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At the Lectern

“Ex-chief justice predicts law profession-wide brain drain”

November 13, 2024

Malcolm Maclachlan reported in the Daily Journal about former Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye’s appearance at the recent California Constitution Center conference on the Supreme Court. Cantil-Sakauye “accurately warned of an impending ‘wave of retirements’ among judges three years ago” and at the conference she “foretold a coming ‘brain drain’ that could affect the wider legal profession and overall economy.”

The article quotes the former Chief Justice: “Boomers are the generation with the most bachelor’s degrees, more than any other generation. So, you’re going to see a brain drain, and we also know a lot of folks aren’t for some reason pursuing four-year degrees anymore and we’ve left out a swath of people who I think are financially challenged to pursue a four-year degree.”

Maclachlan also writes that Cantil-Sakauye — now the president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California — said that “[t]he aging of the state’s workforce is such a concern . . . that it has joined the clean energy transition as one of the institute’s top research topics.”

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