Best Practices for Legal Education

Harvard Law School has begun teaching a course on practical skills, creative thinking and excercising judgment for their 1L students called The Problem Solving Workshop. The course is designed to take students through an entire case, from the first time the client walks into the office, to the resolution.

The program has received a high level of interest, not only from law schools, but also from firms who donated attorney time to help instruct students.

The program is discussed in the Harvard Law Bulletin.

Read more about reform initiatives at the Center For Excellence in Law Teaching. 

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The AALS recently commented on potential revisions to the Standards for Accreditation of Law Schools that are currently under development by the ABA’s Standards Review Committee.  In its letter to the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the AALS doubts that reliable and valid outcome measures have been documented to exist and worries that requiring outcomes to be measured would simplify the types of learning under scrutiny.  The letter characterizes input measurements as imperfect, second-best ways to assess student learning, but asserts that the proposed change to output measures may be worse.

Among the caution flags raised by the AALS letter, the assertion that requiring outcome measures will stifle curricular innovation is perhaps the least persuasive.  Revising accreditation standards to focus on outcomes will prompt institutions and faculties to re-conceptualize the mission of educating future lawyers.  Without a new standard targeting outcomes, many schools will remain bound by tradition and inertia.  Inverting perspectives on teaching to grapple with outcomes is a challenging, but invigorating endeavor.  Merely reflecting on the fundamental questions – what are we trying to teach and how can we discern whether learning has occurred – presents opportunities for enhancing the quality of education.  Shifting the focus from inputs to outcomes is likely to spark new thinking and curricular innovation, rather than squelch it.

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The following locations have been confirmed for the next two Standards Review Committee Meetings.

July 24-25, 2010
Conrad Chicago
521 North Rush Street
Chicago, IL 60611

The times for the meeting, which are subject to change, are:

July 24: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
July 25: 8:30 a.m. to noon

November 7-8, 2010

Ritz Carlton St. Louis
100 Carondelet Plaza
St. Louis, MO 63105

The times for the meeting, which are subject to change, are:

November 7: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
November 8: 8:30 a.m. to noon

For more information about the Standards Review Committee and the meetings, please visit the Center for Excellence in Law Teaching website.

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Some schools and groups of professors have experimented with faculty teaching rounds as a way to enhance teaching through group reflection.  Also, a few law schools involved in the LEARN project have begun pilot “Rounds About Teaching,” hoping to prompt other law schools to emulate their programs.  Perhaps one day teaching rounds will become an established part of the culture of law teaching.

But when thinking about how to implement teaching rounds at a particular school, or even among a group of schools in a metropolitan area, it is easy to imagine how these efforts could go off the rails.  The goals of teaching rounds cannot be met if discussion is unfocused or participants are less-than committed.  How should teaching rounds be structured to maximize the chances that participants will find value in attending them and that institutions will encourage rounds as a means of supporting faculty teaching development?

Some say that rounds should not be about giving advice.  Rather, participants should be encouraged to explore the questions raised from the perspectives of their own work.  But how can rounds be structured so that teaching-related issues are discussed without seeming to be “fixing” the inadequacies of those who bring in questions?  What steps can be taken to encourage frankness and positive discussion among participants?

Among ideas for structuring teaching rounds is the notion that a facilitator is necessary, to avoid the risk that rounds will devolve into a rap session.  The facilitator makes sure the group stays on task, makes connections throughout the conversation, and encourages participants to label questions as having particular meanings.  The facilitator could be chosen for a particular term, with other group members periodically stepping in that role.  Facilitators may be required to do some extra preparation and planning work, raising the issue of whether or what type of credit a facilitator should receive institutionally.

Other decisions include frequency of getting together, procedures for raising issues to discuss, and whether teaching rounds should include faculty at all levels of seniority (with the idea being that junior faculty may be reluctant to share teaching problems if senior faculty are present).  Commitment to regular attendance is also recommended, to allow the group to develop a shared history of discussion.

Faculty teaching rounds offer an opportunity for law teachers to learn from each other and to improve our teaching by reflecting on our experiences as a group.  There also is potential for other, less-widely discussed benefits that can have a major impact on our work environment, such as improving faculty cohesion and collegiality.

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Underperformance, rather, can be instructive.

A key aspect of the clinical experience is the chance for students to try out new skills and make mistakes in a setting that is both safe and provides feedback to guide them towards improvement. Students’ mistakes fall into roughly two categories: conceptual errors (failing to understand the law, how the law relates to their clients’ situations, etc.) and performance-related ones (failing to comport with standards of Best Practices as defined by sources such as ethical rules, court rules, etc.).

Formative feedback is best employed at the time students engage in lawyering activities; it must be both specific and clear. Without this specificity and clarity, students are not likely to understand what they did, said, or how they acted “in practice” that fell short of their goal. In order for students to internalize the lessons they’re learning and thereby enhance their abilities to be self-reflective life-long learners, they need clear, specific feedback during their clinical experiences in law school.

It is with these principles in mind that we set out to develop a warning system format for the Immigration Law Clinic. The form developed, entitled “Notice of Underperformance,” is based on the grading rubric I discussed and attached to my recent Blog entry (see this Blog, May 24, 2010). It was enhanced by recent experiences in the Clinic that reflected students’ difficulties (for example, receiving an email from a student telling me that, in effect, after he completed a particular task, he would no longer be working on that client’s case!).

Rather than seeing the Underperformance Notice as a punishment, we hope that students will view it as a productive tool to help them understand how to “Best Practice” law. We will be using it for the first time this fall; it will buttress the grading criteria (presented as a rubric — also see my recent Blog entry of May 24) distributed to students in Orientation and to be used throughout the year. We hope that these criteria outlined in the grading rubric, which identify goals for the students’ Clinic work, will be enhanced by use of the Underperformance Notice, which will force students to pay attention to issues as they arise during their client representation.

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By: Karen Sloan

An organization of law professors want LSAT scores dropped from U.S. News & World Report‘s ranking formula, and it hopes deans and law schools will be the ones to pull the plug.

The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) has urged law schools to stop providing U.S. News with their incoming students’ LSAT scores on the theory that the immense pressure to snag incoming students with high scores is making it harder to admit diverse classes. The median LSAT scores of the entering class accounts for 12.5% of each law school’s U.S. News score — a greater weight than the magazine gives to average grade point average or acceptance rate.

“Admissions officers from around the country consistently report that the rankings constrain their ability to accept deserving and otherwise qualified students with relatively low LSAT scores,” SALT said in a written statement on Friday. “Instead of admitting students with promising undergraduate records and diverse life experiences, these admissions officers must all too often strategically choose the students whose LSAT scores help to maintain or improve a school’s ranking.”

SALT’s focus on the U.S. News ranking is misplaced, said Robert Morse, director of data research at the magazine.

“U.S. News does not sit in any law school admissions offices, U.S. News does not set admissions standards and U.S. News did not decide that LSAT scores are required for law school admission,” he said. He added that SALT has not contacted him directly to discuss the matter.

As long as the American Bar Association (ABA) requires the LSAT, it would be difficult to remove that statistic from the formula, Morse said.

While the U.S. News rankings have plenty of critics in legal education, it isn’t realistic to ask law schools to boycott them altogether, said Andi Curcio, chairwoman of SALT’s legal education committee and a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. Individual deans have called for boycotts, but there has been no widespread movement. SALT’s members believe that taking LSAT scores out of the mix is an achievable goal that will have a real effect in terms of diversifying classes, Curcio said. The group hopes to work with the ABA to devise a strategy to withhold LSAT score data.

“Deans, and to some extent faculty, feel compelled to play the game because of the effects of the rankings on their schools,” Curcio said. “SALT’s idea is the pragmatic approach to dealing with the problem of the U.S. News rankings. This will allow law schools more freedom to admit a broader array of candidates.”

SALT executive director Hazel Weiser said the organization has not yet received much reaction from members on its proposal.

LSAT scores are the single most important indicator of whether an applicant will be admitted to a particular school, Morse said, so it doesn’t make sense to drop them from the rankings formula. They also are standardized, making them a good resource for apples-to-apples comparisons, unlike grades point averages.

“[SALT] contends that law schools manage their scores because of our ranking, and that the median score inhibits them from taking students whose profile is on a lower level than their standard,” Morse said. “I’m saying that if they understood the median, they would see that’s not the case.”

If U.S. News factored in the average LSAT score of an entering class, schools would be penalized more harshly for accepting students with low LSAT scores. By using the median, however, schools can admit students with significantly lower LSAT scores without lowering their ranking, as long as they admit the same number of students with scores above the median, Morse said.

SALT is not the only group that has criticized the reliance on LSAT scores by U.S. News. A recent study by sociologists Wendy Espeland of Northwestern University and Michael Sauder of the University of Iowa concluded that the rankings make it harder for law schools to achieve diversity on campus. An ABA report on diversity released in April recommended that law schools “de-emphasize national U.S. News and World Report rankings because of the adverse impact upon applicants of color.” In February, the ABA’s House of Delegates voted to examine the magazine’s methods, although Morse said he has not been contacted by the ABA yet.

Even if law schools and deans decided not to report LSAT scores to U.S. News, the data could still be used in the rankings. Both the ABA and the Law School Admissions Council report LSAT scores at individual schools, although that information becomes available after U.S. News compiles its rankings. The magazine uses the previous year’s LSAT scores for the handful of schools that don’t participate in its survey. LSAT scores tend not to fluctuate much from year to year, Morse said, and U.S. News could use the previous year’s data if schools withhold them.

“I just can’t see how that’s going to get anywhere, as far as making data for a required test not available to the public,” he said.

Removing LSAT scores from the formula won’t erase all the problems the rankings create, but it would be a step in the right direction, Curcio insisted. Even lowering the weight of LSAT scores in the formula would help, she said.

“In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have U.S. News at all, but we don’t live in that world,” she said.

Alfredo Garcia, the dean of St. Thomas University School of Law, said it would be difficult to get all the the nation’s law schools to boycott the rankings. Garcia boycotted the U.S. News reputation survey this year and received mixed reactions from his fellow deans. The rankings “are such a big part of the culture that I seriously doubt a lot of people will stonewall them,” Garcia said.

Original article posted here

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In the Immigration Clinic at Southern New England (shortly UMass School of Law – Dartmouth), which is reverting to a full-year curriculum after two years of experimenting with a single semester, I have been trying to adjust the curriculum to implement several of the principles embodied in Best Practices. For those of you who recently attended the AALS Annual Clinical Conference in Baltimore, you may recognize in some of these adjustments hints of Backward Design; that was unintentional. I’ve been forced to conclude, after having attended the conference and learned about Backward Design, that I must be a “natural” Backward Design person!

I set out to restructure the clinic along with the Clinic’s Graduate Fellow, Julie Rahbany, by first identifying overall goals as well as specific ones for student learning. Once that was accomplished, we devised a variety of assessment tools through which students could demonstrate competence toward achieving those goals. Then we devised a system through which the grading criteria would be explicit and predictable, while also providing more predictable and structured feedback to students throughout the term.

The first step, engaged in last fall, was to review the syllabus; the semester-long course was able to be divided rather naturally into seven primary content areas (I expect that for next year’s full-year course we will be creating more competencies.). For each area, we created competency exercises employing a variety of learning modalities (e.g., oral presentation; drafting court documents; client interviewing; drafting direct, cross, and redirect exams; creating organizational flow-charts for easy-reference to complicated legal principles, etc.). The purpose of using these competencies is to provide the students opportunities to learn specific and important lawyering skills as well as to demonstrate their competence in these areas. This semester we implemented this practice, which was of course supplemented by class assignments more specifically focused on ensuring that the students are learning the legal principles relevant to our immigration practice.

Best Practices emphasizes the importance of students knowing from the outset what is expected of them – what skills they are expected to master during the course of their clinic participation, and how they will be evaluated on those skills. To that end, I began my overhaul by re-working the grading criteria and creating a written grading rubric to be distributed during Clinic Orientation. The document reflects the skills practiced in the competencies as well as the other aspects of lawyering that we emphasize in clinic. I will use the same document throughout the course of clinic, during mid-semester evaluations as well as during the final evaluation. In the end, the students will have worked with it, explicitly, on three occasions each semester. This repetition, which we know is necessary to enhance learning, will reinforce the importance of the concepts referred-to in the Grading Criteria Document. While for mid-semester evaluations I will only rate the students on the basis of Check, Check-plus, and Check-minus, at the stage of final evaluation, letter grades will be assigned. The document will also be the basis for the students’ final self-evaluations.

In the event readers are interested, I have attached both the Grading Rubric and the Competency explanation distributed to the students.

Please stay tuned next year, as we assess the effectiveness of the changes adopted.

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By Larry Krieger

With regard to the current discussion of improving curricula and pedagogy in law schools, it might be worth seeing our article (with Kennon Sheldon, Ph.D) in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007: Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory (Law and SDT). The study incorporates Self-determination theory, which posits (and this study confirmed, in two law student populations) that human beings require regular experiences of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to thrive and maximize their positive motivation. In other words, people need to feel that they are good at what they do or at least can become good at it (competence); that they are doing what they choose and want to be doing, that is, what they enjoy or at least believe in (autonomy); and that they are relating meaningfully to others in the process, that is, connecting with the selves of other people (relatedness).

These theories were applied in a test comparing two law schools that have different pedagogical theories, and probably as a result, have quite different “rankings” in the national legal community. Law school 1 (LS 1) is a second-tier school (USNWR) and focuses on scholarly production, while law school 2 (LS 2) is in the fourth tier and focuses more on practical experience. Toward this end, LS 2 provides more skills training and clinics for students, and hires and trains faculty in large part for their teaching ability; while LS 1 focuses more on theoretical teaching and much more on the scholarly output of faculty. The study compared GPA, subjective well-being, need satisfaction, self determined career motivation, and perceived autonomy support among students. (Id. at 886).

The results showed that, at the time of graduation, students at LS 2 had broadly better outcomes compared to LS 1, including higher satisfaction and subjective well being (“happiness” measurements), more service-oriented motivation for their first job (which predicts continuing increases in satisfaction and well being), and much better results in the same sitting of the Multistate Bar Examination, which indicates that the students at LS 2 learned and tested better than the students at LS 1. This was true even though the latter students had higher LSAT scores and undergraduate gpa’s when entering law school.

This study demonstrated conclusively that the critical difference that created the varying outcomes at the two schools was autonomy support, the level of respect and understanding that students felt from their faculty members. Perceived autonomy support was significantly higher at the more effective law school, which then generated a greater sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness among the students. This heightened level of basic need satisfaction then created the improvements in well being, satisfaction, internal motivation, and learning/testing performance.

 Some law schools are moving toward a law school experience with more clinical opportunities, more effective teaching, and more equality of faculty status, all of which were factors at the more successful law school in this study. More data are needed to show that these factors were causative in increasing autonomy support, but it certainly makes sense since (a) the students are attending to actually become lawyers, which these programs teach; and (b) the clinical faculty actually are lawyers (whereas much of the rest of the faculty is purely academic at most schools), so that if students perceive the former to be subordinated by status, they likely sense a lack of respect for the students’ own goals and desires.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin is considered the #2 personality/social psych journal in the country, and this article was their most downloaded article for that entire year. The article shows graphically the importance of humanistic support factors in teaching, relative to more traditional, formalistic ways of approaching the educational process.

Larry K.

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Clinical Law Review’s Clinical Writers’ Workshop
Workshop on October 2-3, 2010 at N.Y.U. School of Law
Registration Deadline: June 2, 2010

The Clinical Law Review will hold its third Clinical Writers’ Workshop on the afternoon of Saturday, October 2, and the morning of Sunday, October 3, at NYU Law School. The Workshop will follow a celebration at New York Law School of the 25th Anniversary of the Clinical Theory Workshop on Friday, October 1, and the morning of Saturday, October 2.

The Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop provides an opportunity for clinical teachers who are writing about any subject (clinical pedagogy, substantive law, interdisciplinary analysis, empirical work, etc.) to meet with other clinicians writing on similar topics to discuss their works-in-progress and brainstorm ideas for further development of their articles. Attendees will meet in small groups organized by the subject matter in which they are writing. Each group will “workshop” the draft of each member of the group.

Participation in the Clinical Law Review’s Workshop requires the submission of a paper because the workshop takes the form of small group sessions in which all members of the group comment on each other’s manuscripts. If you have already submitted a paper proposal to the New York Law School Clinical Theory Workshop Anniversary conference, you’re welcome to submit it for the Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop, but you are also welcome, of course, to submit a paper proposal to the Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop other than the one that you submitted to the New York Law School Clinical Theory Workshop Anniversary Conference. (You can attend the New York Law School Clinical Theory Workshop conference, by the way, without submitting a paper.)

As in the previous two Clinical Law Review Workshops, participants will not have to pay an admission or registration fee but participants will have to arrange and pay for their own travel and lodgings. To assist those who wish to participate but who need assistance for travel and lodging, NYU Law School has committed to provide 25 scholarships of up to $1,000 per person to help pay for travel and lodgings. The scholarships are designed for those clinical faculty who receive little or no travel support from their law schools and who otherwise would not be able to attend this conference without scholarship support.

JUNE 2, 2010: DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION AND SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION

To register for the Workshop without seeking a scholarship, please submit a Registration Form. This form is available on-line on the CLR Workshop’s website at:

http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/clinicallawreview/clrworkshop/index.htm.

Along with the form, please submit a mini-draft or prospectus, of roughly 3-5 pages in length, of the article you intend to present at the Workshop.

To register and also seek a scholarship, please submit a “Registration Form with Request for Scholarship Assistance.” This form is also available on-line on the CLR Workshop’s website at:

http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/clinicallawreview/clrworkshop/index.htm.

Along with the form, you have to submit a proposed budget for travel and lodging and also a mini-draft or prospectus, of roughly 3-5 pages in length, of the article you intend to present at the Workshop.

The mini-draft or prospectus of the article should contain the tentative title of the article and a short description of the main point or points contemplated by the article.

HOTEL INFORMATION

Blocks of rooms have been reserved at three local hotels at an NYU discounted rate, for Thursday, September 30, to Sunday, October 3. (The first of these nights will be needed if you decide to attend both the Clinical Theory Workshop Anniversary conference and the Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop. The scholarships for the Clinical Law Review Workshop apply only to the two nights you’ll need for the CLR Workshop (Friday, October 1, and Saturday, October 2.)) Hotel information is available on-line at

http://www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv2/groups/public/@nyu_law_website__journals__clinical_law_review/documents/documents/ecm_pro_065425.pdf.

To reserve a room and qualify for the NYU discount, you must reserve the room by August 30.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010: DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING A DRAFT MANUSCRIPT

All participants must submit a draft article by this date. Submissions will be circulated to every member of the small group to which the participant has been assigned. The award of the scholarship will be conditioned upon the submission of a substantially completed draft by this date.

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The following is an article that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Clinical law students and the Louisiana citizens who benefit from their good work are getting an education on the political process. The Clinical Legal Education Association has written a letter to express concern over the bill.

Senate bill could hobble Louisiana’s university law clinics, critics say
By The Associated Press
May 10, 2010, 1:57PM

Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton
Law clinics at universities across Louisiana fear a state senator’s proposal (Senate Bill 549) could force them to close, leaving their impoverished clients without free legal services in cases ranging from child support to water pollution.

Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, said he’s heard those concerns and plans to put limits on the legislation.

Both sides acknowledge the measure is aimed at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, which Adley and business lobbyists say has driven jobs from the state. The clinic’s supporters argue its lawyers help community groups hold state and federal regulators accountable, to make sure they comply with pollution laws.

As it now stands, the bill — scheduled for a Wednesday hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee — would prevent all university law clinics from challenging government agencies in court, suing individuals for damages or making constitutional claims. That would limit access to justice for thousands of low-income Louisianians and prevent law schools from providing students with a complete legal education, legal experts argue.

The proposal comes at a time when law clinics nationwide find themselves under fire from legislatures, courts and industry interest groups. Environment-focused clinics, which tend to ruffle the feathers of businesses, are taking most of the heat.

Adley said he offered his proposal after chemical and oil industry lobbyists complained to him about lawsuits brought by the Tulane environmental clinic, including a suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators that would require them to enforce clean air regulations in the Baton Rouge area.

Dan Borne, president of the Louisiana Chemical Association, criticized the Tulane clinic as having a “wanton disregard for the economic well being of the state” and “clearly anti-development agenda” that he said has scared away millions of investment dollars.

Tulane’s environmental clinic drew fire from Gov. Mike Foster and industry groups when it sued in 1997 to block construction of the Shintech plastics plant in an impoverished, predominantly black community in St. James Parish. Tulane won a victory when Shintech abandoned its plans in favor of another smaller facility near Baton Rouge.

But while Adley and Borne focus on Tulane, the bill would affect all clinics in the state and the thousands of low-income clients they serve, said Robert Kuehn, president of the Clinical Legal Education Association.

“In wanting to kneecap Tulane, the Louisiana Chemical Association is going to kneecap all the state’s law clinics,” he said.

The legislation would have a drastic impact on all seven sections of Loyola University’s law clinic, said Loyola spokesman Tommy Screen.

Stephen Griffin, interim dean of Tulane Law School, said without changes, Adley’s proposal would shut down four of Tulane’s seven clinics.

Messages left for the chancellors of the LSU and Southern University law schools were not returned.

After meeting with the presidents of Tulane and Loyola last week, Adley said he wants to amend the bill so it deals only with clinics that file lawsuits against businesses and the state that Adley said create an unfriendly climate for creating jobs. How that would be determined is unclear.

If clinics didn’t comply, the universities could lose all state funding. Although Tulane is a private institution, it gets millions in state money. Loyola, a Jesuit university, gets about $925,000, Screen said.

Adley argues schools receiving state funds should not be allowed to sue the state.

Adam Babich, director of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, said Adley misunderstands how the courts and government are intended to interact. Public participation in the process is essential, he said, and Tulane’s student lawyers give voice to citizens’ environmental concerns.

“If somebody in the state issues a permit that’s not legal, it’s in everyone’s interest to get that resolved,” Babich said.

Other law clinics around the country also are subject to scrutiny and legal fights. Clinics in Maryland, New Jersey and Michigan have faced recent challenges either through legislation or legal action.

Louisiana law clinics already operate under some of the strictest rules in the nation. After Tulane’s victory in the Shintech case, industry groups complained to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which regulates law clinics, and the court limited the type of clients law clinics could represent to the most impoverished.

Babich said Adley’s legislation in any form will be bad for Louisiana and its universities.

“This kind of action has the potential to just be a national embarrassment, damaging our reputation both in terms of good government and in terms of education,” Babich said.

Some questioned the wisdom of moving forward on a bill targeting an environmental organization as an oil slick the size of Puerto Rico loomed off the Louisiana coast.

“It’s ironic, of course, for essentially a bill that would insulate the oil and gas and chemical industries from challenge from residents to be coming up just as we are seeing the kind of damage that can result from poorly considered decisions,” Babich said.

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The following was supplied by Sarah E. Ricks, Clinical Professor and Co-Director, Pro Bono Research Project, Rutgers School of Law – Camden:

By Katherine Mangan
Phoenix

The nation’s legal-education system needs a major overhaul so that students graduating with more than $100,000 in debt can find jobs in a shrinking market and graduate ready to practice. That was the consensus of most of the nearly 100 judges and law-firm partners who converged at a forum this week sponsored by Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

Participants in the “National Forum on the Future of Legal Education” said law schools should emulate medical schools and transform the third year into clinical rotations, so that students know the nuts and bolts of being a lawyer by the time they graduate. Such changes are needed, they said, at a time when law firms are hiring fewer lawyers, and clients are less willing to pay for young associates to gain on-the-job training with their cases.

Many of those who shared ideas at the forum were adjunct law professors or lawyers who had previously taught law. But they were dispensing advice as law-firm partners and judges who hire and work with young lawyers, who they said often lack the analytical and writing skills they need to be effective their first year out of school.

“What law firms do is train junior lawyers, and they are basically unprofitable in their first or second years,” said Andrew A. Giaccia, an executive partner with Chadbourne & Parke LLP, a global corporate law firm.

At some firms, 50 percent or more of these junior lawyers leave during their first two years, he added. “When they’re gone, that training investment is gone,” Mr. Giaccia said. “It’s not an economic model that makes sense.”

He argued for shaving one year off the three-year J.D. to allow students to complete their basic course work in two years—more like an M.B.A. After that, schools could create personalized tracks to provide additional training based on students’ career choices. A student planning to go into solo practice, for instance, could spend an extra year getting advanced training in that.

Variations of that theme received wide support as participants debated and then voted on their favorite solutions to the training problem.

Paul Schiff Berman, law dean at Arizona State University, said his staff will summarize the findings and recommendations and distribute them to law schools nationwide. He also hopes to incorporate many of the recommendations into his school’s curriculum, which already includes a required course on bridging the gap from law school to practice and 11 litigation and non-litigation clinics.

Theresa H. Vella, a Phoenix-based partner with a major corporate law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, suggested a third year of rotations in which students might spend a month each in a large firm, a solo practice, a government office, and a nonprofit group.

Another proposal would allow students to receive a provisional license after two years of law school. After that, they would go to work for a firm that might pay them $40,000 instead of $160,000, but in exchange, they would receive training and mentoring.

Curricula Need Revamping

Participants at the forum also noted that law-school curricula are heavily skewed toward litigation. But with fewer cases going to trial today, in part because litigation is so expensive, students need more experience in practicing transactional law, drafting documents, and negotiating terms with clients, several participants said. During their third year, students should also learn practical skills like how to open a law office, advertise, and get clients, several participants said.

“Lawyers come out of law school eager and smart and knowing absolutely nothing useful,” said J. William Dantzler Jr., the head of global tax practice for the firm White & Case LLP. “I came here with a vague sense that doing away with the third year might be useful, but being a lawyer, I want to hear both sides.” During his own third year of law school, he said, “I mostly drank beer and enjoyed myself immensely.”

Roger A. Denning, a national recruiter for the law firm of Fish & Richardson, in San Diego, said the third year should be revamped so that students paying as much as $45,000 a year in tuition and fees are practicing skills they will actually be using when they graduate.

Fewer than a quarter of graduating law students go to work for firms with more than 100 lawyers, and about 56 percent work in private practice, according to NALP: The Association for Legal Career Professionals. The rest find jobs in government, public service, business, or other sectors.

“It used to be that graduates would go into big law firms, make a lot of money, and pay off their loans, but that’s not the case anymore,” Mr. Denning said. “I worry when people ask, ‘Am I really going to take on $150,000 in debt to go into a profession that’s not hiring the way it was?’ Some of the best and brightest might just say, ‘No thanks.’ ”

His firm, one of the top patent-law firms in the country, pays first-year associates $160,000 a year, ,, but it only plans to hire a third as many new associates this fall as it did two years ago.

Practical Experience Crucial

Another speaker at the forum said that some of the training law students need can come from mentors.

Patrick J. Schiltz, a U.S. District Court judge in Minnesota, taught law at the University of Notre Dame and the University of St. Thomas before his appointment to the federal bench in 2006. At St. Thomas, where he also served as an associate dean, he helped set up a program in which all students are required to have a mentor for all three years. Students shadow lawyers during witness depositions, court hearings, and alternative dispute resolutions.

Mr. Schiltz said most law professors nationwide graduated from a few top schools and have little practice experience.

“The faculty can’t teach these skills because they don’t know how,” he said. “They’ve never had a client, and they aren’t interested. Teaching students (these skills) doesn’t enhance their prestige or help their schools climb in the rankings.”

He added that the nation has no shortage of disadvantaged people needing legal help, but most debt-burdened law-school graduates can’t afford to take the public-interest jobs that would help these individuals… As a result, “there’s a tsunami of lawyers, and people are dying of thirst.”

Michael P. McCuskey, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, said most law-school graduates in his state go to work in solo or small practices. “With the economic downturn, more and more law students are compelled economically to put out their own shingle,” he said. In addition to mentoring, “they need training in ethics and professionalism in the third year, because many will start out viewing their job as a business that is paying off their debts.”

The American Bar Association’s accrediting arm is considering changes to its accreditation standards that would address such concerns. One of the more controversial proposals being considered would require schools to measure how well their graduates had mastered specified skills.

Some deans worry about the added financial burden such a requirement might entail during tough economic times.

Also: Chris Coughlin, Sandy Patrick, and Lisa McElroy just published an article on this topic in 26 Georgia State Law Review 361 (2010).

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The one and a half hour video recording of the 12th Annual Professors’ Workshop, Curriculum Adaptation: Teaching Environmental Law in an Era of Climate Change and Other Global Challenges held at Pace Law on February 19, 2010 is now available!　Click here and the link to the video will be at the bottom of the page. 

Attended by over 30 faculty members who accompanied their teams to the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, the Workshop discussion focused on new environmental, energy, and resources courses, clinics, experiential learning opportunities, and more. Participants were Craig Johnston, Professor of Law, Lewis and Clark Law School; Madeline June Kass, Associate Professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law; and Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law & Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, Vermont Law School.　Please watch and listen when you have a moment.　 We hope that this year’s recording of the Workshop is helpful to those of you who could not be with us.

Mark your calendars for next year’s Competition, to be held February 24-26, 2011. 　Save the date cards will go out in May.

Information provided by:
Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Esq.
Assistant Dean of Environmental Law Programs
Adjunct Professor of Law
Pace University School of Law
Center for Environmental Legal Studies

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Here is a recent entry on the Law School Innovation blog dealing with teaching materials. It is a reminder of one of the barriers to implementing best practices. This is particularly relevant to encouraging newer colleagues to incorporate best practices. For many, supplementing an existing casebook with additional materials will be a less perfect, but more achievable, method:
  

Pro or Con- texts?  

Over the past three years, I have taught over 20 classes, in six different subjects. In that time, I did not use a single traditional textbook. This wasn’t done out of some revulsion at cost or content; rather, I found that texts simply did not fit well into the practice-oriented classes I was teaching. For example, I teach a class in Appeals and Habeas, and certainly there are books that cover each of those subjects. However, I was combining Texas appellate procedure with federal and state habeas and focusing on how those systems operate, and never found a text that fit those needs.  

I’m starting to see signs, though, that the textbook industry is adjusting to the reality of practice-oriented classes. My classmate Sarah Ricks, now teaching at Rutgers-Camden, is one of those in the middle of that movement. She has developed a text to be released later this year by Carolina Academic Press entitled Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation: Roles of the Courts, Attorneys, and Administrators. Like my appeals and habeas class (and, overlapping with that class), Constitutional litigation is by its nature practice-oriented. Prof. Ricks’ book accommodates that reality by incorporating non-case material including not only simulation exercises (a device that has been used often), but appellate briefs, oral arguments, and expert reports, to focus more sharply on the role of the practitioner. Multimedia material includes the testimony of a prison guard accused of assault of a prisoner, and interviews with some prison rape victims.  

I would like to use a textbook—it is a pain in the neck to assemble new materials every time I start teaching a new class. The work of people like Prof. Ricks gives me hope that in the future there may be a textbook that fits my class and style.  

— Mark Osler
Reposted from: http://lsi.typepad.com/lsi/  

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Dear Friends in Clinical Legal Education:

I just sent this e-mail out over the AALS communication platform, so I’m sorry if you have received this message twice. I want to make sure that our Section members who are not yet on the platform also get the message.

I am delighted to let you all know that you may now access the Spring 2010 Clinical Section Newsletter, which is on the AALS Communications Platform. Liz Hubertz, our Newsletter Editor, is also mailing out paper copies to those of you who have been receiving the Newsletter in that medium (though this will be our last paper copy – check the Newsletter for details).

As a reminder, to log in:
o Click on connect.aals.org and follow the login instructions (your username is your e-mail address; if you don’t remember your AALS password, follow the instructions for password help – the AALS will send you a new temporary password by e-mail).
o Once logged in, click on “Communities” in the top tool bar. Then click on “Section” in the middle of the page, and then click on “Clinical Legal Education.”
o The Newsletter, along with Task Force Report and several other important documents, is located under “File Library” towards the bottom of the page. When you click on the document, you will see instructions to download or e-mail yourself the Newsletter.
o If you have a problem getting onto the platform, please contact Pati Abdulina at pabdullina@aals.org.

I understand that we are in a transition period with the communications platform, so if you just want me to e-mail you the Newsletter (or the Task Force Report), please contact me at aga@indiana.edu.

We are about a week away from the clinical conference in Baltimore, and I am looking forward to seeing many of you there. If you haven’t yet made plans to come, it’s not too late. The program looks spectacular (for details about the program, go to http://www.aals.org; the conference brochure is a link on the left side of the page under “In the Spotlight”).

The conference is a great opportunity to meet and/or reconnect with our clinical colleagues from around the country. In addition to what’s on the program, among other things, you will learn about:
o What is going on with the ABA Standards Review process, how to stay informed, and what each of us could/should be doing at our law schools
o How to become members or renew membership in the Section through the AALS’ communications platform
o How to participate in our Section’s new mentoring program

Best regards, Amy Applegate, Chair, AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education

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