With Much to Celebrate, Room to Improve in Legal Education

Educating the next generation of attorneys in a thoughtful, comprehensive, and practical manner is essential to the continued vibrancy of the judicial process, public policy, and the economy.  In addition to providing legal services and expertise in a wide range of job settings, new lawyers bring a fresh perspective, new ways of operating, and a focus on emerging issues.  Though the economy may present employment challenges, we must nonetheless be certain that legal education continues to evolve and excel. 

Legal education itself has never been in better shape in terms of the preparation that we provide future lawyers.  In recent years, our schools have responded to suggestions by the bar and have substantially upgraded legal writing programs and practical skills opportunities.  The process currently in place ensures that graduating lawyers are well trained for a variety of roles.

We are also proud of:

• Extensive pro bono work that assists underserved populations at a time of dwindling public financing for these needs
• Efforts to diversify the profession and to provide academic support to our students
• Improved career services assistance

Though we have much to celebrate, institutions of legal education must also strengthen some key standards across the board, including: 

• Honest and transparent reporting of employment data
• Fair and clear guidelines for earning and maintaining scholarships
• Improvements in the process for accrediting schools to maintain both high standards and the independence of each school

Though the number of institutions that fail to report employment data accurately is small, their actions hurt the credibility of our entire industry.  For that reason, the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (of which I am the current chair) has taken a fairly aggressive stance on addressing this issue, with job placement information now being reported directly to the ABA.  This will have positive impacts; the quality of the information will be better and the specificity of the data will increase.  In addition, I have proposed to our Standards Review Committee that they consider stricter requirements and consequences for compliance failure, including significant monetary penalties and loss of accreditation.

It is my belief that the entire community of legal educators shares my willingness to look at our profession with a critical eye, identifying opportunities to build on our strengths, limit our weaknesses, better serve our students, and support our society with well-trained lawyers who bring diverse perspectives and new ideas.

--John F. O’Brien, Dean and Professor of Law, New England Law | Boston, and chair of the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar

Comments

[Barbara Seville]

Vacuous pablum, probably written by a PR hack.

[atttorney]

yeah, that was a really weak poast. it sounds like it was written a status-quo-preserving-bureaucrat. i'm hoping that this blog will quickly return to its offerings of people with something to say.

[mls]

"Legal education itself has never been in better shape in terms of the preparation that we provide future lawyers. In recent years, our schools have responded to suggestions by the bar and have substantially upgraded legal writing programs and practical skills opportunities. The process currently in place ensures that graduating lawyers are well trained for a variety of roles."

If that represents the view of a "critical eye," what would you say if you were looking through rose-colored glasses?

[Jon]

Stop. Just stop.

Your school's tuition is $40,000 per year. Most of your graduates will not get legal jobs even after they pass the bar. If they get jobs, they will not make more than 40K per year, a salary they could have earned with a B.A. and three years of work in another field. You know this. There is no need for nine law schools in Massachusetts. What the hell is wrong with you?

Do you know what $1 trillion in non-dischargeable high-interest rate student loan debt will do to this country in 10 years? In 20? Can you even begin to imagine?

I wish Occupy Wall Street would wake up and start occupying some universities.

[Dady]

He,he,he,, SCHOLARSHIPS .. in an AMERIKAN SCHOOL.. now THAT is FUNNY. You must REALLY be FOREIGN or you would know that the REPUBLICANS have cut funding to ALL the scohlos in the world's larges THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.. the scohlos are dropping SPORTS and FOREIGN LANGUAGES from their curriculum because THERE IS NO MONEY.. in many of the scohlos, the MUSIC DEPT.was the very FIRST casualty.. the REPUBLICANS need the money to GO KILL AFGHANS.You need to spend some time contact the scohlos ONE AT A TIME and ASKING them if they have any scholarships.. FOR AMERIKANS and once they tell you the scholarship money has dried up.. THEN you can ask if they will give a free scholarship to a NON AMERIKAN. Was this answer helpful?

[Phrompatsorn]

Why continually rsigeden for each project every aspect of a school, community hall, hospital or other buildings. Would it not be better to base each building on a basic design based on prefabricated building modules? These modules will be basically a set of ‘rooms’ built to a standard design from a set of construction sectors. These sectors would be selected form a standard range of sectors each constructed to meet various requirements of a building such as internal and exterior walls, roofs, windows, doors, partitions etc. To build a school or any other building the architect would simply design the construction based on a range of modules which the architect would design from these construction sectors. The sector modules would be made from the architect’s design and delivered to site in the form of a Kit. These Kits would be designed to be easily constructed by local people who would only need some training and basic guidance. Once a community had built one or more of these fabricated buildings they would be experience and skilled enough to build other buildings without supervision. It would also be easy for them to design their own buildings from these sector construction sets.The prefabricated sectors could be made in third world countries by local companies that would be funded by agencies such as UNICEF and other Government and NGO grant schemes as well as by local investors if possible.The Kits would also include all the necessary utilities, facilities, equipment, furniture, fittings and fixtures including computer and network systems to enable the school to be connected to the Internet. The architect would simply have to order the right Internet connection equipment (Satellite, WiMAX, Broadband or whatever) A basic set of buildings kits could also be readily available for immediate despatch which would be ideal for emergency situations. A range of Kits could be designed for Schools, Hospitals, Rescue Centres, Emergency Shelters, Communication and Command Stations, and Basic Houses. In fact a complete set of buildings that would be required from the initial emergency to the rebuilding of the community, village, town, city etc. could be available (subject to funding that is).Martin.

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