Would lowering the drinking age to 18 reduce the amount of binge drinking on college campuses? The Amethyst Initiative, started by the former president of Middlebury College, believes it would, as reported in College chiefs urge new debate on drinking age. The Initiative, represents presidents from about 100 colleges and universities, is “calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.” The proposal carries counter-intuitive appeal: reduce problem drinking by reducing legal impediments to acquiring and possessing alcohol. Mothers Against Drunk Driving opposes the proposal because it believes it would lead to more fatal car crashes; “MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.”

I don’t know what impact a lower drinking age would have on binge drinking on campuses. Doing so would remove the forbidden-fruit allure of under-age drinking for those over 18, and that would somewhat change the social dynamic that leads to problem drinking. Since both typically occur when one is 18 alcohol consumption would still be linked to going off to college and experiencing greater freedom from adult supervision. One could argue that the drinking age should be lowered to 16, to enable teenagers to experience legal drinking when most are still living under their parents’ roofs. The causes of binge drinking are complex and drinking age is just one factor.

This topic comes up often in class. Not surprisingly, most students oppose the current laws. Students routinely ignore and subvert them. Anecdotal experience tells me that more than 50% of underaged students possess a phony ID at some point before they turn 21, which puts them at risk for arrest and a criminal record. Laws that criminalize a large number of people for customary behavior encourage disrespect for law: “when beer is outlawed, only outlaws will have beer.”

One cannot ignore MADD’s point about traffic fatalities. I believe (relying on someone I trust who researched this subject extensively a few years ago) there was a direct correlation between raising drinking ages to 21 and reducing alcohol-related fatalities. Opposing MADD is political suicide for state legislators.

This is unfortunate. It takes off the table solutions other than more rigorous law enforcement and stiffer penalties for underage drinkers. These don’t work, as our experience with harsher drug laws shows. It’s a plain fact that college students are going to drink. Solutions that don’t start with this fact–solutions of the “just say no” variety–are doomed to fail.

I’ve posted before that prospective law students must honestly consider their prospects for success in law school because, unless they attend one of the very top-ranked schools, their job opportunities will be limited if they are not ranked at the top of their classes. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog recently interviewed “law school naysayer” Kirsten Wolf, a 32-year old BU law graduate. Wolf went to law school a few years out of college believing that she would obtain a marketable skill that would justify the cost of borrowing to pay tuition. In the fall of her second year, when she realized her B+ average was not good enough to land her a summer associate position with a large firm, she began to question her decision. Already $45,000 in debt she stayed, graduated in 2002, passed the Massachusetts bar, and found no law jobs waiting. She went back to the company she worked for before law school and then eventually moved to New York where she landed a job she enjoys, as an office manager for a literary agency. She is paying her $87,000 student loan debt over 30 years–which means she’ll still be paying for law school as she approaches her 60th birthday. In Wolf’s words:

I’m on a one-woman mission to talk people out of law school. Lots of people go to law school as a default. They don’t know what else to do, like I did. It seems like a good idea. People say a law degree will always be worth something even if you don’t practice. But they don’t consider what that debt is going to look like after law school. It affects my life in every way. And the jobs that you think are going to be there won’t necessarily be there at all. Most people I know that are practicing attorneys don’t make the kind of money they think lawyers make. They’re making $40,000 a year, not $160,000. Plus, you’re going to be struggling to do something you might not even enjoy. A few people have a calling to be a lawyer, but most don’t.

Legal Blog Watch Alert picked up Wolf’s story and also reported about a lawyer who auctioned his law school diploma on eBay. The post notes the lack of discussion on academic law blogs about whether to attend law school.

For years I have advised students that exceptional performance in law school is more important than where you go. Wolf’s story bears this out. She must have been a good student and gotten good LSAT scores–BU law would not have admitted her otherwise–but that doesn’t put you at the top of your class. Even at BU, which is always ranked as one of the top 25 or 30 law schools in the country, a B+, top-half of the class performance will not open the most lucrative doors. I’m seeing this again with a friend who is currently in her second year at BU. She is quite smart, works exceptionally hard, is one of the most personable and engaging people I know, and yet has been unable to crack into the Big Law summer associate track. And if you aren’t on that track after your second year of law school, your earnings horizon changes dramatically. Yet had Wolf gone to a lower-ranked school and finished at the top of her class–say in the top 10 or 15 places, or top 3.00%–odds are that she could have obtained a high-paying job. Finishing in the top 3% of one’s law school class does not happen without brains and lots of hard work. That’s why those at the top of their class will still merit a look from the most selective employers, because the employers know what it takes to get there.

I’ve always taken a laissez-faire approach with prospective law students. I’ll be honest about the risks and pitfalls of a legal career and then support the student’s decision to attend law school notwithstanding my warnings. I’m now rethinking my approach. Should I recommend a student who has not shown the academic ability to finish in the top five percent of his or her law school class?

A few days ago a friend sent me The Odyssey Years, a New York Times op-ed piece by David Brooks about “the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood. During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another.” The Brooks piece resonated with my friend, a former student who graduated in 2006 and now works for an investment bank. He said “there’s just so much pressure to succeed for young people (and it’s such an obscure definition, it no longer involves forming a cohesive family unit and living a pleasant life.)” It spoke to me as a college professor who spends hours talking with students about What Comes Next, and as a parent whose children do not spend hours talking with him and his wife about What Comes Next. I sent the op-ed to my sons, all in their 20s. One said “it fits a little too well.” Another said “good to know I’m not alone.” The third, a law student on the verge of graduation and a career, delivered his message by not responding.

If you are in college, a recent graduate, have friends who are in college or recent graduates, are moving from job to job with no clear plan, know someone who is moving from job to job with no clear plan, or are the parent of anyone in any of these categories–in other words, if you are anyone who is reading this post–read the op-ed piece.

A comment on my post Not Covered by LSAT Prep takes exception–quite respectful exception–to my statement that “If you can’t assess and accept the risks of spending three years and $150,000 to earn a law degree there is a simple and cheap two-word solution: Don’t Go.”  The poster writes “such a statement may be easier to make in retrospect than prospectively. According to your bio, you graduated in 1981.”  His point is that in the century since I graduated from law school the cost of legal education has risen faster than wages and inflation, and it is much more difficult to pay back student loans on a law graduate’s average salary now than it was then.

I’m sure that’s true.  I see that reality in the pressures facing my oldest son, who is a 3L, and in students I’ve mentored over the years.  A friend who graduated law school six years ago owed more in student loans for college and law school than the outstanding balance of my home mortgage.  She is one of the fortunates who landed a BigLaw job at what was then the highest starting salary in Boston because she is smart, talented, incredibly hard-working, and proved herself  while working as a law student.

The increasingly-skewed relationship between the cost and economic benefit of law school education only reinforces my point about doing due diligence.  My mantra for the dozens of prospective law students I mentor each year is get life experience, investigate whether law is a good choice for you, and consider the enormous commitment of time and financial, psychological, and emotional resources law school requires.  The profession is filled with unhappy lawyers.  They can be unhappy because they don’t make enough money, or their practices are stultifying, or they are worn down from years of arguing, or they don’t like their clients, or they think they would be happier raising goats in Maine.  The legal profession suffers disproportionately from alcohol abuse.  Why would any sensible person enter this profession without assessing honestly how well it fits them?

And why would any sensible person enter law school without assessing honestly their chances of success?  The Wall Street Journal article that prompted my prior post discusses the tiered nature of the legal profession.  There are the few who finish at the top of their classes and garner BigLaw offers, but they are the exception.  The income gap between the high and and low-paying poles is enormous.  If financial necessity dictates that you start at $160,000/year when you graduate and your historic academic performance suggests that you won’t be among that top ten percent (or fewer) of the Type A personalities who will dominate your class, you need to ask ”what am I doing?”  You need to revisit your expectations.   Note that I’m not saying don’t go–that admonition applies to those who don’t do the due diligence and make the risk/reward calculation.  But don’t count on a payoff and define success on terms that are likely to be unattainable.

BU Today features a story about BU’s role in the Boston rock scene, and opens with a story of “five guys who didn’t exactly go to college” renting a Comm Ave apartment and playing gigs around Boston University. Those five guys–Aerosmith, and how amazing is it that Aerosmith’s original lineup is still intact?–were common sights around West Campus during my freshman year at BU. They were friends with Jeff Green, the resident grown-up in the first tower. The first time I saw them was in the dining hall one Friday evening. They trailed Green through the food line and are together at a table while everyone else wondered “who ARE those guys?” They were high profile. Imagine Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (who I also encountered once in the appliances department at the defunct Lechmere in Cambridge, shopping for a refrigerator) and the rest looking 36 years younger and not as healthy as they do now, wearing full rock-star garb, carrying plastic trays loaded with mac & cheese, Cokes, and frosted white cake, sitting in the dining hall surrounded by young college students with mouths agape. Jeff Green also let them practice in the basement rooms off the tunnels connecting the West Campus dorms. You’d go down to check on your laundry and hear Train Kept a Rollin’ reverberating off the cinder blocks. In the spring of 1974, when Aerosmith had a major Boston presence and were on the cusp of going national, they played at one of the Wednesday night dance concerts–”BU Boogies”–in the George Sherman Union. They’ve always been great in concert.

I don’t know whether it is the result of a demographic trend or merely my anecdotal experience but I spend more time each year advising prospective law students. I would not like being an official Law School Advisor with responsibility for hundreds of students I knew only on paper, but I enjoy counseling students I’ve gotten to know through class. I don’t hide the fact that I’ve not practiced law for some time. My cachet is my zig-zag erratic varied interesting career from Big Law associate to college professor, with stops along the way as general counsel, risk manager and workout specialist, and financial advisor. I’m a long way from law school so I keep up vicariously, through a number of former students and a son who is currently a 3L. Former students who enter law school are great for a while, until being a 1L catches up with them and they disappear. I’m always looking for new law school information channels, which is why I appreciate an email I received over the weekend. At the suggestion of Jesse R., frequent former student (he was on the “take ten courses and the eleventh is free!” plan, although he never finished punching the ticket) and regular reader, I’ve added two law-school related blogs to my Blogroll: Law School Blogger and Overheard in Law School (see links at right). I’m happy to add more, if anyone has other favorites.

to the School of Management Class of 2007 for honoring me with the Beckwith Prize for Teaching Excellence and Service to the Undergraduate Program. A prize for either teaching excellence or service would be wonderful; this is a double treat. I was not at the SMG graduation to accept it because I was attending my son Josh’s English Department graduation from the College of Arts and Sciences. This is what I asked to be read in my absence:

Woody Allen said “90% of life is just showing up” but he didn’t explain how to show up in two places at the same time. I’m honored and touched that the Class of 2007 has selected me to receive the Beckwith Award. I regret that I cannot be here to celebrate your graduation—only my own family celebration could keep me away. You have become an important part of our lives and your departure is bittersweet. I wish you continued success—and please, stay in touch.

Explanations of why I love teaching can be abstract, sprinkled with words like “energy” and “engagement” and “chemistry” without conveying the edgy give-and-take that makes a great class like a high-wire act. With most students I have a relationship that combines respect and playful banter. It’s not the only style, it may not be the best style, but it works for me. It suits my personality and emulates the professors I most enjoyed in law school (with Dan Givelber at the top of the list). Which is why I love this story, because the professor it features must be very special to inspire and tolerate such a prank.

Nate, my youngest, is a college junior (not at BU) taking Macro Economics this semester. If a student’s cell phone rings during his Macro class the professor will answer the phone and engage the caller in conversation. Inspired by his professor’s ready classroom humor Nate devised a plan. Explaining the reason for his inquiry he located her husband’s email address from another professor and wrote to him. After explaining how he obtained the husband’s email address through a friend Nate made his pitch:

It being the last week of classes, I was hoping to play a friendly joke back on her. Specifically, I thought it might be hilarious if I could have YOU call my cell phone tomorrow afternoon during class, some time between 3:10 pm and, say, 3:45 pm. In theory, Professor Holmes would hear my phone ring and pick up it up – expecting the caller to be my mother, friend, roommate, etc. She would quickly find out, however, that the person was, in fact, her husband.

Professor Holmes’s husband was game. He called Nate’s phone at the proper time. Hearing its ring the professor picked it up, said “Nate Randall’s phone,” and waited for the caller’s expected confusion. Instead she heard a familiar voice in an entirely-dislocated context. Nate doesn’t know what her husband said, but it cracked her professorial demeanor. She said “Steve?” and her face turned purple as everyone laughed. She terminated the call with “you little shit!” to her husband and returned Nate’s phone with a laughing promise: “This isn’t the end of this!” Nate will be looking over his shoulder until he graduates.

Hats off to you, Professor Holmes.

The New York Times reports that the Middlebury College history department has banned citations to Wikipedia as a resource for papers and exams, after six students in a Japanese history class asserted an incorrect fact on an exam. The department did not ban use of Wikipedia, recognizing that doing so “would have been impractical, not to mention close-minded, because Wikipedia is simply too handy to expect students never to consult it.” I asked students today about their use of Wikipedia as a research tool. One rejected it categorically, because she is uncomfortable with a resource that can be so readily changed. Others were not aware of the “peer-production” aspects of Wikipedia. One student said Wikipedia was better than 15 bound encyclopedias because it is up-to-the-minute and conveys information on more topics. A few students described Wikipedia metaphorically as like a conversation with a friend who holds himself out as knowledgeable: it can be a good place to go for ideas and overall information, but should not be relied on as a sole source. They said that they investigate the sources Wikipedia cites before relying on any of it. How to determine whether an Internet source is reliable is another question, of course.

There are no conclusions to draw from these anecdotes. This classroom was not a cozy forum for a student to acknowledge Wikipedia as his or her sole source for academic knowledge.  Most students were quiet, and some may have wondered what the fuss is about.

I will continue to worry that too many people can’t distinguish between good and bad information, online and off. Wikipedia isn’t the cause, but it can be a symptom.

This week a discussion of direct and indirect regulation turned to cigarettes. The legal regulation of cigarettes turned to other regulated products and behaviors, such as New York City’s ban on trans fats and state laws requiring adults to wear seat belts. Some students supported such laws because they promote societal good or reduce societal costs. Others criticized them as unwarranted “nanny state” interference in personal decision-making. (No one argued against laws regulating the effects of second-hand smoke or requiring use of automotive restraints for young children.)

A student emailed me after class, annoyed at the inconsistency in the laws we had discussed. He made a point I have heard from many non-lawyers, although he defines his frustration more clearly than most: “If I knew nothing about math symbols, only numbers, and you told me that 2 + 2 = 4, and 4 + 3 = 7, I would quickly learn how to do similar addition problems.” He wants law to achieve the same certainty. He cited the different ways in which the law regulates trans fats, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, alcohol, and cigarettes. He also cited seat-belt laws. He asked “So why the inconsistency in the law?” Everything on his list is capable of providing some amount of personal pleasure, can have harmful consequences for the person who engages in them, and imposes direct and indirect social costs. He did not argue a particular agenda for or against anything on his list. To someone who teaches law to college undergraduates who (mostly) will not be lawyers, his question is more profound, : “I just feel that if I were to look at 2 + 2 = 4 and 4 + 3 = 7, I should be able to figure out similar problems . . . Trans fats, no seat belts, marijuana, and cigarettes should, based on the similar facts they share, all be outlawed or all be allowed.”

Until I started to teach I never thought at length about this intense desire for legal certainty. I saw it in clients, of course, but in the context of advising them about specific problems. At big firm billable rates they did not engage me to muse about the nature of the American legal system. When surrounded by lawyers, there is a comfort level with the law’s inherent ambiguity. We spend three years in law school distinguishing this case from that case, arguing why X and X1 are materially different and why Y and Z are the same thing. Nature, training, and experience enable most lawyers to live comfortably in the gray zone.

The next day I used this topic as a springboard for discussion in the class where it began. How do my students respond to the law’s ambiguity? “That’s the way the law has to be” said the first few speakers. Another student raised his hand. “I’d like to talk more about what is legal and what is illegal, and talk less about everything else.” I walked to one end of the board and wrote “legal.” Dragging the chalk along the board I drew a line to the far end and wrote “illegal.” “Law is pretty clear at these extremes” I said. “Most of what you encounter in business will not fall at either end. It will be here.” I drew a large oval around the middle of the continuum. “This is where the questions are most interesting.” He did not appear satisfied. He wants a checklist of behaviors so he knows what will land him in jail or make him liable for someone else’s harm.

I understand his desire for certainty. We are drawn to binary solutions for complex problems. But, as I said in class, the law only becomes more complex because we humans find new, precedent-setting ways to do each other harm. Teaching law as a checklist would create greater certainty but less understanding. As frustrating as it is for many of them, I believe I serve my students better by teaching why the law is often ambiguous.

*Last semester a student who did poorly on an early exam talked to me on the eve of the second exam. “I was thinking too much about the law in black and white” he said. “For this exam I’ve learned to embrace the gray.” He did much better the second time around.