Riaz Tejani, is an assistant professor in the department of legal studies at UIS, spoke about his study and findings that went into his book “Law Mart” as part of this semester’s ECCE Speaker Series.

He spoke mainly about how students are attending law school, accumulating increasingly more debt, and not receiving proper training and education from bottom tier institutions compared to top tier to help them get a job to decrease their debt.

Tejani goes in depth about the law school scam, also stating problems such as the “Justice Gap” – the lack of access low-income individuals have to proper legal aid – and the “Skills Gap,” plus their possible solutions. Tejani stated that, “Not all law practices are created equal.”

He discussed a few solutions that he thought of in his lecture slides.

One was, Differentiations (Tamanaha 2012). Others included creating a new law school for students aimed at returning to low income, minority communities, and teaching law practice for solo attorneys.

New Delta School of Law is the pseudonym for an actual institution he attended to do his research and studies from 2011-2014. He interviewed faculty, students, staff, and the administration about how’d they would feel about teaching the students who will be accumulating so much debt.

After all the information that was given about the truth of law schools, attending one can seem almost hopeless to some students.

Yet, Tejani said, “Get the best training you can in colleges and universities. Learn the study skills you need to succeed. Good studying, particularly in law schools are self-directed learning. They look at themselves and say, ‘What do I not know, what don’t I understand, and be open to what path lies ahead?’”

Tejani received his masters and PhD at Princeton University and JD from the University of Southern California. He also received the 2017 SGA Outstanding Faculty Award. Tejani is nationally recognized as a scholar on the moral economy of U.S. legal education.