Reforming Legal Education to Prepare Law Students Optimally for Real-World Practice

Reforming Legal Education to Prepare Law Students Optimally for Real-World Practice PDF Author: John Lande
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This article synthesizes major points in the October 2012 symposium of the University of Missouri School of Law Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution, entitled "Overcoming Barriers in Preparing Law Students for Real-World Practice." There is a growing consensus that American law schools need to do a better job of preparing students to practice law. Teaching students to think like a lawyer is still necessary but it is not sufficient for students to act like a lawyer soon after they graduate. Although legal education has evolved in recent decades, the legacy of the Langdellian system makes it hard to combine instruction in legal doctrine, practical skills, and clinical experience. Recognizing the general problems of legal education is fairly easy. Solving them can be quite hard. Law schools serve many constituencies that have demanding and diverse interests. This article catalogs a long and growing list of difficult pressures that law schools must cope with. It provides an overview of general processes and possible goals that schools may adopt in undertaking educational reform efforts. It then describes some options for improving practical education of law students. It concludes that although educational reform is very difficult, it will be necessary for most law schools to undertake some reforms, in part for survival in a challenging environment with shrinking enrollments, innovative competitor law schools, and employers demanding better-trained graduates. Reforming legal education to produce more effective lawyers is not only in law schools' self-interest but it is also important to fulfill commitments to our stakeholders including students, alumni, legal employers, courts, clients, and society generally.

Reforming Legal Education to Prepare Law Students Optimally for Real-World Practice

Reforming Legal Education to Prepare Law Students Optimally for Real-World Practice PDF Author: John Lande
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This article synthesizes major points in the October 2012 symposium of the University of Missouri School of Law Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution, entitled "Overcoming Barriers in Preparing Law Students for Real-World Practice." There is a growing consensus that American law schools need to do a better job of preparing students to practice law. Teaching students to think like a lawyer is still necessary but it is not sufficient for students to act like a lawyer soon after they graduate. Although legal education has evolved in recent decades, the legacy of the Langdellian system makes it hard to combine instruction in legal doctrine, practical skills, and clinical experience. Recognizing the general problems of legal education is fairly easy. Solving them can be quite hard. Law schools serve many constituencies that have demanding and diverse interests. This article catalogs a long and growing list of difficult pressures that law schools must cope with. It provides an overview of general processes and possible goals that schools may adopt in undertaking educational reform efforts. It then describes some options for improving practical education of law students. It concludes that although educational reform is very difficult, it will be necessary for most law schools to undertake some reforms, in part for survival in a challenging environment with shrinking enrollments, innovative competitor law schools, and employers demanding better-trained graduates. Reforming legal education to produce more effective lawyers is not only in law schools' self-interest but it is also important to fulfill commitments to our stakeholders including students, alumni, legal employers, courts, clients, and society generally.

Educating Lawyers

Educating Lawyers PDF Author: William M. Sullivan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 078798261X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The Challenge of Educating Lawyers "This volume, under the presidency of Lee Shulman, is intended primarily to foster appreciation for what legal education does at its best. We want to encourage more informed scholarship and imaginative dialogue about teaching and learning for the law at all organizational levels: in individual law schools, in the academic associations, in the profession itself. We also believe our findings will be of interest within the academy beyond the professional schools, as well as among that public concerned with higher education and the promotion of professional excellence." --From the Introduction "Educating Lawyers is no doubt the best work on the analysis and reform of legal education that I have ever read. There is a call for deep changes in the way law is taught, and I believe that it will be a landmark in the history of legal education." --Bryant G. Garth, dean and professor of law, Southwestern Law School and former director of the American Bar Foundation "Educating Lawyers succeeds admirably in describing the educational programs at virtually every American law school. The call for the integration of the three apprenticeships seems to me exactly what is needed to make legal education more 'professional,' to prepare law students better for the practice of law, and to address societal expectations of lawyers." --Stephen Wizner, dean of faculty, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Legal Education in the Global Context

Legal Education in the Global Context PDF Author: Christopher Gane
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134804741
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing legal education in the era of globalization. It identifies the knowledge and skills that law students will require in order to prepare for the practice of tomorrow, and explores pedagogical shifts legal education needs to make inside and outside of the classroom. With contributions from leading experts on legal education from various jurisdictions across the globe, the work combines theoretical depth with practical insights. Seeking to understand the changing landscape of legal education in the era of globalization, the contributions find that law schools can, and must, adopt educational strategies that at least present students with different understandings of what studying and practicing law is meant to be about. They find that law schools need to offer their students choices, a vision of practice that is not driven entirely by the demands of the marketplace or the needs of major international law firms. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book makes a significant contribution to the impact of globalization on legal education, and how students and law schools need to adapt for the future. It will be of great interest to academics and students of comparative legal studies and legal education, as well as policy-makers and practitioners.

Going Back to Basics

Going Back to Basics PDF Author: J. Damian Ortiz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Legal education has undergone significant changes from the apprenticeship system of the eighteenth century to the more formalized legal education of today. While most of these changes have been beneficial, practical real world education and skills are missing from most students' legal education. Experiential legal education programs, which are available at virtually all law schools, in some form, is an excellent way to bridge the gap between the skills taught in the classroom environment and the skills required to be a successful attorney practitioner. For example clinical education provides students with real legal skills that are considered valuable by many employers. Even though experiential education programs are extremely beneficial to students, employers, and the community, the benefits provided by experiential education can be increased by making them mandatory and modifying the experiential programs. This paper explores the need for mandatory experiential programs and their impact on modern legal education. Specifically, this article explores the vital role that clinics and other practical skills programs play in legal education. Introduction: As the primary means for educating future lawyers, the quality of education offered by law schools is important to both law students and the community at large. Because of the important role of law schools in society, it is crucial that educators ensure that law students are receiving an education that will give them a solid foundation as practitioners. Studies and critiques of modern law schools reveal several striking similarities. These studies show that modern law schools offer an integrated curriculum and teach legal analysis in the classroom, but could benefit from an increased focus on practical skills, ethics, and communication skills. This leads to the conclusion that law schools need to provide programs that focus on training students for the actual practice of law. Clinical legal education fulfills this objective by giving students an opportunity to obtain experiential learning. Experiential learning encompasses all three domains of learning: cognitive, performance, and effectiveness. It ensures that the students' education encompasses the four stage sequence of optimal learning: theory, application, experience, and reflection. Thus, experiential learning allows students to learn and apply legal skills in a manner that is not available in the classroom environment. This article further explores the vital role that clinics play in legal education. The article begins with a history of clinical legal education and a summary of modern legal education, so we can examine where we have been and the current state of legal education. Then, the article explains the important role that clinical education plays in the bigger picture of modern legal education. Finally, the article more closely examines the nature of clinical education today, discusses several innovative apprenticeship programs, and offers suggestions as to how clinical education can be improved to ensure that students are receiving a legal education that will truly prepare them to enter the workforce as counselors and advocates. Conclusion: As we have seen, clinics play a crucial role in a legal education by offering students real-world experience and bridging the gap between theory and practice. Clinical legal education is essential because it helps ensure that students are prepared for the practice of law, and teaches them to act ethically, competently, and responsibly. Through making clinical, apprenticeship, and externship programs mandatory for all students, and integrating clinical methodology and goals into the core curriculum, legal educators will ensure that their graduates are better prepared for the real world of lawyering upon graduation.

Law School 2.0

Law School 2.0 PDF Author: David I. C. Thomson
Publisher: LexisNexis/Matthew Bender
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Legal education is at a crossroads. As a media-saturated generation of students enters law school, they find themselves thrust into a fairly backward mode of instruction, much of which is over 100 years old. Over those years, legal education has resisted many credible reports recommending change, most recently those from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and from the Clinical Legal Education Association. Meanwhile, the cost of legal education continues to skyrocket, with many law students graduating with crushing debt they have difficulty paying back. All of these factors are likely to reach a crescendo in the next few years, setting the stage for a perfect storm out of which can come significant change. But legal education has successfully resisted systemic change for many years. Given that dubious track record, the only way significant change can reasonably be predicted is if something is different this time. Fortunately, there is something different this time: the ubiquity of technology. Since the MacCrate report in 1992, the internet has achieved massive growth, and a generation of students has grown up with sophisticated and pervasive use of technology in nearly every facet of their lives. This book describes how the perfect storm of generational change and the rising cost and criticisms of legal education, combined with extraordinary technological developments, will change the face of legal education as we know it today. Its scope extends from generational changes in our students, to pedagogical shifts inside and outside of the classroom, to hybrid textbooks, all the way to methods of active, interactive, and hypertextual learning. And it describes how this shift can--and will--better prepare law students for the practice of tomorrow.

Experimental Legal Education in a Globalized World

Experimental Legal Education in a Globalized World PDF Author: Mutaz Qafisheh
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144389544X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
Legal education is currently undergoing a paradigm shift. Traditional law instruction, lecturing and memorizing have become a fading fashion, with legal clinics increasingly cropping up. These allow law students to practice while studying and to contribute to social justice as part of the educational process. Students no longer accept one-way interaction from their professors, and demand interaction with their peers in various corners of the globe. The Middle East is no exception here. Legal clinics can be found in most countries of the region, though there is scant literature on legal education in the area, particularly with regards to clinical legal education. This book fills this gap, and offers comparative cases that will benefit legal educators and justice practitioners in the Middle East and beyond. The region needs reform in all dimensions, including the political, economic, social, religious, legal, and educational. Legal education lies at the heart of securing such long awaited reforms. The book examines legal education within selected locations in the region, underscoring successful pedagogical models from various parts of the world. This peer-reviewed book focuses on practical legal education, where learning is student-centered, particularly clinical legal education, field work, street law, pro bono service, legal advice, simulations, placements/internships, moot courts and mock trials, problem-based learning, case analysis, group work, role-play, and brainstorming. The book brings together 28 chapters written by leading legal scholars from across the globe, all concerned with the advancement of legal education, with making it more interactive, and contributing to bridging the gap between powerful and powerless communities.

Transforming Legal Education

Transforming Legal Education PDF Author: Paul Maharg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351877992
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Paul Maharg presents a critical inquiry into the identity and possibilities of legal education, and an exploration of transformational alternatives to our current theories and practices of teaching and learning the law. His work takes the view that bodies of interdisciplinary theory and knowledge of the history of legal education are important to all stages of legal education. He also argues that new learning designs - such as transactional learning - need to be developed to help students, educators and lawyers deal with the transitions and challenges facing them now and in the foreseeable future. Throughout, discussions of theory are spliced with case studies of academic and professional legal learning, particularly in the field of technology-enhanced learning. The content of the book will be updated in a community of practice wiki at http://www.transforming.org.uk, which will also allow readers to comment and expand on the book's final chapter.

Legal Education

Legal Education PDF Author: Caroline Strevens
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317106334
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
The importance of simulation in education, specifically in legal subjects, is here discussed and explored within this innovative collection. Demonstrating how simulation can be constructed and developed for learning, teaching and assessment, the text argues that simulation is a pedagogically valuable and practical tool in teaching the modern law curriculum. With contributions from law teachers within the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa and the USA, the authors draw on their experiences in teaching law in the areas of clinical legal education, legal process, evidence, criminal law, family law and employment law as well as teaching law to non-law students. They claim that simulation, as a form of experiential and problem-based learning, enables students to integrate the ’classroom’ experience with the real world experiences they will encounter in their professional lives. This book will be of relevance not only to law teachers but university teachers generally, as well as those interested in legal education and the theory of law.

Routledge Handbook of Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Practices

Routledge Handbook of Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Practices PDF Author: Edelyn Verona
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100096535X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
Now more than ever, the criminal justice system, and the programs, policies, and practices within it, are subject to increased public scrutiny, due to well-founded concerns over effectiveness, fairness, and potential unintended consequences. One of the best means to address these concerns is to draw upon evidence-based approaches demonstrated to be effective through empirical research, rather than through anecdote, standard practice, or professional experience alone (National Institute of Justice, 2011). The goal of this book is to describe the most useful, actionable, and evidence-based solutions to many of the most pressing questions in the criminal justice system today. Specifically, this edited volume contains brief and accessible summaries of the best available research, alongside detailed descriptions of evidence-based practices, across different areas of the criminal justice system. It is written so that practitioners and researchers alike can use the text as reference tool in their work and in training the new generation of individuals working to improve the system. Researchers and practitioners in many areas of criminal justice – crime prevention, policing, courts (prosecution, defendants, judges), corrections, sanctions, and sentencing – can reference specific chapters in this book to guide their policy and practice decisions. Although theory is a guide for the practices described, the chapters will address practical issues in implementation and action. This book overcomes the limitations of previous criminal justice practice books in that it is written as a practice resource and reference guide and spans practices and policies across different sectors of the criminal justice system – from prevention to policing to sanctions and corrections. Each chapter contains a list of action items, based upon the best available scientific research, that can be implemented in practice to address key issues and long standing challenges in the criminal justice system.

Research Handbook on Plea Bargaining and Criminal Justice

Research Handbook on Plea Bargaining and Criminal Justice PDF Author: Máximo Langer
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1802206671
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 627

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Book Description
Bringing together established and emerging scholars from around the world, the Research Handbook on Plea Bargaining and Criminal Justice examines the practice of plea bargaining, through which guilty pleas are secured and trials are avoided.