Why do unqualified SLU law professors promote the teaching of "cultural competence"?

Here are a couple of quotes from two law professors at St. Louis University School of Law (SLU), that wackiest of all law schools. The law professors, Eric Miller and Jeff Redding, propose expanding or enhancing their law school's curriculum to include instruction in what they call "cultural competence." Now, I am progressive too, and would like to believe that cultural competence pedagogy produces young lawyers with enhanced abilities to help people who are suffering. But a cruel suspicion remains--are these academics just seeking a cheap way to feel noble and self-righteous while scamming their students, the kids who are borrowing $100,000 to pay for a legal education? First the quotes and then a few more thoughts below.

But even if a professor teaches nothing but (supposedly) abstract ideas of subordination: a class that is at its core focused on cultural competence addresses one of the most pressing needs in the curriculum, and especially one that low-end practice requires. Too often, the core classes (and sometimes the skills ones too) dismiss as irrelevant the features of race and gender, or power and subordination, that students raise and that that clients experience. So if we’re going to have students think outside the box to engage with the sorts of clients the traditional law firm overlooks, then how better to train students do so than to identify with those clients."  SLU Law Prof. Eric Miller  

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2013/02/the-laundry-list-of-irrelevant-subjects.html

"I am a co-chair of our Multiculturalism Affairs Committee here at SLU Law, and our (faculty/staff/student) committee is in the midst of discussions about ways to enhance ‘cultural competence’ at SLU Law. One thought as to how to do so is to introduce changes into the curriculum, concertedly oriented towards exposing students to the legal and social issues faced, both historically and contemporarily, by racial minorities, immigrants, women, Native Americans, queer folk, the disabled, and others. Discussions are at a very preliminary stage, but different thoughts have already emerged about how best to better incorporate the teaching of cultural competence into the curriculum" – SLU Law Prof. Jeff Redding.  

http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/04/cultural-competence-the-curriculum.html    

My initial thought is this: why not conduct a survey of clients from minority backgrounds to discover the level of importance they attach to culturally competent legal representation (whatever "culturally competent" means exactly). The importance is probably more than zero. But doesn't a client who hires a lawyer or who qualifies for appointed counsel want, most of all, a zealous, effective, and well-connected lawyer, someone who will help resolve his or her legal problem?  Is "cultural competence" really such an important component of professional assistance?  For  instance, do you want your dentist to weep with you over oppression and express a deep understanding of the "social issues" faced by your community and the struggles of your ancestors or do you want him or her to fix your damned toothache?

Moreover, isn't cultural competence best communicated to outsiders by persons from within a culture? I hate to be anti-intellectual here, but is a young white academic like Jeff Redding the right person to teach cultural competence as to the issues faced by racial minorities, women, and the disabled? Is he to be trusted to teach young lawyers how to relate to such clients simply because his CV lists fellowships and visiting professorships at many elite schools (though near-zero actual lawyering experience)? And even if Redding does have the right background to teach cultural competence, can we not remember that the young students are paying for a legal education, not a three year extension of their undergraduate studies in political science, sociology, or cultural studies? 

I have this wicked suspicion that certain law professors may be promoting cultural competence instruction in the law school classroom because they have little interest, knowledge, or background in the actual practice of law. I mean, Miller's CV indicates that he did not even go to the trouble of getting a JD, though he has an LLM from Harvard. Prior to becoming a law professor, he did a couple of nonconsecutive one year stretches with Quinn Emmanuel as a "litigation associate" and two one year-long judicial clerkships, along with three separate one-year long academic fellowships at Harvard (that is a lot of one-year long resume polishing positions, clearly this man was groomed for academia). Redding got a JD in 2000, and then did a bunch of fellowships and VAPs (in South Asian politics, his real specialty) prior to becoming a law professor in 2008. Bright guy, no doubt, but he wouldn't know the difference between a courtroom and a faculty lounge.

 

Professor Miller deems "supposedly abstract ideas" of "power and subordination" to be among the most pressing needs of the law school curriculum.  Arguendo, I will assume that to be true rather than the shabby attempt of an overpaid and under-qualified law professor to justify his status and salary. In satisfying this pressing need, I would only ask that he seek examples of power and subordination close to home. There is a lesson in power and subordination every time six-figure salaried SLU law profs reach deeper into the pockets of their massively indebted students, or cry to high heaven about the potential loss of their summer research stipends. There are lessons in "power and subordination," if you care to draw them out, in law schools' tuition, tenure practices, teaching loads, placement statistics, class size, student selectivity, and recruitment activities.

Do these academics ever think how strange it is that they are professing a field that they never really practiced? Probably not, they sound too arrogant, but my guess is that they do have a certain trepidation that their law students might begin to wonder about it. 

In spite of current reformist talk, I really doubt that law schools are willing or able to provide law students with serious training in legal practice, control tuition, restrain their tendency to provide lucrative law professorships to nonlaw scholars, or flood the market with newbie lawyers. So, perhaps, we should think about closing down nearly all law schools and turning over their functions to the practicing bar. The bar might be able to develop highly selective programs to train lawyers via  externships and clinics supervised by practitioners, a contemporary elaboration on the old 19th century apprenticeship model that produced such culturally competent lawyers as Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow, and Justice Robert Jackson.