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Monday, January 10, 2011

Law - "Law schools should stop being "wannabe" research institutions and do a better job of training their students ..."

A companion piece to this ILB entry from Sunday on law school costs is this story dated Jan. 9th from Katherine Mangan of The Chronicle of Higher Education on law school training. It begins:

Law schools should stop being "wannabe" research institutions and do a better job of training their students in the hands-on skills that prospective employers complain that many of them lack, according to speakers at a weekend meeting here.

That shift is sorely needed at a time when graduates face a dismal job market and big law firms are balking at training new associates, some legal educators noted during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools.

The story features law school deans and profs fearing becoming "trade schools," preferring to "focus more on research so they will appear more elite." More from the story:
"Law firms no longer want to train people because clients don't want to pay for it. They're pushing it on us," Ms. Rapoport said.

One audience member pointed out that skills training is "labor-intensive and expensive."

"We all know we need more skills training, but we need to find ways to change the culture so we can get there," said Gary R. Roberts, dean of Indiana University School of Law. Faculty members are rewarded for theoretical scholarship, he said. "My university won't tenure them if they don't have that," he said, and the American Bar Association "won't accredit my school if my faculty aren't protected by a tenure system."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 10, 2011 07:21 PM
Posted to General Law Related