“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Matthew 7:1 (KJV). If being a judge means proclaiming judgment, then would it be judgmental to judge judges? You be the judge of that.

Federal appellate judge Richard Posner, the veritable father of “law and economics” is accustomed to passing judgment, in and out of court. He recently told Slate his views on the demise of modern American law schools and of the Constitution, one in conjunction with the other.

He warned that law school faculty is out of touch with the actual practice of the law. They are. Says Posner, “I think law schools should be hiring a higher percentage of lawyers with significant practical experience.” He’s right and continued:

And on another note about academia and practical law, I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries—well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments). Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post–Civil War amendments (including the 14th), do not speak to today.

He’s right there too. Other than paying it lip service no-one in government – not judges, not Congress, not the President, certainly not the bureaucracy – none of them heed the Constitution whatsoever. I may disagree with Posner’s interpretation approach to the subject but we can agree with the end result. Nino Scalia was the last man to hold the Constitution in awe and he is gone. It’s just what you eventually get from a strong central government, like that one birthed by the Constitution.

However, Posner need not worry about the academic nuances of Constitutional study. That just doesn’t exist anymore. As I noted back in 2013 the one thing left out of Constitutional Law in law school is … the Constitution. To the academics it’s just a list of inexhaustible government powers and a few, pet privileges they call “rights”. It is what it is, what it has become, what it was.

In fairness to Posner, he’s fair across the board when condemning tradition. He’s been trying to abolish reliance on Harvard’s Blue Book for a generation. That one, unlike the Founder’s scribbles, is strictly observed in law school or was when I was there (been a little while). True to disjointed form, almost no practicing lawyers and fewer and fewer trial judges actually observe Harvard’s citation system – they just cut and paste from screen to screen. It makes sense; if the Constitution is out and the laws are never far behind in obsolescence, what’s the point in properly noting them?

One thing is certain – U.S. law schools and the legal system need a severe overhaul soon. On that, we can pass judgment.