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&lt;p&gt;Of all the key institutional players in the legal ecosystem &amp;mdash; law firms, clients, law schools &amp;mdash; it is the law schools that might be most averse to change &amp;mdash; at least in the opinion of Adam Smith, Esq. (a/k/a Bruce MacEwen). The role of law schools &amp;ldquo;in selecting, grooming and &amp;lsquo;certifying&amp;rsquo; our talent pipeline&amp;rdquo; is profound, AS argues in a provocative blog post today &amp;mdash; as is their responsibility for contributing to an untenable &amp;ldquo;arms race, which ends up leaving all involved impoverished and none better off.&amp;rdquo; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As part of a &amp;ldquo;terrible bargain that many schools struck during the boom years [ca. 1980 &amp;ndash; September 15, 2008],&amp;rdquo; law schools, &lt;i&gt;US News &amp;amp; World Report&lt;/i&gt; and law students have become engaged in a vicious cycle: In an effort to boost their &lt;i&gt;US News ranking&lt;/i&gt;, law schools increase the amount they spend per student, which requires them to increase the tuition they charge per student, &amp;ldquo;leaving graduates with more and more student loan debt &amp;mdash; which was OK so long as jobs were plentiful at BigLaw starting at salaries of $160,000.&amp;rdquo; However, as we all know, $160K BigLaw jobs are now far from plentiful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;AS chides law schools for their &amp;ldquo;misbehavior,&amp;rdquo; but has little expectation that they will change (&amp;ldquo;There&amp;rsquo;s one massively important reason to fear they will be the last to implement any serious reforms attempting to bring their operational practices into line with the New Normal.&amp;nbsp;I offer you one word:&amp;nbsp;Tenure.&amp;rdquo;). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the absence of meaningful reform, however, we can at least require meaningful disclosure. Students who take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt for a law school education should have a realistic sense of their employment prospects. AS, therefore, offers a &amp;ldquo;modest proposal,&amp;rdquo; based on the SEC&amp;rsquo;s Rule 10b-5 (which, inter alia, prohibits the making of misleading statements or the omission of material facts in connection with the purchase or sale of a security). Under AS&amp;rsquo;s proposed &amp;ldquo;10b-5 Oath,&amp;rdquo; each law school would pledge to disclose:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;li type=&quot;disc&quot;&gt;Employment by sector (see AS post for detailed list of categories, from BigLaw to business to government to unemployment); &lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li type=&quot;disc&quot;&gt;For all its alumni &amp;mdash; as of graduation, and on the first, third and fifth anniversaries of their graduation; &lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li type=&quot;disc&quot;&gt;Average student debt load at graduation. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Would such &amp;ldquo;full and fair disclosure&amp;rdquo; enable the market to &amp;ldquo;exercise its discipline,&amp;rdquo; as AS suggests? Perhaps. In any case, it&amp;rsquo;s hard to argue that access to such information would &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; benefit students. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, the gauntlet&amp;nbsp;is thrown &amp;mdash; will any brave deans take it up?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;- posted by vera&lt;/p&gt;

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