Issue #10 of Equipping Our Lawyers eNewsletter

Editor's Note: I recently posted an eye-opening Spotlight story on www.equippingourlawyers.org by New Jersey lawyer/CLE instructor Cindy Sharp arguing for the complete rethinking of mandatory CLE on the basis of accountable learning. I'll be interested in your comments that are invited at the end of the story!

Also, Equipping Our Lawyers is now on Twitter. I'm posting 4 to 5 meaty but bite-sized Equipping Our Lawyers updates each week. Please check it out and follow us at www.twitter.com/equiplawyers. For other recent developments, see below.
- Chuck Bingaman, Editor chuck@chuckbingaman.com

ALI-ABA and ACLEA Create Competencies Working Group

ALI-ABA and the Association of Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) have now formed a working group for implementing the Summit Recommendations that urge development of frameworks of legal competencies to guide planning and teaching throughout the continuum of legal education.

See Recommendations #11 and #12 at www.equippingourlawyers.org.

Potential working group projects include:

* Creating an online lawyer competencies resource including research on competency models and examples of lists of competencies in use by law schools, law firms, government agencies and other organizations.

* Developing a template/guide to aid in the design of competency frameworks for different settings such as law schools, law firms, and others.

* Encouraging law firms to share their competency models with law schools.

ALI-ABA and ACLEA welcome suggestions for the project from EOL Newsletter readers. Address comments to chuck@chuckbingaman.com.

Members of the working group include:

• Lynn Chard, Director, Institute for Continuing Legal Education (Michigan)
  
  
• Sari Fried-Fiori, Chief Professional Development Officer, Fulbright & Jaworski
  
  
• William Henderson, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
  
  
• Sandee Magliozzi, Director, Professional Development and Externships, Santa Clara University School of Law
  
  
• Terri Mottershead, Principal, Mottershead Consulting
  
  
• Tammy Patterson, Executive Director, NALP Foundation
  
  
• Alan Treleaven, Director, Professional Development, Law Society of British Columbia
  
  
• Paul Wood, Executive Director, Legal Education Society of Alberta

ABA Law School Accreditation Committee's Investigation of Law Schools' Employment Reporting May Impact Development of Competency-Based Law School Curricula

The ABA Legal Education & Admission to the Bar Section's committee reviewing standards ofaccreditation is looking into the accuracy of law school reporting on percentages of employed recent graduates, according to an article by Jim Secreto in the April 11 National Law Journal. See http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/
PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202489467880&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20101020bc
_law_student_asks_for__back/srvc=home&position=3. Some law schools are alleged to have been inflating graduates' rates of legal employment by using questionable counting methods.

Secreto wonders whether pushing for more accurate employment figures might force law schools to focus more directly on teaching students practice competencies that could raise the employability of new JDs.

New York State Bar Task Force Report on "The Future of the Legal Profession" Urges Steps Parallel to Summit Recommendations

The New York State Bar Association recently published its recommendations on “The Future of the Legal Profession.” And its task force members clearly had read the ALI-ABA/ACLEA Summit Recommendations. To see a summary of the report, go to http://www.nysba.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News_Center&
CONTENTID=48140&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

Key NYSBA recommendations from this far-reaching study include the following:

*Implement Summit Recommendations #11 and #12 on researching, formulating and implementing practice related “core competencies” to guide the teaching of lawyers through the full continuum of legal education-law school through legal careers.

* Request that law schools in New York report to the NYSBA on steps they are taking to formulate and build curricula around lists of practice competencies; offer to work with law schools to develop such competency-based curricula.

* Urge New York state bar examiners to begin assessing law school graduates’ professional skills beginning within 18 months.

* Begin “serious study” of licensing reforms including possible adoption of the Uniform Bar Exam based on its efficiency and reciprocity benefits, evaluate “sequential licensing” (See Summit Recommendation #5), consider adjusting bar exam scores to reflect completion of skills courses, and permit licensing after a period of closely supervised public service work.

* Meet with and attempt to persuade U.S. News & World Report law school rankings editors to alter their ranking criteria to take into account law schools’ successes in producing “practice-ready” graduates.

Boston College 3L, Citing Bleak Job Market, Seeks Tuition Refund; BC Says "No Dice"

Did you see the piece in the Boston Herald last October where a third-year student at Boston College Law School, citing bleak job prospects and his heavy burden of students loans, sought a tuition refund in exchange for his immediate withdrawal from school? He even noted that his withdrawal would boost BC's ranking in next year's U.S. News by raising its percentage of employed graduates! BC Dean George Brown, noting that BC offers the best education it can but makes no employment guarantees, sympathized with the student's difficult position. But he didn't accept the offer! See http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/
20101020bc_law_student_asks_for__back/srvc=home&position=3

Ed. Note: Hard to tell whether this was a serious proposal or a desperate cry for help in an impossible situation. Maybe both. But it DOES underline the need for prospective law students (and their academic advisors, parents, spouses and others) to gain and share a more realistic understanding of the profession's turbulent and unpredictable status at this point - and possibly for law schools to be more candid with them about employment and earnings prospects from the first contact onward. It may also suggest that all law schools need to move NOW to begin producing graduates with enhanced employment skills for the 21st century legal market. - CCB