‘This is probably controversial to say, but what the heck.’

The speaker was president Obama at Binghamton University, New York, on 23 August. So what did he go on to say? Something about disbanding the National Security Agency or nuking Damascus? Introducing free universal healthcare for Americans?

In fact it was that law schools should consider running courses for two years instead of three.

‘The question is can law schools maintain quality and keep good professors and sustain themselves without that third year,’ the president said. ‘My suspicion is that if they thought creatively about it, they probably could.’

Obama was contributing to a controversy over whether the American Bar Association should continue to insist on a three-year academic grounding, which leaves graduates on average in $140,000 of debt.

Unlike some politicians we can think of, Obama has some credentials for sounding off on the issue: he taught at the University of Chicago law school for 12 years. Obiter hopes he keeps up his interest in legal education. Indeed, if the Legal Education and Training Review is looking for someone to chair the next phase of its work, we recommend it gets a bid in before Obama’s 2017 diary starts filling up.