by Sophia Vitter
According to the results of a recent survey of law students conducted by the Buckley Institute, about two in three law students believe that social justice is more important than obtaining a favorable outcome for a client.
This national survey of 232 law students were asked the question: “Thinking about when you first started practicing law, which do you think is more important: ensuring that the client you represent wins or obtains a favorable outcome, or ensuring that the work you do contributes to a more socially just and equal legal system?”
Sixty-nine percent of respondents chose a “socially just” outcome, while only 28 percent chose a “winning” outcome, and the rest, three percent, were unsure.
Lauren Noble, founder and executive director of the Buckley Institute, called the findings “most disturbing for future law firms.” These future lawyers “care more about social justice than they do about delivering favorable outcomes for their potential clients,” she said. he said in a press release.
Future lawyers were also asked whether criminal law practitioners should show special compassion for perpetrators, because they often face arduous circumstances and systemic injustices, or whether they should show special compassion for victims “because the rule of law is paramount and people are entitled to basic rights to safety and security.”
The results showed that around half (53%) named the victims, but a significant proportion (29%) named the perpetrators, and another 19% were unsure.
When respondents were divided by ideology, the enormous majority of conservatives and Republicans sided with the victims, while law students who identified as liberals or Democrats sided with the perpetrators.
“What was particularly alarming was that a majority or near majority of progressive students believe that social justice requires more sympathy for criminals than for the victims of their crimes, echoing policies that progressive district attorneys are pushing in big cities,” Ari Schaffer, communications director at the Buckley Institute, told the Post in an email. College Repair.
The online survey was conducted between April 25 and May 25, and its results were published in delayed June.
It also found that 54 percent of law students believe the LSAT is “an unfair way to evaluate prospective law students and should be omitted from the admissions process.” Another 57 percent also found the bar exam unfair.
The survey also asked about issues of freedom of speech and academic freedom.
A third of respondents admitted that they felt intimidated sharing their opinions in class because they differed from their professors’ views, and 50 percent said they often felt intimidated sharing their opinions in class because they differed from their peers’ views.
In both cases, students who identified as Republicans were more likely to say they felt intimidated to share their opinions.
“There has always been an underlying current of censorship on campus, but in recent years we have seen it reach new heights,” Schaffer said. Repair.
“Although law school students do better on free speech than their undergraduate counterparts, it is not surprising that the more progressive a student is, the more likely he is to support censorship of his classmates.”
We have been contacted for comment. College Repair The American Bar Association commented on the survey results Repair to your up-to-date one accreditation standard 208.
Approved earlier this yearthis standard requires law schools to “adopt, publish, and maintain written policies that protect academic freedom.”
Law schools must protect “the right of faculty, students, and staff to communicate ideas that may be controversial or unpopular, including through vigorous debate, demonstration, or protest,” the document states.
Schaffer said concerns about free speech have emerged on campuses in recent years.
“Yale and other prominent law schools have experienced cries and calls for censorship, led by this small but vocal minority of censoring, progressive students,” he said. “The law school leadership has done little to stop this disruption, emboldening the disruptors to demand greater restrictions on the speech that upsets them.”
Examples include March 2022 Incident in which “a Yale student panel on free speech was drowned out by progressives outraged by one of the conservative speakers on the panel.”
He also recalled the recent riots at the law school. Stanford AND University of California, Hastings.
Schaffer said the administration encouraged these violations of free speech, and at Yale University, “those who jammed the Free Speech Committee were not punished at all.”
“As more universities impose increasingly lenient sentences on those who occupy campuses, block traffic or otherwise threaten fellow students in protest against Israel, the problem will only get worse,” he said.
“Directors of law schools, and universities more broadly, must understand that by catering to the demands of a censorship and destructive minority, they are sacrificing the interests of the majority of their students,” he said.
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College Fix contributor Sophia Vitter is a senior at the University of Calgary, where she is majoring in international relations. She grew up just outside Washington, D.C., where she became interested in global affairs and politics.
Photo “Faculty of Law” by Yale Law School.
