Revisting my "why do we produce so many law school graduates?" rant

[WARNING: This post isn't about military justice.]

I previously ranted about the fact that our nation's law schools apparently spew out close to 44,000 new graduates each year. And I noted while my state of Maryland is in the midst of a horrible budget crunch, it supports two state law schools located within 1.52 miles of each other in Baltimore. Today I learned another fact that made me cringe even more. The state of Maryland is paying $92 million in public funds to build the University of Baltimore School of Law a new 12-story building.

Even if we were to accept the questionable proposition that the cash-strapped Maryland government should engage in some sort of Keynesian stimulus during this economic downturn, Maryland could at least buy something useful with its $92 million Keynesian jolt. Instead, it will get a 12-story glass "three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle" to replace an existing building that seems perfectly adequate for its task of pumping out its share of the nation's almost 44,000 annual law school graduates.

Heck, for $92 million, the Department of Defense could build six Centers of Appellate Excellence and still have $5 million left over to defend a couple of cert grants.