Social capital has been defined in the Progressive Era as “good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit,” as “neighborliness” in the 1960's and highlighted most recently and prominently in Robert D. Putnam’s 2000 book Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community.  Putnam’s book stresses the distinction between bridging and bonding social capital: “Bonding social capital constitutes a kind of sociological superglue, whereas bridging social capital provides sociological WD-40.” 

Law school has, for many of us, that bonding effect.  The late James O. Freedman, former President of the University of Iowa, and, later of Dartmouth College, conveys in his new book Finding the Words: The Education of James O. Freedman (2007), the thrill, challenge and excitement of legal learning.  “My three years at Yale Law School were among the best years of my life . . . They gave me a philosophy of life and an approach to thinking through political and social problems.  They buoyed my spirits and lifted me above the claims of depression that had marred my college years.  The more deeply I studied the law, the more it emerged as an elegant construction of intellectual beauty, an instructive product of centuries of history, a challenging format for balancing and adjusting political and social interests.”

After law school, these bonds would be preserved or replicated in long-standing roles in law partnerships and in service to bar associations -- making deTocqueville’s 1835 observation that America’s aristocracy was the bench and bar plausible for over a century.  And so it was until the 1970's.  Putnam reports that through most of the twentieth century up until 1970, the number of lawyers per capita remained at fewer than 4 per 1,000 employed civilians.  By 1995, this ratio of lawyers to civilians had nearly doubled.

The reasons for this change can be debated.  Putnam chalks it up to declines in reciprocity, honesty and trust -- in short, to a decline in social capital.  Rather than building continuing relationships, lawyers are, more frequently, doing “one-off’ deals between strangers with pressures to “get it in writing.”  Over this period, however, the profession has become more inclusive.  One could see this as a bridging sort of social capital as more women and people of color became lawyers and have influenced the character of law in some ways. 

Putnam’s book emphasizes another theme: intergenerational changes in civic engagement.  The generation whose youth was framed by the Great Depression and World War II belong to nearly twice as many civic organizations as their grandchildren, are twice as likely to trust others, vote at double the rate of other age groups, are three times more likely to read a daily newspaper and are twice as likely to work on a community project.  As my generation of baby boomers has replaced “the long civic generation,” civic involvement has declined.  The most recent issue of the Iowa Advocate pays tribute to our alumni from that generation.

Does it take total war (as World War II) to foster civic engagement?  I have to believe the answer is “no.”  There is hope on the horizon in the very civic orientation of today’s law students.  They care deeply about both bonding and bridging civic engagement and they act upon it by volunteering.  Linda McGuire has started a new position as associate dean for civic engagement.  As Putnam suggests, “A mounting body of evidence confirms that community service programs really do strengthen the civic muscles of participants, especially if the service is meaningful, regular, and woven into the fabric of the school curriculum.”

What about the emblem of “bowling alone,” the result of less civic engagement and participation in bowling leagues?  Here, too, there may be reason for hope.  My sister has developed a pretty good game from “team-building” with German business associates.  Who knew?  Bowling may be going global.