As explained in my last post, the debate on how to improve law school education—or whether it needs improving at all—is alive and well in the profession today.  That is a very good thing.  You should be aware of this debate, and you should be thinking about whether the participants in the debate know what they are talking about.  After all, those of you in law school or recently graduated are closer to these issues than anyone else.

So, here is more from the article in the New Republic.  These are the last three contributors to the debate and what they have to say:

• Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate, goes out on a limb more than the others—at least from my perspective.  She sees the entire legal education as nineteenth century-like and catering to the students who will land the Big Law jobs—only a few from each class at most law schools. Although her observations about putting the clinical studies in the first, not the third, year of law school are interesting, I doubt that they are practical for anything except discouraging students, who are unprepared for those clinical tasks, from continuing with law school.  However, that may be Ms Lithwick’s motivation.  For me, it is painting with too broad a brush, and the anaylsis needs to be refined.  Having said that, I am very pleased to see a woman in this line-up;
• David Lat, founder and managing editor of Above the Law, is singing off my songsheet.  He advocates requiring law school applicants to have a post-college gap year before entering law school.  His reasoning is that it forces college grads to experience the real world and to become more introspective and analytical about what they really want to do with their lives—instead of sucombing to the knee-jerk reaction of law school when they cannot think of anything more interesting.  My husband, also a lawyer, and I required this of both of our children, and they were ready for and serious about law school when they entered the hallowed halls; and
• Mark Chandler, general counsel at Cisco, wants law school to include paid internships that also will include law school credit.  He understands the value of those internships for relating classroom to real world, and he believes that industry is ready, willing and able to provide those experiences.  Perhaps the best part of his proposal is that the interning students would not have to pay law school tuition for the period of time they are involved in the paid internships.  What a novel approach!  Instead of bleeding law students of every dime they have, law schools would waive tuition and let them earn while they are gaining experience at internships.  Hear, hear and amen….

So, now you have heard the proposals.  What do you think?  Let’s keep these ideas part of the dialogue so that we do not lapse into old ways and bad habits simply for want of trying.

We owe our chosen profession more than that.

From time to time I write about what I consider to be the deficiencies of law school education.  I do not base this on my own experience of so many years ago, and I am sure you are relieved to hear that.  Rather, I travel the country speaking at law schools, as I will be doing again in a few weeks at William and Mary Law, and I talk to a lot of students on those occasions about their experiences.  In addition, our two children either have experienced law school recently or are experiencing it as I write.  So, I hope I have a pretty accurate view of what law school is all about today.

However, as with everything else, I do not trust my conversations and experiences alone.  I research everything!  In the past, I have shared with you some of the opinions of Professor Bill Henderson of Indiana University Law, a leading proponent of law school reform, and less enthusiastically the writings of Professor Brian Tamanaha of Washington University Law  (see Henderson blog and Tamanaha blog).  My reluctance about the latter is that too much of what Professor Tamanaha says in his book on the subject of failed law schools seems to impute the failure to the law profession as well.  I think that goes too far for the reasons stated in my blog.  If that is not what he meant, I think he should state that clearly.

There is a plethora of opinion about law school education today, as you would expect from a profession that is very well-populated and which includes members with strong opinions and desires to share them.  Some of the issues debated regularly are the need for three-year programs, the need for more clinical experiences to turn out practice-ready lawyers, the continuing relevance of the Socratic Method of teaching, and the preparedness of the average law student to enter law school directly out of undergraduate school.

I came across an interesting discussion of these issues and others recently in an article in the New Republic.  There, six contributors opined on the subject matter, and here is some food for thought as you either contemplate law school, progress through law school, or question how your law alma mater could have served you better:

• Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law, is a proponent of a two-year-plus law education.  He does not necessarily advocate less education, but, rather, he advocates education in a variety of forms and settings, specifically using the third year for practice specialization;
• Michael Kinsley, editor-at-large of the New Republic, wants to see the Socratic Method go by way of the dinosaurs as irrelevant to today’s legal practice.  For the record, I am in the middle of this debate.  I see the value of the Socratic Method in preparing students for the courtroom, but I would like to see other teaching methods, like OJT clinical work, accompany it as equally or more valuable for many students;
• Paul Campos, professor at the University of Colorado Law, attacks the problem at its root and before the law education process begins for many students.  He wants to stop unlimited students loans for law school to discourage some students who may not belong there in the first place and to reduce the cost of legal education.  Without the capless government loans to feed runaway tuitions, law schools presumably would have to get costs and tuitions under control.   As the mother of children with huge and rapidly-accumulating law school loans, I completely identify with this position and am glad to hear it as part of the debate;
• AND more……but you will have to wait until the next post!

What do you think so far?  Lawyers are full of opinions, so let’s hear yours.