Posted on 01/18/2015 4:48:39 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
There is no shortage of lawyers on Capitol Hill — they comprise 45 percent of the 114th Congress. But unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, whose nine justices hail from just three elite law schools, a state school law degree won't hamper and may even smooth the way to the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate.
The sitting crop of lawyer-lawmakers passed through 105 law campuses on their way to Washington. The 20 law schools that sent the most alumni to Congress include some of the country's most prominent — Harvard Law School tops the list with 18, followed by Georgetown University Law Center with 13; the University of Texas School of Law with seven; and the University of Virginia School of Law and Yale Law School with six each.
But there are plenty of surprises outside the top five. St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio is unranked by U.S. News & World Report yet claims among its alumni three members of Congress.
By contrast, Stanford Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School — each ranked among the top 10 law schools by U.S. News — have one alumnus each in Congress, according to data compiled by the law librarians at Georgetown and verified by The National Law Journal. Of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 160 are occupied by lawyers. Of the 100 senators, 54 have law degrees.
"I think it's very valuable that you have a range of people from all different law schools, from schools that are thought of as national law schools to schools that are thought of as state law schools," said Georgetown Law dean William Treanor. "It's important to have different perspectives in Congress. It really adds a lot to the mix."
More than half of the top 20 Congressional feeder law schools are public institutions with strong regional reputations that supply large portions of their home states' congressional delegations. For example, the University of Alabama School of Law, the University of Kentucky College of Law and the University of South Carolina School of Law each have four alumni in Congress, all representing the states where they studied law.
U.S. Rep. Andy Barr (left), a Republican 2001 graduate of Kentucky Law, credits a strong alumni network with helping position the school's graduates for leadership. "Not only did I receive a great legal education there, but you meet a lot of people who end up practicing all over the commonwealth of Kentucky and you develop those personal and professional relationships," Barr said. "You continue that throughout your career."
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law is another example of a regional school that serves as a pipeline into Congress. It has four alumni serving there, comprising more than one-third of Indiana's delegation.
McKinney is in an ideal position to produce leaders as the only law school in the capital city of Indianapolis and more than 80 percent of its students come from within the state, dean Andy Klein said. The school has a robust law and state government program, each year placing between 40 and 50 students in externships within state government, he said.
BUILDING NETWORKS
"We train more than 50 percent of the lawyers who practice in the state of Indiana," Klein said. "Our connection to state government and our exclusivity in the capital city means that our graduates hold leadership positions in Washington and throughout the state." In addition to its three House members and U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, also a Republican, Indiana McKinney can claim the governor, attorney general and three of five state Supreme Court justices as alumni.
McKinney works hard to keep alumni involved and invites them back to campus to help inspire the next generation of students, said U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks, a Republican who graduated in 1985 and now serves on the law school's board of visitors.
"Those that graduate, I would say, were always encouraged to give back to law students and to provide them with opportunities," Brooks said. "I've hired a lot of law students as interns in every position I've had. I created an internship program within my congressional office at home for law students."
While delivering McKinney's commencement address last year, Brooks encouraged students to keep in contact with the school and their classmates because they're likely to become the next wave of Indiana leaders.
Once a school has established a pipeline into elected office, it becomes much more attractive to students harboring political ambitions, Treanor said. And no law school has been more effective than Harvard in graduating future members of Congress. Even accounting Harvard's relatively large class size, it still edges out the smaller Yale Law School by percentage of alumni in Congress.
The Senate in particular is laden with alumni from elite law schools — 16 percent of the upper house's members went to either Harvard, Yale or Georgetown.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for example, is a Harvard alumnus. He told The Boston Globe in 2013 that his time there focused his political views and taught him how to spar with liberals. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., graduated from Yale Law.
He told the Yale Law Report in 2008: "What Yale does is create an environment where if you are a focused, disciplined person — whatever your passion is: the environment, human rights, corporate law, constitutional law, you name it, whatever it is — if you have a passion, and you are a self-starter you can create an experience for yourself that is not only empowering but is also liberating."
Georgetown's Washington location is a draw for students interested in government and elected office, Treanor said.
"I was talking the other day to somebody who is applying, and she said she wanted to study in the place where laws are made," he said. "People who are interested in government and the way it works are likely to choose Georgetown. And their experience here — when they see the excitement of Washington and the government — gets them to think that maybe this is a career they want to pursue."
Texas' large size and 36 congressional districts provide opportunities for alumni of the state's flagship University of Texas School of Law to seek federal office. Texas Law alumni represent seven of those districts.
Whether the prevalence of lawyers in Congress is a good thing has long been debated — should lawmakers come from a wider range of professions? Barr argues that a foundation in the law offers unique benefits.
"I can tell you that in the debates we have in committee and on the floor, our legal training is very helpful," he said. "We've taken depositions, argued motions in court and learned how to formulate arguments and communicate those arguments. Congress is a place where there is a battle of ideas, and it helps us to persuade and advocate for our position."
And the lawyers in Congress arrived from many different career paths within the profession, Brooks said. She pointed to the lawyers in Indiana's delegation who have worked in private practice, as federal prosecutors and as Indiana's secretary of state, among other jobs. One — Coats — served as U.S. ambassador to Germany.
That said, serving in Washington with three other McKinney alumni has its perks, Brooks said. "It does add a bit of camaraderie among our delegation," she said. "We all passed through those doors."
The entrenched and incestuous relationship between lawyers and the machinery of government is precisely why this country is going down the crapper.
Well put and true.
Lawyers usually tell you what you can’t do, not what is possible. They are not a creative or very productive profession. Ideally they should not be the majority of legislators.
Judging by the caliber of those in Congress, that is not a badge of honor.
The great patriot and tax rebel Irwin Schiff wrote that legislators should surrender their law licenses upon taking the oath of office.
He believed that practicing lawyers are part of the judiciary, and so have no place in the legislature.
well said
I don’t belive this is something to be proud of. These graduates have sent the country down the crapper.
The Bible, Shakespeare, and the Book of Mormon, among other sources, share at least one thing in common. They all have similiar insights about Lawyers
Saint Paul was a lawyer.
Paul studied under the great Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem...when one says he studied the Biblical Law, that is what any Jewish believer studies (what we now call the Hebrew scriptures or the Old Testament). Like going to a good Christian Bible class with a highly revered teacher.
Insofar as what he practiced for a living, however, see Acts 18. I believe he was a tent-maker. And given his travel schedule, tent-making might support him OK but trying to practice as an attorney of Biblical Law ...in Turkey, Greece, and Rome... would not have worked for him, anyway.
IMHO.
Best, regard,
Lincoln was a lawyer.
And he suspended habeas corpus.
Harvard, Yale, Georgetown — there’s our problem right there.
We need a Congress full of engineers. Analytical, no-nonsense, practical, can-do types. Unfortunately, all engineers are too smart to run for Congress.
And Barry Soetoro was a law professor. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)
Another good reason to ban lawyers from the legislature.
Where is the eloquence of a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson, or even of a Reagan?
The very nature of the "miracle at Philadelphia" was one of passionate defense of liberty for future generations, selflessness in the face of danger to the personal life and property of the participants, and of a greater interest in the lives and liberties of countrymen than in the careers of themselves.
We pray that Divine Providence will send such leaders for this critical moment in America's history!
Perhaps leaders in Washington today might consider Jefferson's description of how he and his contemporaries in the early days approached matters of interest for the new nation:
Thomas Jefferson:
"Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, he asked how I could sit in silence hearing so much false reasoning which a word should refute? I observed to him that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible. That in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general I was willing to listen. If every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was enough: if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without going into a repetition of what had been already said by others. That this was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the house which could not be justified. And I believe that if the members of deliberative bodies were to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a week, and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte's dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150. lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected."
So was John Adams.
You got it...
As if the schools putting out more lawyers who then become politicians have done anything help this country.
What exactly is the point of the article?
Well, you have to know the correct way to open your opponents sealed divorce records and use them to torpedo his candidacy. It's the liberal way!
So there ya have it. The whole enchilada.
Thread over.
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