On March 28, 2011, the New York State Bar Association released a letter to the ABA Standards Review Committee expressing concerns over the direction of the latest Standards drafts. While the NYSBA is pleased that the SRC is taking on these challenges, it knows that stronger language is required regarding outcomes and tenure in order to meet the challenges in today’s legal climate.
On learning outcomes, the NYSBA states:
While the Standards Review Committee is headed in the right direction in this area, these first steps are too tentative. We urge you to strengthen the commitments to outcomes and broadening the skills taught in law schools. Most importantly, as representatives of more than 77,000 practicing lawyers acutely aware of the demands upon law graduates, we urge that all law students need more than a single course in professional skills.
On tenure:
We urge that academic freedom for all faculty, including Deans, librarians and others, remain securely tied to tenure and other reasonably similar systems of security of employment and other institutional rights. Only a system of ex ante guarantees can create the rich culture of free inquiry and robust debate that characterizes American legal education and the American bar.
Click here to read the full letter.
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