A Change -in Legal Education - is Gonna Come (with apologies to Sam Cook)

I attended the ABA Workshop for Law School Dean on being a law school dean in tough times. It had the expected advice about how to weather the current economic storms. But there was also a not so veiled undercurrent: the old strategies may not work this time because legal education is undergoing a sea change.

I am in that camp. Economic and educational forces are combining in ways that will create a different world in which law schools will operate and lawyers will practice.

What are the economic forces?

• Law firms are shedding jobs that are not likely to be re-created when the recession ends.
• The remaining jobs will not pay so much as before.
  
• Students will be reluctant to take on large debt unless there are jobs waiting for them.
• Law Firms will demand job-ready applicants

What are the educational forces?

• Calls for fundamental legal education reform are gaining momentum
• The ABA is moving toward outcome-based accreditation standards
• Students are demanding different approaches and want to see value for their tuition dollars.
  

In my view, schools that are mission driven and can measure their effectiveness will thrive. This means that life as law schools have known it for the last 20 years is over: if rankings survive, they will have take into account the new value that students will seek. And law schools will not be able to pump up tuition without regard to student debt load. And the faculty salad days may be over.

Perhaps it will create a caste system for law school but, as UMKC Dean Ellen Suni said, "So what? We've got that already." Perhaps, mission driven schools will be able to pursue their vision and prospective students will recognize our value. (BTW, the Sam Cook original may be one of the greatest R & B songs ever. IMHO).

Changing what Law Schools Practice and Law Firms Teach

Temple Law School Dean Joanne Epps has an interesting piece in the National Law Journal entitled A Tipping Point for Law Schools? Dean Epps argues that the economic crisis gives law schools and law firms an opportunity to re-think the way we educate law students. The old bargain between the profession where law schools taught "the law" and law firms taught skills has broken down.

Of course, that was only true for the largest firms. Law schools that sent their graduates into small firms, state agencies, and solo practice have always embraced a mission to teach legal theory AND to prepare their graduates to practice law. That's why my law school - UALR William H. Bowen School of Law - has required an upper level skills course since 1974. The ABA only mandated a skills requirement in 2006. The recession and the reform movement in legal education have exposed the divide between the law school "haves" and the rest of us. In truth, the "haves" are now experiencing what the rest of us have always known and are now embracing what the rest of us have always done.

In fairness, Dean Epps' school - Temple - has been at the forefront of clinical legal education. I'm not picking on her. In fact, she gets it about right: that there is no single template for legal education in the 21st Century and that the future will be marked by flexibility and collaboration. As she says:

"I [don't] expect that change will come from one law school or even a handful of law firms. Rather, I think it is imperative that a dialogue get under way that harnesses our collective experiences from across the spectrum of the industry to think strategically about the role legal education should play during the next 20 to 50 years."

Indeed.