By: Steve Grumm

Legal education is gonna look a lot different in a couple of decades.  NYU is the latest law school to greatly expand outside-the-classroom (in this case, even outside-the-country) opportunities for 3Ls, with an eye toward reworking the legal education model by building in hands-on learning opportunities.  From the New York Times’s Dealbook blog:

The move comes as law schools are being criticized for failing to keep up with transformations in the legal profession, and their graduates face dimming employment prospects and mounting student loans.

N.Y.U. Law’s changes are built around several themes, including a focus on foreign study and specialized concentrations. Some students could spend their final semester studying in Shanghai or Buenos Aires. Others might work at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, or the Federal Trade Commission. Another group, perhaps, will complete a rigorous one-year concentration in patent law, or focused course work in tax.

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N.Y.U. Law is the latest law school to alter its academic program significantly. Stanford Law School recently completed comprehensive changes to its third-year curriculum, with a focus on allowing students to pursue joint degrees. Washington and Lee University School of Law scrapped its traditional third-year curriculum in 2009, replacing it with a mix of clinics and outside internships.

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There has been much debate in the legal academy over the necessity of a third year. Many students take advantage of clinical course work, but the traditional third year of study is largely filled by elective courses. While classes like “Nietzsche and the Law” and “Voting, Game Theory and the Law” might be intellectually broadening, law schools and their students are beginning to question whether, at $51,150 a year, a hodgepodge of electives provides sufficient value.

“One of the well-known facts about law school is it never took three years to do what we are doing; it took maybe two years at most, maybe a year-and-a-half,” Larry Kramer, the former dean of Stanford Law School, said in a 2010 speech.

Yet no one expects law schools to become two-year programs any time soon. For one thing, law schools are huge profit centers for universities, which are reluctant to give up precious tuition dollars. What is more, American Bar Association rules require three years of full-time study to obtain a law degree. Several law schools, including Northwestern University School of Law, offer two-year programs, but they cram three years of course work — and tuition — into two.

N.Y.U. Law’s new curriculum plan is highlighted by experience outside of the school’s Greenwich Village campus. While the school has dabbled in foreign study, it is now redoubling its focus on international and cross-border legal practice. N.Y.U. Law is preparing to send as many as 75 students to partner law schools in Buenos Aires, Shanghai and Paris, where the students will study the legal systems and the languages of those regions. With the ever-increasing influence of government and the regulatory state in private legal matters, N.Y.U. Law will also offer students a full semester of study, combined with an internship, in Washington.

Another key initiative gives students the chance to build a specialty. Called “professional pathways,” the program will offer eight focused areas of instruction, including criminal law and academia.

None of these programs will be mandatory, as students can still choose a conventional course load. But Richard L. Revesz, the dean of N.Y.U. Law, said that he hoped the students would take advantage of the new offerings.

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N.Y.U. Law’s moves illustrate the continuing evolution of the legal education model. Until the late 19th century, most lawyers — like Abraham Lincoln — were trained through the old-fashioned apprenticeship method. But for the last hundred years, law school classrooms have been dominated by the case method of instruction, which trains law students by having them read court cases and questioning them via the Socratic method.

Now, in an era of globalization and specialization, law schools are acknowledging the inadequacy of the traditional approach.