Over at the WSJ Law Blog, Ashby Jones notes two competing visions for the modern law school. Erwin Chemerinsky talked about creating a law school that stresses hands-on, interdisciplinary work - at high prices. Ann Althouse talked about creating a lower priced law school in the Kingsfield model: using a Socratic teaching approach with (presumably) high student-faculty ratios.
We know that there is a push to incorporate more experiential education into the law school curriculum - and Irvine was hardly the first interdisciplinary-oriented school to address that concern. I chose to attend NYU in 1987 (before many of our 1L's were born) explicitly because of the school's clinical program. But these programs do cost a lot of money, and it seems legitimate to ask whether some number of students might rather sit in large classes and enjoy a 1950's style legal education for three years - saving themselves thirty or forty thousand dollars. Can we really say that such a choice is per se inadequate? (ABA rules on skills education do seem to suggest as much.)
It's one thing to debate whether a fully online law school can deliver an adequate legal education - that's an untested model. But I'm hard pressed to defend the position that Harvard's 1955 law program shouldn't be accreditable. I don't know how it would sell to prospective students - or their prospective employers - who understandably would like more tangible skills at graduation. And I support transparency in marketing. But can we really say that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia didn't get an adequate legal education?
Cross posted at Leiter.
Yes. That's the whole point of the lawyering skills movement. We do a fantastic job of training future lawyers to be law professors and Supreme Court justices. We do a less-than-great job of training future lawyers to conduct a hearing, take a deposition, or draft a complex contract.
Skills training and doctrinal training are not mutually exclusive. We can and should do both.
Similarly, the high-cost-clinical model and the low-cost-Socratic model are not the only models available. Skills can be taught at moderate cost, if we're willing to be creative -- such as by designing well-thought-out and -monitored externship programs and adjunct-taught courses.
Posted by: Rick Bales | March 03, 2011 at 07:56 AM
If these are the only two alternatives, we're all doomed.
Posted by: James Grimmelmann | March 03, 2011 at 02:12 PM
I agree with James. If we insist on sticking rigidly to the old models, new models (onlines, for-profits, who-knows-what-else) will eat our lunch in the not-too-distant future.
Posted by: Rick Bales | March 04, 2011 at 08:00 AM