New Models for Legal Education

The recent trends in the legal world (e.g., an emphasis on project management, a bottle neck for new associates, growing demand for alternative pricing models) all involve not the practice of law, but the business of law.

Responding to those shifts, New York Law School and Harvard Law recently teamed to spearhead an initiative to reevaluate the way future lawyers are educated.

The American Lawyer reported that 75 law school deans, legal educators and lawyers gathered April 9th and 10th for a two-day conference called "Future Ed: New Business Models for U.S. and Global Legal Education".

In general, the two themes that emerged were 1) the need to augment existing curriculum and, 2) the possibilities of creating alternative curriculum.

In terms of augmenting existing curriculum, the consensus was a heightened emphasis on the practical skills clients require.

• Business Management Skills

• Financial Literacy

• Executive Communication

In a forceful concurrence with this idea, Chester Paul Beach, associate general counsel of United Technologies Corporation "hammered home the need for more real-world training. To cut down on legal costs, Beach said, his company absolutely will not pay for first- or second-year associates because "they're worthless." Lawyers need more "skill development" in school because, especially amid the current economic downturn, businesses are "not going to pay for people who can't add value."

The other theme to emerge was alternative education models, which might include:

• Accelerated Programs

• Experiential Learning

• Distance Learning

• Specialized Schools

The collective agreement here was that "there should be "multiple futures" to legal education. Every school can't be Harvard, and every school shouldn't follow the same system, said Joseph Altonji, from consulting firm Hildebrant Baker Robbins. Schools should specialize, he said, "because we need different kinds of practitioners."

"Altonji added that a model based purely on grades and LSATs for all graduating law students embarking into various careers "is just not working today."