Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Fixing Law Schools

I recently read an interesting article on how legal education needs to change to be more useful to the graduating law students.  The article posits that law schools must "Prepar[e] student … for a lifetime of successful, ethical and personally rewarding practice." That's a tall order. See the article here:


Criticism aside, I do agree that law schools need to be re-engineered. The following except taken from the article concerns stepping away from the Ivory Tower to  a more inclusive (and IMO relevant) way to view legal work:

It is necessity, not fashion, that causes lawyers to pay attention to the work of anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. We look to those disciplines because their insights are useful—even indispensable—in understanding and solving legal problems in our complex and rapidly changing world.

4 comments:

Erik said...

I know it is only a small step, but mayhaps clinic should be required at every law school.

Madeleine Cag, resident blogger and Tiombe Carter, resident blogger in training said...

Clinic requirements is a good step, one short-comming is clinics don't address business/politics of private practice.

Anonymous said...

One of the biggest things that law schools need to teach students is how to write. Almost every intern I have had has been a terrible writer - even the ones on law review! Worst of all, they all think they are amazing writers and get upset when the attorneys edit their work. Being able to write well is fundamental skill. It does not matter how well you know the law if you cannot clearly and concisely convey what you know.

Madeleine Cag, resident blogger and Tiombe Carter, resident blogger in training said...

a delayed response, but in agreement with you anonymous. Most schools do have legal writing course, are they just not effective? can you think of a better way to teach legal writing?