HIGHER ED BUBBLE AND LAWYERS PART 1 – Readers of Instapundit are well apprised of the higher ed bubble, and especially the law school version.  My book is called Glass Half Full, and I swear the last third of the book is optimistic, but the first chunk lays out the current wave of bad news for lawyers and law schools.

The easiest way to describe it is with my favorite graph from the book.  I love this graph because it tells you everything you need to know about the business of law over the last 45 years.  Every year since 1967 the IRS has collected and released data about the tax returns of two different groups of lawyers: solo practitioners and law firm partners.  The categories are a little wonky, because “law firm partner” includes two person partnerships in Ames Iowa and wall street mega firms, but this type of longitudinal data is a goldmine even if it has a few warts.  Here are the different earnings (in nominal terms) from 1967 to 2012:

INSTAPUNDIT 2001 AND GUEST BLOGGING: I started teaching at the University of Tennessee College of Law Summer, 2001, the same summer that Glenn started Instapundit.  I remember vividly when he first told me about it.  “I’m starting a blog,” he said. 

Since it was 2001, I said “A what?”

“A weblog.  A page where I can write about stuff and not have to wait a year and a half for a law review to publish it.”

Frankly, I was a little skeptical.  “Weblog, eh?  Will it be about what you ate for breakfast and pictures of your family?  Or will it be a Space Law type thing?”

“No, no, no, it’s going to be called Instapundit, and I’m just going to write short posts about whatever I’m interested in, politics, science, law, cars, whatever.”

Now this sounded more promising.  Glenn is a font of interesting, weird, (and yes, sometimes even useless) information and opinions on an astounding array of topics.  Seriously, even after just meeting him in 2001, I knew that he has a breadth of knowledge about a dizzying array of topics.  What Glenn described actually sounded like the perfect medium for him and a way to harness his vast intellectual curiosity.

But who would read it?  I think it is true that I was one of Glenn’s first readers.  I remember talking over his traffic counts that summer as the site grew.  In August and September (and especially after Glenn’s amazing and poignant 9/11 posts) the site really caught fire and I exclaimed “Holy crap!  That is WAY more people than you personally know!”  Glenn replied “I know, I know!  Cool, right?”

My recollection is that one of the first versions of the site had time stamps on PST, so it looked like Glenn was awake and posting every ten minutes starting at 3:45 in the morning.  I even emailed him that Fall to express concern about his sleeping habits!  

So now being asked to guest blog (in advance of the release of my book, The Glass Half-Full: The Decline and Rebirth of the Legal Profession) is more than an honor, it’s a thrill, and frankly a little intimidating.  Some of my posts will be longish and recaps of the book, so I hope you will bear with me.  I’m, as always, very grateful to Glenn for the opportunity and for his years of friendship and support.  If you’ve ever wondered if Glenn is as good a colleague as his blog suggests, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”