Related Literature

Local

According to Adel Tamano, Dean, Liceo University, “I emphasized, particularly to the freshmen,

that if they entered law school in search of fortune, then they went to the wrong place. A cursory

look at the Forbes list of the richest Filipinos in 2011 will show that not one of them is a lawyer

by profession. On the point that a career in the law profession is not the most lucrative as

compared to other vocations, I often tell my friends about my elder brother who, after taking a

year of law school and deciding that it wasn’t for him, became far more financially successful

than me through his astute investing and earning a good income from a chain of restaurants. If

you want big bucks, then become an entrepreneur instead of an advocate. It is another painful

truth for law students and lawyers that there are plenty of very poor attorneys and only those at

the very top of the legal food chain can claim to be rich exclusively from the practice of law. In

fact, when I attend court hearings, I see them — members of the Bar who after years of practice

are apparently financially unsuccessful, often relegated to ambulance-chaser status, and

accepting all manner of unmeritorious cases just to survive. However, since the ultimate goal of

a bona fide lawyer is the administration of justice, whether or not you become financially rich in

the practice of law, being a lawyer has the potential to become a truly noble, empowering and

enriching calling. And that, for me, should be the real goal of a law school — not just to churn

out legal technicians and mere scholars of the law but to graduate men and women who have a

true passion and commitment to administering justice, which, sadly, is the rarest and most

precious of commodities in the Philippines.” (Tamano, 2011)

http://www.philstar.com/sunday-life/701727/challenges-filipino-law-student

Foreign

According to Geoffrey Stone, former Dean, University of Chicago Law School, “Finally, legal

education provides students with opportunities to work on journals, in moot court competitions

and in a broad range of law school organizations that are designed to enrich the education of

future lawyers in terms of their writing, their advocacy skills and their exposure to diverse

political, legal and cultural perspectives.

A law school that can do all this in two years would have my blessing. But it is not possible. A

law school that does not do all this in three years should be held accountable for its failure. But

giving up on these goals because they are challenging is not a solution. Lawyers play a central

role in our society, and we have a responsibility to educate them well before unleashing them on

our citizens.” (Stone, 2011)

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/21/the-case-against-law-school/the-

importance-of-law-school