by Deborah L. Rhode (Author)

By any measure, the law as a profession is in serious trouble. Americans' trust in lawyers is at a low, and many members of the profession wish they had chosen a different path. Law schools, with their endlessly rising tuitions, are churning out too many graduates for the jobs available. Yet despite the glut of lawyers, the United States ranks 67th (tied with Uganda) of 97 countries in access to justice and affordability of legal services. The upper echelons of the legal establishment remain heavily white and male. Most problematic of all, the professional organizations that could help remedy these concerns instead jealously protect their prerogatives, stifling necessary innovation and failing to hold practitioners accountable. In light of these circumstances, it is unsurprising that law ranked the lowest of ten occupations in a 2013 Pew survey of which profession or occupation contributes the most to society's well being.

Author Biography

Deborah L. Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, the director of the Center on the Legal Profession, and the director of the Program in Law and Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University. She was the founding president of the International Association of Legal Ethics, a president of the Association of American Law Schools, a chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, the founding director of Stanford's Center on Ethics, and a former trustee of Yale University. She is the nation's most frequently cited scholar on legal ethics.

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