Now if we could only get a few political science professors on board with this sort of thing.

Chris Deaton of Red Alert Politics reports.

It took a law school professor to create the ‘Anything But Law School’ scholarship

Just call him the Billy Madison of lawyers, telling students who say they can’t wait to go to law school, “Don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that.”

In a move sure to thrill cranky grandparents everywhere, a Chicago lawyer and part-time law professor at Loyola University has set up a $1,000 scholarship for graduate students attending “Anything But Law School.” Matthew Willens, who is offering the award through his law firm, said that the new fund is a reflection of his views on the job market for lawyers, not on law school itself.

“Some of you may be wondering, why would a law firm create a scholarship to dissuade students from practicing law?” the scholarship’s description reads on the Willens Law Office’s website. “The answer is simple; we currently do not have enough jobs to be able to effectively train the current number of freshly minted lawyers in our profession.”

Willens told CBS Chicago that “very few hands go up” nowadays when he asks which of his third-year law students have have secured work for after graduation.

“Then you follow that up with, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And most of them are like, ‘Look. We just want to work. We just want a job. There’s no jobs out there,’ and the morale is very low.”

The Chicago attorney is requiring applicants to submit a one-page essay on their reasons for choosing their particular field of study, and why the job prospects for the profession appear promising upon graduation. The scholarship is open to graduate students who will begin their studies in 2014 and amassed a 3.0 cumulative GPA during undergrad.