal profession to speak up on their behalf and make the case for the role of lawyers in our communities. In Manitoba, the Code of Professional Conduct says a lawyer must encourage public respect for and try to improve the administration of justice. There are few better ways to uphold this directive than by ensuring legal education is affordable.

 

Ben Wickstrom, formerly the director of legislative affairs for the NDP government, is studying law at the University of Manitoba.