Talkin' Law School Behind the Times Blues
By: Steve Grumm
The National Law Journal’s Karen Sloan focused on recent discussion within the legal academy about changes in the larger profession:
The state of the profession has not traditionally been a focus of law professors, said George Washington University Law School professor Thomas Morgan, author of the book The Vanishing American Lawyer. That remained true until about one year ago, when more people within the academy started taking note of the rumblings within the profession, he said. “We need to try and bridge what is a mutual set of problems,” Morgan said.
‘REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS’Still, there remains a gap between the magnitude of change advocated by some within the profession and the modest innovations law schools are pursuing. Those innovations include a wider array of clinics, harnessing technology in simulations and student projects, and teaching transactional lawyering skills.
“I think they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Susan Hackett, chief executive officer of consulting firm Legal Executive Leadership and former general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel. “The discussion seems to be, ‘Let’s add a Thursday evening extra-credit course on the legal profession that meets for a couple of hours.’ That’s just tweaking around the edges.”