“There is a growing number of talented people in law schools who care about the quality of their teaching and the success and satisfaction of their students, and they are leading the development of innovative and positive changes that may eventually change legal education.” (from Best Practices in Legal Education by Roy Stuckey, 2007)
Welcome to the Blog!
The Best Practices for Legal Education Blog grew out of the work of CLEA’s Best Practices committee and the dedicated and tireless work of original editor and founder Mary Lynch.
The Blog was created with two goals:
- to create a useful source of information on current reforms in legal education arising from the publication of Roy Stuckey’s Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers; and
- to create a place where those interested in the future of legal education can freely exchange ideas, concerns, and opinions.
Since the publication of those two documents, we have hosted and benefited from so many in-depth conversations about how best to educate lawyers – conversations which led to a proliferation of essays, articles, conference presentations and books on all aspects of legal education. One significant contribution was the 2015 follow-up book Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World, edited by Deborah Maranville, Lisa Radtke Bliss, Carolyn Wilkes Kaas, and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez.
This Blog continues to serve as a gathering place for people interested in proposing, discussing, and testing ideas about legal education. Our goal is to stimulate robust dialogue between and among all sectors of the legal academy.
Please join us by posting your ideas, comments, and concerns. Tell us what is happening at your law school or from your perspective. We welcome all replies – brief or lengthy. Be excited or skeptical, cautionary or rebellious. Recent posts have covered changes to ABA standards, information on upcoming conferences, discussions of racial equity plans and challenges, gender in the legal academy, challenges with bar exam administration (and with the bar exam itself!), reflections on remote learning, and so many other relevant topics.
For new bloggers, please direct any questions about navigating or posting to the editors, and we would be happy to assist you! Just reach out to dfinger@loyno.edu or MelanieDaily@ku.edu.
We look forward to working with you.
Melanie Daily (University of Kansas) and Davida Finger (Loyola University New Orleans), Co-Editors
Best Practices for Legal Education 
Nice work Mary and colleagues. I am new to blogging. I find the site a little overwhelming but in a good way since there seems to be lots going on of interest. 2 quick questions–I ran into one post that was password protected–at the place where I hit the wall it would have been helpful to find out whether and how I could get a password to gain access, and maybe some guidance on how and why someone would password protect a blog posting (the question part of this comment is how do I get a password!?)
The second question is that I noticed that some things say they are filed under different topics–how does that happen–who decides what topics a comment gets filed under?
I am sure that I will get better with practice.
Professor Seibel,
On our site you may find blogs that are password protected when, as in this instance, a contributor wants to share a scholarly piece of writing that may not yet be ready for publication. Password protecting the posting allows a selected group (who you choose to give the password to) to view the piece and provide feedback in an open forum, without the risk of leaking a project that may not be ready for oppositional criticism.
As for post “categories” — each time a contributor writes a post, they can choose to label it with/ file it under as many categories as they feel are accurate. These categories can be picked from an option box that appears on the righthand side of the “write” page where you create a post. If you do not see a category that fits your post topic then you should feel free to create your own (there is an additional space in which to do this). And, as with anything that is done on this site, if an author forgets to choose a category, one can always be added later, in most instances by the author, and always by Mary and I (the administrators).
Hope this helps,
Justin Myers
Albany Law School
I have submitted a long memo to the Standards Review Committee on the Job Security issues that are pending. I specifically have tried to answer the arguments that Deans Polden and Matasar made at the AALS meeting on why they believe the Standards should not require tenure and job security for faculty. I have sent it to each member of the SRC, and been assured by them that it would be posted for public viewing, but that was a month ago and it still is not up on the website. If you would be interested, I would be happy to provide a copy for you to post on your great blog. However, it is rather long, about 17 pages. Please advise.
The posts and related material about the in-person time requirement for students engaged in legal studies is particularly important to me. As someone who suffers from a challenging autoimmune condition, the structure of classes during the pandemic (Zoom, Canvas, etc.) has made my legal education more accessible. While I regret the impetus for the increased use of these tools, it provided everyone with an opportunity to analyze how a legal education is possible when taught remotely. I hope this spurs a serious reconsideration of the in-person requirement, and opens the door to those who have impediments that we didn’t ask for but are required to deal with regardless.
Thanks so much for this reflection – it’s so important that we continue to think about how to make legal education more accessible across the board. Schools have long maintained limits on distance learning – are they still meaningful/helpful in an era where work is increasingly remote, and in-person access can be challenging?