School Missions & Visions
By: Professor Pamela Armstrong
List of goals that applicants to law school want to fulfill (in no special order and some may not apply to every student):
- I want to see Justice done.
- I want to stand for the helpless.
- I want to belong to a profession, not an industry.
- I want to move or change the way our society conceptualizes “law” to account for the amalgam of cultures in our society.
- I want to be able to put our culture’s ideas about “rule of law” against other cultures’ ideas, compare and maybe push for growth or something better.
- I want to challenge the adversarial nature of our system as having gone too far from being representative to something else, and I need a way to expand my thinking.
- I want to be part of the shrinking “market place of ideas.”
Sub-needs or sub-wants – the skills applicants would like to develop:
- I want to find a better way to solve problems and disputes.
- I want to think critically so that I can see the fallacies in positions, be aware of inherent inconsistencies in and weak foundations for ideas, and be prepared to stand up and challenge proponents of such flawed arguments.
- I want to be able to move seamlessly between the legal regimes of many cultures.
- I want to make my profession better than the generation before me.
Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change | Tagged: jobs to be done, law school, law student, legal education, reforming legal education |
Best Practices for Legal Education 
Thanks Lauren and Pamela. Love the list; I would hope that all students would be thinking of these things before they get to law school.
Not just from a marketing perspective is this idea an inspired one. In fact, why did it take so long to come up with it? Think of it this way: A person, often a young adult recently out of college, is choosing whether or not to attend grad school and, if so, which type of grad school. Next, assuming that person decides upon law school, why WOULDN’T the purposes for which particular schools are organized matter to that potential student? So seeing this exercise from the perspective of that person is perfect!