Professor Stephen Gillers of NYU urged Lippman to proceed with caution, but Randall Milch, general counsel at Verizon Communications Inc., said there is danger in delay.
"Analysis paralysis is our worst enemy here," he said. "If we are going to overanalyze, we're never going to figure this out. In my opinion, we have to move and see what happens."
Professor Stephen Sheppard of the University of Arkansas School of Law said he thought the panel was stacked with supporters of the two-year option. He argued in a letter to Lippman that the 3L year allows students to take advanced courses and participate in extracurricular activities, including law journals.
"Market pressures and a race to the bottom in legal preparation would erode what consumer protection for clients the law degree now assures," he wrote.
Judge Victoria Graffeo (See Profile) of the New York Court of Appeals told the audience that she wants to hear more.
"We are very pleased to be here and I think it's a most interesting discussion," she said. "There is more we need to look at and investigate."
@|Karen Sloan, a reporter for The National Law Journal, an affiliate, can be reached at ksloan@alm.com. Tania Karas, a staff reporter for the New York Law Journal, contributed to this report.
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Larry Cary
So lets see, in an already dismal job market for law graduates the solution to the problem is to allow law schools to produce more law graduates by cutting the lengh of study down to two years. I see how that solves the problem!?
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steve
The cost of law school is a big problem. An even bigger problem is that there are roughly two law school graduates for every one legal job opening. Something needs to be done to bring graduating class sizes into alignment with employment opportunies. At the very least, the ABA should not accredit any new law schools while this situation persists.
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