This letter is a response to Ralph Nader to Dean Minow: Inform Students About Firm Violations, which ran on April 25, 2016.
Dear Mr. Nader,
I am responding to your open letter to Dean Minow in the Harvard Law Record on April 26, 2016. We share your belief that students should have the best information about potential employers. We prepare students to take full responsibility for every aspect of their academic and professional lives, and to be educated consumers and their own best advocates. Our students are superbly equipped to find all relevant information and then make well-considered judgments on the basis of that information. And through this experience, they learn and develop a set of professional life skills that will serve them well throughout their careers as they change jobs and evaluate future employers.
Your suggestion that we impose a disclosure requirement on employers as a condition for participating in our recruiting program would inevitably mire us in protracted discussions about what should or should not be disclosed. As you know, it is not uncommon for litigators to allege misconduct against their adversaries during heated contests, or for clients or parties to make such allegations against lawyers on the other side, or even sometimes against their own lawyers. The Law School will not and should not become a referee in such disputes, nor will we get into the business of delving into the details of every such allegation. Your suggestion overlooks the role of bar associations and state regulatory authorities in assuring that lawyers and law firms are in good standing from year to year – a role on which law schools should be able to rely. Matters that are actually reviewed and adjudicated are reported in public records, where our students will easily find them.
Thank you for your interest in assisting our students as they embark upon their careers in the law. We are confident in their ability to obtain the information they need, and to make well-informed career choices as members of a profession governed by well-established rules of professional responsibility.
Sincerely,
Mark Weber
Mark Weber is the Assistant Dean of Career Services.