Issue #19 of Equipping Our Lawyers eNewsletter

Editor's Introduction: Here is the latest news on strengthening the continuum of legal education, an increasingly common subject of growing passion and widespread participation even in the public press.

In addition to the events below, the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) at its January 28-31 mid-year meeting in New Orleans will discuss proposed draft model MCLE rules for (1) accreditation of distance learning formats and (2) the articulation of learning objectives for each CLE course, and how those objectives will be achieved. See www.aclea.org for the full program. Chuck Bingaman, Editor. chuck@chuckbingaman.com.

New York State Allows More Credit for Law Student Clinical and Externship Work

“To reflect the realities of current legal education, provide greater flexibility to students in scheduling classes and promote clinical legal education to better prepare law shool graduates for the practice of law,” the New York Court of Appeals has raised the amount of credit that schools may offer for clinical education.

Effective April 1, a law degree qualifying one to take the New York bar exam will need at least 83 credit hours--up from 80--of which as many as 19 may be from approved clinical work and at least two hours must come from satisfactory completion of a professional responsibility course. But even some of the 64 classroom credit hours may come from classroom components of clinical work, field placements or externships. The net effect will be that students will be able to make clinical education a greater part of the their JD degree work. See http://is.gd/nD0u6f for the full text of the new rules. See also Joel Stashenko's January 13 story on the new rules in the New York Law Journal at http://is.gd/miYsTm.

Ed. Note: Summit Recommendation #4 urges law schools, the bar and the bench to develop and encourage transitional training programs (defined as ones that teach or improve practice skills) to begin in law school and to continue through at least the first two years of practice. “Approaches to implement this recommendation might include...experiential learning opportunities in law school curricula, for example: practical experiences, clinical experiences, skills courses, internships, and mentorships....” This change in New York rules further recognizing the value of clinical education as an important component of the law school experience is clearly a positive change that may result in better equipped law school graduates. CCB

Times Weighs in on Law School Failures; National Conversation Bursts Forth!

The New York Times in November began a three-part series by David Segal on why American law schools do not produce skilled lawyers. To readers of this newsletter, it offered few surprises. But the volume of responses the series generated from all directions WAS remarkable! The Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers blog did a great job of collecting and organizing the barrage of responses. Here's a link to the blog and its resources. http://educatingtomorrowslawyers.du.edu/blog/detail/more-responses-to-the-nytimes-on-legal-education

A Summit Conferee's Response to the Times Critique of Legal Education

Ed. Note: Prof. Myles Lynk teaches at Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University in Tempe. He was an active conferee in the Critical Issues Summit sponsored in 2009 by ALI-ABA and ACLEA, the launching point of this newsletter. Here is an excerpt of his comment on the NYT series. CCB

Prof. Myles Lynk

“With respect to that portion of the [New York Times] article dealing with whether law students are trained, upon graduation from law school to engage in the substantive practice of law, note that Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1, 'Competence,' does provide that a newly trained lawyer is deemed competent to practice law. By contrast, no one thinks that a medical school graduate is actually qualified to practice medicine after four years of medical school, even though the last two years of the traditional medical school curriculum are entirely clinical training. Instead, these very expensive graduates then go to work in positions -- 'internships/residencies/fellowships' -- in which they are paid relatively little, certainly no more than a typical college grad with a liberal arts degree and often less, for some additional number of years where they learn how to be a doctor. This applies not just to MDs training for narrow specialties but also for primary care physicians.

“What is different about law schools is not that they fail to produce graduates ready to handle a trial or an IPO the day they leave, but that: a) we have not had some institutionalized system for doing the post-graduate training, like the docs have, apart from the training given the small number of grads who work for big firms; and b) for those who do work for big firms that provide post-graduate training, the law school graduates are paid extraordinary amounts during the training process - much more, relatively, than are the medical school graduates during their training. It is that fact which, as this article points out, clients are, not surprisingly, objecting to.”

Ed. Note: Summit Recommendations ## 2, 4 and 5 urge the legal community to create the very kind of transition education Prof. Lynk alludes to in his comment. See www.equippingourlawyers.org. CCB

And a View From the Federal Bench

Judge Jose Cabranes

Judge Jose Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 2nd Circuit shared his views on directions American law schools should take in an address to the American Association of Law Schools at its annual meeting in Washington January Cabranes warned that skyrocketing tuition levels and growing student debt levels “literally threaten the enterprise of legal education.”

According to Karen Sloan of the National Law Journal, Cabranes' suggested that, “To get back on track, law schools should shift their curricula back to core courses and away from the interdisciplinary classes that have grown in popularity....[T]hey should introduce a two-year core law program followed by a yearlong apprenticeship, and increase transparency regarding costs, job prospects and financial aid information.” See http://is.gd/9Yql3G for the complete article.

Ed. Note: I understand that the text of Judge Cabranes' talk will soon appear on the AALS website at www.aals.org. CCB

Not to be Discouraged by Law School Turmoil...New Law School Branch to Open in Savannah

National Law Journal reported on December 8th that Atlanta's John Marshall Law School is opening a branch in Savannah in September. See http://is.gd/0DeJK7. Who says there's a recession or a shortage of legal jobs?

Editor's Note: Additional new law schools are in the works in California, Louisiana and Indiana, and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School--based in Michigan--plans to open a new campus in Tampa, Fla., next year.

Also on the new law school front, the Council of the ABA Legal Education and Bar Admissions Section denied provisional accreditation to the new Duncan School of Law (associated with Lincoln Memorial University in Knoxville, TN) on the basis, according to the Dean, of its accepting too many students with substandard academic credentials and not having the resources to provide them academic support. The ABA does not disclose publicly the grounds for such decisions. The school says that the decision is not based on accurate information. See the National Law Journal story at http://is.gd/CzXbxh. Days later the law school filed an antitrust suit against the ABA Council alleging restraint of trade. See www.scribd.com/doc/76337597/LMUsuit for the actual complaint. Much more to come! CCB

Lawyering Skills from the Hollywood School of Law

Kelly Lynn Anders

Creighton University School of Law Communications and Diversity Director Kelly Lynn Anders has published a new book titled “ADVOCACY TO ZEALOUSNESS: LEARNING LAWYERING SKILLS FROM CLASSIC FILMS.” (2012, Carolina Academic Press, 236 pages, paperbound, $28).

In it she analyzes lawyer lessons and skills demonstrated in 36 law-related movies, some well-known, some obscure, that could be grist for law school classrooms.

See Karen Sloan's story on the project in the January 2 National Law Journal at http://is.gd/IXVbTD.