Stop for a moment and compare the job preferences students express upon entering law school with the distribution of lawyers by type of practice. 23,000 are judges and 45,000 are inactive. Although large firm practice captures the attention of lawyers and laymen alike, nearly half of all lawyers in private practice are sole practitioners, and approximately two thirds are in firms of five or less lawyers. It is uncertain how much these figures are the outcome of student preferences, a reflection of their professional education, or a reaction to law practice economics. Students with diverse interests often feel as if they are plummeting down a funnel into large law firms.
Legal education emphasizes thinking like a lawyer over training to practice in various settings.
With the exception of clinical programs, students will not consistently hear a teacher talking about his or her experiences representing a woman in a divorce case, incorporating a business, or advising a juvenile in a care and protection hearing. Exposure to varied practice areas through cases and war stories is haphazard. Also , students anxious about their fundamental legal skills will not have the confidence to entertain positions in small firms or other settings where there is unlikely to be close supervision or training. In addition, the reliance of large firms on on-campus interviewing distorts the image of credible, desirable positions in the profession. At the same time, students are not always aware of the range and variety of practice even within the big firms.