NEW YORK, NY, Nov. 20 (DPI) –Even The New York Times is making fun of the largely theoretical nature of legal education, a problem that is forcing law firms to teach first-year associates how to practice law.

In a front-page article in Sunday’s editions, The Times addressed what’s now a familiar dynamic: Law school tuition runs about $50,000 per year, students are going deep into debt to obtain JD degrees, and the schools themselves, for generations detached Ivory Towers, aren’t producing lawyers ready to serve clients.

Meanwhile — and more significantly — the large firms have severely cut back hiring.  The top 250 law firms hired 27 percent of graduates from the top 50 law schools in 2010, but have cut nearly 10,000 jobs since 2008, according to an April survey by The National Law Journal, the Times reported.

Overall the article focused on the peculiar continuing demand for legal education, even as evidence grows of a lawyer glut and of law schools focusing on too much theory and not enough practical skills-development.  The report included several amusing references to abstruse-sounding Law Review articles:

www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/after-law-school-associates-learn-to-be-lawyers.html?hp

No reader comment option was made available for the article, with a posted by-line of David Segal.