Revived CELT Website: Welcome to the Future!

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Stephanie Giancristofaro

Esteemed Bloggers and Blog Post Readers,

Albany Law School has redesigned the Center for Excellence in Law Teaching ( CELT) Website just in time to present you with videotaped presentations and materials from CELT’s Inaugural conference held last March 30, 2012  . If you are unfamiliar with the CELT website , I would like to introduce you to this clearinghouse of materials on teaching, , curriculum, and proposed revised  BA accreditation standards. If you  already are familiar with the website, I invite you to take some time to  re-acquaint yourself with the new organization and the wealth of information that is available for your perusal. (CELT)

Through this site, I hope you will be able to find learning resources, assessment materials and rubrics , syllabi from lawyering classes, PowerPoint presentations about different teaching techniques and links to other sources and resources.   In addition, you can access materials and presentations from the  CELT  March 2012 Conference, where innovative  thinkers attended and discussed current and proposed models for student-centered reform of legal education. (CELT CONFERENCE) This was in response to the changes students face in the profession and the new economy.  As a third year law student, I found this conference not only enlightening but reassuring. The materials that were provided to the attendees laid out ideas and suggestions to improve student  learning  and encouraged professors to take a more active role in design of the classroom experience and sequencing of the law school curriculum. .

As Special Assistant to CELT, I have attempted to organize materials on this website to make it simpler and more convenient for users to navigate.   I truly welcome your feedback. If there is something that you are looking for and cannot find, I ask that you let me know  and would be happy to direct you to the correct location of the information or figure out if there is additional material to be added to the cite.  In addition, if you have any questions about accessing the conference videotapes or materials, just send me an e-mail.

Finally, if you are interested in becoming a BLOG author or contributing a blog post to the Best Practices blog (which is housed within CELT), please let Professor Mary Lynch or myself know and we would be happy to assist!

Thank you for your readership and your loyalty!

-Stephanie Giancristofaro-Partyka

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Teaching Methodology | Comments Off on Revived CELT Website: Welcome to the Future!

Simplistic Media Reports

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Thomas F. Guernsey

The website Law.com recently published an article entitled “ABA: Law schools getting the message on practical skills” The gist of the article is summarized in its opening sentence: “The dismal job market for newly minted lawyers has influenced how most law school administrators approach their course offerings, with 76 percent of the institutions surveyed by the American Bar Association reporting that they’ve modified their curricula to adapt.”

I will be interested in seeing the whole study. I’m not so sure of the causal link the article suggests, and certainly the Executive Summary of the ABA report makes no such connection. Most significantly, coming to the conclusion that the job market is the motivating factor in curricular reform based on a comparison between 1992-2002 and 2002-2012 seems tenuous. Comparing curriculum over 20 some years and concluding that the 2008 job market collapse is the cause of change seems a bit tenuous.

Skills training has been evolving in legal education since before 2008. While, as the article correctly points out, the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education have influenced law schools since they were published in 2007, the McCrate Report (and the Crampton Report before it) arguably spurred greater and, at least at this point, more fundamental change. Indeed, the changes in legal writing cited in the article, including the proliferation of Lawyering Skills courses rather than legal research and writing courses, began in the 90’s. One thing that has made me proud of legal education over the decades is the increasing emphasis on skills – proud, because it has been done despite the fact that the reward structure to which law schools respond (e.g., U.S. News, large firm hiring, judicial clerkships) gives little reward to schools who do skills training well or students who take skills courses.

The article completely ignores what I think has been the biggest curricular reform in the past 20 years—the creation of academic support programs. My gut tells me that in the past 10 years law schools have invested at least as many, if not more, resources into programs to increase bar passage than teach skills.

My real concern with the article, however, and why I want to read the report, is that the article’s conclusion implies the conclusions are those of the ABA. In reality, the conclusions foster what I believe is the simplistic view expressed in the press and the biggest impediment to true reform of legal education in the area of skills training—the belief that reform is solely a law school problem. There is wide spread belief that if law schools just did the right thing, we would produce practice ready lawyers.

The fact is, skills education is a profession wide issue. I have already mentioned the fact that (despite criticism of legal education) the reward structure does not value skills training. You want to change legal education? Get federal court judges and hiring partners at large law firms to say they will not hire anyone who does not have 15 credit hours of clinic.

But the issue runs deeper. It requires all parts of the profession to look at what it does to inhibit the training of practice ready lawyers. Just take one example; bar admission. One of the biggest impediments to developing a program that truly prepares someone to practice law is the bar exam itself. When students need to take upwards of 22 subjects in some states to prepare for the bar exam, it leaves little time in the curriculum for innovative skills training. And, when a state (such as New York) decides to add a pro bono requirement for initial admission to the bar, rather than say reducing the number of subjects tested on the exam and requiring a truly meaningful clinical experience, it does not help matters

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The High Cost of Legal Education–alternative educational models

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed entitled “First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Law Schools,”  Their idea is to teach law in undergraduate school.  This is very much like the system in Mexico and many other countries. Interestingly, they suggest an apprenticeship to enhance the theoritical knowlege.  What do you think? 

 The link is here.

 By JOHN O. MCGINNIS

AND RUSSELL D. MANGAS

Over three years, tuition at a law school can exceed $150,000. Even this princely sum does not capture the full cost. During the time spent at these schools, most students could have earned substantial income. A recent analysis by Herwig Schlunk of Vanderbilt University suggests that for bright students with attractive career opportunities, the total cost of law school is closer to $275,000.

The high cost of graduate legal education limits the supply of lawyers and leads to higher legal fees. And higher fees place legal services out of the reach of middle-income families at a time when increasing complexity demands more access to these services. In short, the current system leaves citizens underserved and young lawyers indebted.

Some have argued that to reduce costs states should simply drop their educational requirements, policing lawyer quality through bar exams, if at all. But the requirement of a legal education can serve important public needs.

First, most citizens, particularly the less educated, do not know much about law and have difficulty evaluating the skill of individual lawyers. Some education in law makes it more likely that a lawyer will be competent. Second, educated lawyers provide a public good. In the United States, most important political questions become legal questions. Educated lawyers can supply a deeper social understanding that informs political policy-making.

 

Here is a straightforward solution: States should permit undergraduate colleges to offer majors in law that will entitle graduates to take the bar exam. If they want to add a practical requirement, states could also ask graduates to serve one-year apprenticeships before becoming eligible for admission to the bar.

An undergraduate legal degree could be readily designed. A student could devote half of his course work to the major, which would allow him to approximate two years of legal study. There is substantial agreement in the profession that two years are enough to understand the essentials of the law—both the basics of our ancient common law and the innovations of our modern world. A one-year apprenticeship after graduation would allow young lawyers to replace the superfluous third year of law school with practical training.

This option would reduce the law school tuition to zero. And the three years of students going without income would be replaced by a year of paid apprenticeship and two years earning a living as a lawyer.

The idea of learning law as an undergraduate discipline is hardly untested. Great Britain, for instance, educates lawyers in college, not graduate school. These college-educated lawyers appear to provide legal services on par with those of their American colleagues.

In addition to reducing the cost of training a lawyer, an undergraduate law degree could facilitate innovation in legal teaching. Because an undergraduate major would be situated within a college of arts and sciences, it would be easier to provide an interdisciplinary education, mixing elements of social science and humanities with legal doctrine.

Law demands fluency in many such disciplines. For instance, the merits of a mass torts case may turn on statistical inferences. Students could integrate relevant courses in statistics, economics and psychology into their undergraduate program rather than trying to catch up in law school. Thus, an undergraduate legal education has the potential to produce better rounded, more capable lawyers.

Of course, encouraging colleges to offer undergraduate legal education would not prohibit law schools from continuing to offer the current, three-year J.D. program. The maturity and career change that this graduate option would provide would continue to benefit some students.

Further, the undergraduate option would improve graduate education by forcing law schools to justify their cost by offering additional benefits. LLM programs—which result in a master’s degree—would also become more robust, as undergraduate-educated lawyers can earlier gain practical experience to better decide what specialty course to pursue.

Overall, by increasing competition, an undergraduate law degree would increase diversity and quality in legal education.

But the great benefit of the undergraduate option would be lowering the cost of legal education, thus increasing the supply of lawyers willing to charge lower fees. Lower fees mean broader access for middle- and lower-income Americans. Ultimately, law exists to serve the public.

Legal education needs to provide more diverse options to assure a more diverse bar and a better-served public.

Mr. McGinnis is a professor of law at Northwestern University and Mr.

Mangas is an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago.

Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Catalysts For Change | 3 Comments »

New Requirements for Bar Exam Stress Clinical Education

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Mary A. Lynch

In a press release issued on January 12th, 2012, the New York State Board of Law Examiners announced

[T]he amendment of the Court’s educational requirements for U.S.-educated graduates of ABA-accredited law schools to sit for the New York State bar examination. After consulting with law school administrators and representatives of the State bar and reviewing the current American Bar Association Standards for Approval of Law Schools (ABA Standards), the State Board of Law Examiners proposed changes to the rules which have been approved by the Court of Appeals.

The rule changes can be viewed here.

Among the changes for the 2012-2013 school year are:

  • Increase in maximum clinical hours, field placement and externships from 20 to 30
  • Increase in number of hours required to graduate from 80 to 83
  • Requiring professional responsibility

The New York Law Journal published a story on the new rules today featuring a quote from Connie Mayer, the Interim President and Dean at Albany Law School. In the article she supported the changes, but she would have gone further stating: “‘My view is there should be some requirement that a law student should meet with an actual client,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you graduate from law school and never actually see a potential client.'”

The changes were made partially in response to the report from the New York State Bar Association Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession. The Task Force has been discussed before on Best Practices. The view of the Task Force has been that students need to have practice at dealing with clients and learning practical skills so that they know how to handle complex client problems and have exposure to the ethical dilemmas that arise every day in law.

While this movement is in the right direction, the fact is New York’s rules were more restrictive than almost all other states on how it “counted” clinical courses. The real issue for New York as identified by the NYSBA Taskforce is the nature and content of its Bar Exam. The current structure of the NYS Bar Examination not only affects the cost and content of legal education at NY law schools but also has a discriminatory effect on the success of diverse law graduates. The NYSBA Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar is currently reviewing proposals to offer alternatives or modifications to the current exam. Stay tuned to see what happens. That would be change to crow about!

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change | Comments Off on New Requirements for Bar Exam Stress Clinical Education

Why “Practice-Ready” Isn’t Enough

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Kevin Ramakrishna

The Chronicle of Higher Education posted an article this week on practice-readiness in the legal profession.  There’s More to the Law Than ‘Practice-Ready’, by Alfred S. Konefsky and Barry Sullivan, is a call for law schools to go beyond the ABA’s resolution for law school’s to produce “‘curricular programs intended to develop practice-ready lawyers.'”  The article is about taking steps past the debate between skills and doctrinal education to have a wider discussion about successfully integrating both.  Here is a piece of the article:

So “practice-readiness” is indeed an important goal of legal education—but we think that law schools owe students more than that. Successful careers begin with competent practice in the early years, but preparation for the long haul is also essential. At the very least that means acquiring an array of skills beyond those usually mentioned in connection with practice-readiness. When we look back at the changes we have personally seen in society and the world, as well as in the legal profession and in legal education, we can only begin to imagine the world in which today’s law students will finish their careers. The real task of legal education must be to prepare students, as best we can, for a lifetime of successful, ethical, and personally rewarding practice.

The article provides some nice examples of what the authors view as important to practice like the difference between civil and common law systems, or the impact of race and gender on the practice of law (incidentally, a recent article by Professor Laurie Shanks on that issue is posted on SSRN).

Give the article a read and let us know what you think!

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Catalysts For Change | Comments Off on Why “Practice-Ready” Isn’t Enough

Building on Best Practices: Call for Ideas and Authors

Posted on October 23, 2011 by dmaranville

The Clinical Legal Association, Best Practices Implementation Committee is planning a follow-up publication to Best Practices for Legal Education by Roy Stuckey and others.     The vision of the book is to build on ideas for implementing best practices, and to develop new theories and ideas on Best Practices for Legal Education.   If you would like to author a section in the book please let us know as soon as possible.   Then by December 1, 2011 send either of us a 3-5 page abstract identifying the knowledge, skills and values as well as the learning objectives and methodology of your innovative teaching idea.   The Editorial Board will meet at the AALS meeting in January to select pieces for inclusion in the book.

 

If you have any questions or thoughts about the project please feel free to contact either of us.

 

Looking forward to drawing  on the expertise of the legal academy to build on Best Practices for Legal Education!

 

Antoinette Sedillo Lopez ,Chair, Publication Committee

Deborah Maranville,  co-editor

 

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Externships, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, First Year Law School Innovations, International Initiatives and Models, Teaching Methodology, Upcoming Events | 2 Comments »

Best Practices for the Hiring Process

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Margaret Moore Jackson

Phones will be buzzing this week, as faculty candidates receive invitations for call-back interviews.

My head is still buzzing from last weekend, as I process the hiring conference and the interviews many of us did at the Wardman Park. Why bother keep thinking about them, when the calls have already been made?

Because my committee asks every candidate about teaching. Having recently redefined our mission to state the explicit goal of producing practice-ready graduates, we also incorporate this focus into our hiring process. We want to hear about each candidate’s approach to teaching, their analysis of the techniques that have worked and those that haven’t yet worked for them in the classroom, and their ideas for making themselves better teachers. Hopefully these responses will indicate levels of knowledge, propensity for innovation, and ability to engage in reflection about teaching.

Even more stunning than the number of candidates whose responses employed the phrase “soft Socratic,” was that many candidates seemed confounded to have even been asked a teaching question. It often took several prompts. Yes, really, we’d like to hear your thoughts on structuring a course and measuring student learning. While I have had the happy experience over the past few years of interviewing candidates who referenced the Carnegie Report [Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law], it hasn’t happened very often.

Even before the recruitment conference, candidates have absorbed the message that teaching isn’t worth talking about. The interviewing experience itself reinforces the insignificance of teaching, as compared to scholarship. Vanessa said it best: “Every publication of a candidate is scrutinized, but virtually never does a Committee seek arguably more illuminating embodiments of teaching prowess, such as examples of feedback on student essays and papers, grading rubrics, sample exams and ‘model answers’, evaluation or critique of student performance of lawyering tasks, or other assessment tools and supplemental course materials.”  (December 13, 2010 post, Just Imagine if You Were Trying to Get a Job as a Law School Teacher…) Instead, when a committee even asks a candidate about teaching methods, candidates assume they have misunderstood the question.

The initial 30-minute meet-and-greet may be absurdly short for gathering accurate information about a potential colleague. But committees maximize this brief encounter to assess how well candidates explain the nuances of their scholarly writing. Gathering as sense as to how well-informed, articulate, and thoughtful candidates are about teaching is equally vital to the success of the hire – assuming the committee seeks to add an effective teacher to the faculty.

When candidates are more routinely questioned about teaching, as part of the hiring conference dance, the signal will go out to legal education’s initiates that both scholarly potential and teaching expertise are required.

Filed under: Catalysts For Change | 1 Comment »

Moving Beyond the Headlines

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Kevin Ramakrishna

In recent months, the legal profession and legal education has come under attack by newspapers, bloggers, and even lawsuits in some cases. The fact is, unemployed law school graduates are unsatisfied with legal education which is entirely understandable given the level of debt many impose on themselves relying on a job that may not come.

It is very easy to be consumed by the headlines.  Just today a New York Post Op Ed was published entitled Do law schools defraud students? The article attacks law school employment statistics, in the same way that we have seen so many times since the economy turned south. This blog has posted about some of the articles in the past.

The ABA Journal also has an article by Debra Cassens Weiss entitled LSAC Considers Role Confirming Law School LSAT and Grade Stats, ABA Journal, discussing the Law School Admissions Council’s response to reports that two law school had inflated statistics about their incoming class.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly cares about the legal profession and legal education enough to focus on fixing problems rather than dwelling on them, or worse, ignoring them.  Stagnation in legal education is partially to blame for dissatisfaction.  Using the same courses and structures without focusing on practical skills leads to graduates that are not prepared to be productive lawyers.

For sure, law schools cannot teach students everything they need to know, but we can create engaged classrooms, make sure law students have met foundational learning objectives, and integrate practice into the classroom. We can ask students to engage in roleplaying to start developing skills and habits for handling the ethical issues they will face; we can prepare them for client interaction.

Not all change has to be drastic, and we do not have to aim for perfection right away. We need steps. Incremental change. New ideas that are formed through collaboration between the clinical, doctrinal, practical, lawyering and legal writing faculty.

One place to take the first step is at the  Center for Excellence in Law Teaching’s (CELT’s) inaugural conference on Setting and Assessing Learning Objectives from Day One that will bring together faculty from across the curriculum to explore how to set and assess foundational objectives for law students.

We encourage collaborative presentations from faculty teaching throughout the curriculum including those who teach in the first year, the upper level curriculum, the legal writing program, the lawyering program, and the clinical program. We also encourage collaboration between those who teach large doctrinal classes, perspective seminars, or advanced subject matter courses, with those who teach in clinic, in field placement, or in a capstone course. We welcome in particular those teachers and administrators who have experimented with school wide attempts to define and assess objectives

Please submit the presentation proposal to krama@albanylaw.edu by October 15, 2011.

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The Center For Excellence in Law Teaching’s Inaugural Conference

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Kevin Ramakrishna

Albany Law School’s Center for Excellence in Law Teaching (CELT) will host a national conference on “Setting and Assessing Learning Objectives from Day One” for law school faculty and administrators on March 30, 2012.

The conference, to be held at Albany Law School, will focus on setting and assessing foundational objectives for law students, as well as what some law schools have already done to better structure curriculum and prepare students to meet proposed new American Bar Association standards.

We encourage collaborative presentations from faculty teaching throughout the curriculum including those who teach in the first year, the upper level curriculum, the legal writing program, the lawyering program, and the clinical program. We also encourage collaboration between those who teach large doctrinal classes, perspective seminars, or advanced subject matter courses, with those who teach in clinic, in field placement, or in a capstone course. We welcome in particular those teachers and administrators who have experimented with school wide attempts to define and assess objectives.

 Visit the conference website at www.albanylaw.edu/celt2012

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Teaching Methodology | Comments Off on The Center For Excellence in Law Teaching’s Inaugural Conference

Interviewing and Counseling: A Teaching Workshop

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Kevin Ramakrishna

From Professor Laurie Shanks, Clinical Professor of Law at Albany Law School

Albany Law School will be hosting a hands-on collaborative workshop entitled Interviewing and Counseling: A Teaching Workshop on November 11th, 2011 with an opening reception the evening of November 10th. The workshop is designed to address the significant challenges faculty face in teaching interviewing and counseling.

This event is a rare opportunity to collaborate on teaching methods specifically related to interviewing and counseling. The Workshop is designed for faculty who teach stand alone courses, clinicians who teach these skills as an integral part of preparing their students to represent clients, lawyering professors who introduce the skills to students in their first year of law school and doctrinal faculty who address these topics as part of their courses.

A unique feature of the event is the “swap meet” of written problems, syllabi, checklists, and teaching ideas, contributed by participants, that will be available to attendees. Additionally, there will be speakers addressing some of the most challenging aspects of teaching these skills, including how to create realistic simulations and proper assessment techniques.

For a more individualized experience, small groups will be organized to allow participants ample time to select from among various topics. These may include further discussion of large session topics as well as basics of course structure and content; choice of texts; and or other topics chosen by participants.

For more information, see the conference site: www.albanylaw.edu/clientteachingwksp

or email one of the Workshop organizers, Laurie Shanks lshan@albanylaw.edu, Harriet Katz, hnkatz@camden.rutgers.edu, or John Craft, jcraft@faulkner.edu.

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What the ABA Could Do

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Margaret Moore Jackson

The ABA has responded to Senator Grassley’s request for information about law school scholarships and accreditation.  The escalation of tuition and enrollment has been under scrutiny, particularly in light of the dim employment outlook for new grads, many of whom were counting on six-figure salaries to pay off their student loans.  (I won’t link to examples of the blogs out there railing about the perceived bait-and-switch, but the bitterness is acute.)

The ABA’s position is that an accrediting agency must approve the schools that are properly educating students, regardless of whether adequate job prospects await those who join the profession.

Perhaps.  But it does seem that the ABA could better require schools to provide accurate data about post-graduate employment of recent graduates.  This has been a problem for a long time.  While some schools may be telling the story (Dean Matasar states “we explicitly tell them that most graduates find work in small to medium firms at salaries between $35,000 and $75,000”) a more specific mandate from the central accrediting agency would provide a a more accurate snapshot for all potential students.

The ABA also could circulate data about the actual conditions of the profession, countering the engrained myth that a law degree guarantees a job and an immediately high income.  Spreading the word that the majority of lawyers earn a moderate income in small or medium firms would serve the profession by better aligning expectations with reality.  Students who knew ahead of time that their best job prospect might be self-employment would approach law school a bit differently and demand correspondingly pertinent educational opportunities.

Sadly, there is no shortage of work for lawyers.  It just isn’t well-paying work.  ABA action in this area could better attract to the profession those people who are fully aware of this challenge and prepared to meet it.

 

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Building on Best Practices–Call for Ideas and Authors

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

The Clinical Legal Association Best Practices Implementation Committee is planning a follow-up publication to Best Practices for Legal Education by Roy Stuckey and others. The vision of the book is to build on ideas for implementing best practices, and to develop new theories and ideas on Best Practices for Legal Education. We would like to call for topic suggestions and author abstracts. If you are interested in submitting a topic suggestions, please do so by August 1 by emailing Antoinette Sedillo Lopez at lopez@law.unm.edu with the topic idea and potential authors and resources relating to the idea. If you would like to author a section in the book and 3-5 page abstract identifying the knowledge, skills and values as well as the learning objectives and methodology of your innovative teaching idea. The abstract is due December 1, 2011. The Editorial Board will meet at the AALS meeting in January to select pieces for inclusion in the book.
If you have any questions or thoughts about the project please feel free to contact me or Deborah Maranville, co-editor.
Looking forward to drawing on the expertise of the legal academy to build on Best Practices for Legal Education! Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Chair, Publication Committee

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Externships, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, First Year Law School Innovations, International Initiatives and Models, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Building on Best Practices–Call for Ideas and Authors

SRC Holds Robust Debate on Security of Position and Academic Freedom Proposals

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Kevin Ramakrishna


In the wake of the ABA’s Standards Review Committee (SRC) open forum in Chicago on April 2-3, SALT and CLEA issued an official report on the proceedings.  The report details the strong opposition to the SRC’s proposals on security of position and the negative impact on clinical faculty. 

Two proposals were up for debate. The majority proposal would “protect academic freedom by requiring each school to have a policy and set of procedures on academic freedom and a policy on law school governance”.  The second was the “minority” proposal which “would require not only a policy and procedure on academic freedom, but also that ‘all full-time faculty [have] a form of security of position sufficient to ensure academic freedom and meaningful participation in law school governance.'” 


Perhaps not so surprisingly, the “minority” propsal, in fact, garnered the most support at the forum. The majority of attendees expressed strong reservations regarding the proposed changes to security of position.  While the SRC initially sought a vote on the competing proposals, by the end of the weekend, that vote was not seen as prudent.  Instead, the committee deemed that more time was needed to consider alternate proposals.  Specifically, committee members urged for language from the minority proposal to be incorporated and for the SRC “to study proposals from CLEA and from the ABA Special Committee on the Professional Education Continuum, both of which also provide for academic freedom and a strong governance role for faculty supported by a requirement of faculty security of position. In addition, the subcommittee will consider ways to insure equality of treatment for clinical and legal writing faculty.”

 

Click here to read the report.

Click here for more information on the event from SALT.

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change | 1 Comment »

Impacts of “the Market” on Legal Education

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Margaret Moore Jackson

Some have argued that the way to improve, even save, legal education is by reducing or eliminating regulations imposed by the accrediting body (i.e., the ABA Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar).  One strand of thought predicts, reasonably, that significant innovations in information technology and expanding globalization will only continue to change what society needs lawyers to be able to do.  Our notably rigid and change-resistant system of legal education is, so the argument goes, most likely to progress by letting the market decide what legal education should become.

The economic analysis is, frankly, beyond me, but it raises a number of questions when approached from the perspective of making education of lawyers the primary goal.  First, isn’t “the market” ultimately directed at making a profit, and if so, should educational institutions be ruled by that system?  Or, is that ultimately where we are now, with “big law” firms historically benefitting most from the system we have?  Would eliminating centralized oversight of law schools push them, individually, to provide the type of education today’s lawyers need?

Market forces impacting legal education include the decisions made by prospective students (school selection, course and program enrollment), by legal employers (hiring, areas of practice), and by clients (retaining representation).  It seems unlikely that people who even now have difficulty hiring a lawyer would be any better able to impact the development of unregulated, market-based legal education, to get what they need out of the market.  Does the concept of justice have an impact on the market?

Perhaps the market already, even beneficially, impacts the imperfect, regulated system of legal education we now have.  Some law schools have recently announced that they are decreasing enrollment due to the lack of jobs available for graduates.  Observers may ask whether this decrease is being done voluntarily, for moral reasons, or in response to economic imperatives.  But if the demand for law school enrollment continues to be strong, despite the paucity of post-graduate jobs, do we blame the market or the consumer?  As David Lat writes concerning the decreased enrollment some law schools have recently announced, “Can law schools and their administrators be condemned as unethical for scamming their students, when really they’re just providing a good to a market?  A market full of consumers who continue to demand the good, even after being warned of its dangers?”

I tend to agree more with a statement made by my political science professor friend, speaking with a disgruntled student who characterized himself as a consumer, “You’re not the consumer; you’re the product.”

 

Filed under: Catalysts For Change | 1 Comment »

Learning From Our Students, Pt. 3 – Effective Communication

Posted on December 14, 2010 by dmaranville

Lesson 3:  Communicating Complex Ideas Simply

The Jens’ presentation on climate justice reminded me of a third important lesson:  the importance, and possibility, of communicating complex ideas effectively.

The presentation includes, yes, a Powerpoint.  But not a text-heavy Powerpoint.  Rather, one with compelling graphics: an overview slide to introduce the subject and transition between five vertical bars representing their five-part framework for the basic human rights affected by climate change– health, food and water, security, equity, and justice.  Compelling photographs telling the stories of real people.  Maps and charts that illustrate their key points.

Roy Stuckey and his collaborators did important work in pulling together Best Practices in Legal Education.  They synthesized a significant amount of information on a broad range of topics in a format familiar to law teachers.  Not surprisingly, the book is not what you’d call “light reading’.  As we continue to “get the word out” about Best Practices, the Jens provide a great model for taking the next steps in effectively communication about Best Practices.

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