Many, if not most, law schools conduct orientation for incoming first year students. Faculty may be significantly involved. Sometimes we might ask ourselves, in the hurry of early August, “Why are we doing this?!” And, “How come we didn’t schedule time last April to talk about changing orientation?” When faculties examine their orientation programs, we [...]
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The Wall Street Journal Law Blog recently posted on the change to merit pay raises at law firms, a move away from simple billable hours based raises. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that lockstep pay, in which associate salaries automatically rise each year, is becoming a thing of the past at many firms. Today there is [...]
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An interesting article was sent to me from Professor Pam Armstrong, a lawyering professor at Albany Law School. It cites findings that grades in law school are a more accurate predictor of career success than the eliteness of the school. The full text of the article is posted at the ABA Journal’s website. The research was also picked [...]
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In a new research paper recently published on SSRN, Douglas Rush, from St. Louis University reports that law schools may not be teaching students to “think like lawyers”. The paper entitled “If You Think Law Schools Teach Students to ‘Think Like a Lawyer’…Think Again!” finds that ”there has been little or no empirical evidence to test whether [...]
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A Resolution of the ABA House of Delegates requires an examination of any form of law school ranking. Pursuant to the Resolution, ABA President Carolyn Lamm assigned the task of examining law school ranking to the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. The Special Committee has prepared a comprehensive annotated bibliography on [...]
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In a previous post, I discussed the proposed changes to ABA standards with regard to academic freedom and faculty security of position. Several faculty members privately e-mailed me to provide context and correction to my explanation of the proposed revisions to ABA standards and the underlying assertion that tenure is not “mandated” by the current [...]
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In addition to the proposed revisions regarding academic freedom, the ABA Standards Review Committee also posted proposed revisions regarding Faculty Responsibilities – Standards 401-404. [To see draft click on: http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html The proposed revisions focus appropriately on student-centered learning and the need to make good teaching a central focus of law school accreditation. The proposed standards make [...]
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The proposed revisions to ”Security of Position, Academic Freedom, and Attract and Retain Faculty” dated July 15, 2010, was posted on the web site of the Standards Review Committee on July 20, only three days in advance of the Committee’s meeting this weekend at which the SRC is slated to discuss the issues it raises. see http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html [...]
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As mentioned in an earlier post, the next ABA Standards Review Committee meeting will be held in Chicago on July 24th and 25th at the Conrad Chicago in the Magnolia Ballroom, Salon A and B. ( If you are interested in attending, contact Charlotte “Becky” Stretch at StretchC@staff.abanet.org.) Two areas have generated much comment: the [...]
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By: Sarah Ricks and Evelyn Tenenbaum Many law teachers are eager to implement the ideas in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) and in the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers (2007). But traditional casebooks are not focused on helping students to develop practice skills and professional identities – as the Carnegie Report recommends. Traditional casebooks are [...]
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Recent posts discuss the proposed new Learning Outcomes implications for clinical offerings. There is concern about the move from the original language requiring “substantial instruction in professional skills” to requiring that “every student” complete “at least…one appropriately supervised learning experience” mandated in the proposed new Standard 303. While others are debating the merits of this [...]
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The ABA Committee examining the review of accreditation standards next meets in Chicago July 24-25 to continue its development of outcome measures standards and to begin its consideration of amending or deleting the security of position provisions in Standard 405(c). In this post, I will focus on the current debate around development of outcomes measures. In [...]
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The NYSBA Taskforce on the Future of the Legal Profession will conduct a thorough examination of the how lawyers are trained. The Taskforce’s goal is to produce a report that will influence fundamental changes in law firm billing structure, improvements in legal education and training, providing better work-life balance and harnessing new technologies. With regards to [...]
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The Eighth International Clinical Legal Education Conference will be held at Northumbria University Law School, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, July 7-9, 2010. The Conference will explore the role of clinical legal education in modern law schools. Professor Paul Maharg (formerly of the University of Strathclyde and now on Northumbria Law School faculty), author of [...]
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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 [...]
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