Friday, February 08, 2008 6:18 AM
I read with interest a post at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Law School Dean Hits Road to Help Students Get Jobs, concerning new efforts by University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Dean Mark Gordon to create a new cross-border program for students.
In 2008, Gordon will unveil a venture between his Detroit Mercy and Mexico’s El Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey. The two schools will offer students a five-year program — three in the U.S., two in Mexico — that will qualify them to practice in the States and in Mexico.
“We think there’s a market for law firms wanting to hire students that have this kind of knowledge,” Gordon said of the program, which will require participants to take several classes in Spanish.
Reader comments to the WSJ post ranged widely, with both critics and fans of the idea.
My own reaction was to applaud Dean Gordon's efforts. Will the program be successful? Will it produce graduates that are in demand? Who knows.
But, even if the answer to both questions is ultimately no, what will really be lost? Some of the law school's money perhaps. And, certainly students entering the joint program could end up with more debt upon graduation. Both of which result from individuals making choices of their own free will.
On the other hand, what if the answers are yes? As he has shown with past efforts (How Obscure Law School Places Grads at Top Firms) to improve his students chances for employment upon graduation, Dean Gordon's willingness to open new doors certainly seems better than just sitting back and telling students to fend for themselves while at the same time offering a law curriculum better suited for a world revolving around the United States than the real world of globalized business we live in today.
And, while I cannot speak directly to the Mexican legal market, it is pretty clear that the largest U.S. firms are going global. It is also pretty clear that both the expansion of U.S.-based business into all corners of the globe, and the continuing trend of U.S.-based companies to offshore their back office functions, will help stoke the demand for multilingual lawyers with knowledge of foreign jurisdictions.
Mexico aside, what about a U.S. educated lawyer who speaks Mandarin and is expert in Chinese law? Same for one that speaks Urdu or Hindi and Indian law? Vietnamese? I don't know, but to me these are the type of lawyers for which there seems a growing need. As companies continue to span the globe searching for new growth opportunities, isn't it likely that some law firms will follow?