Colorado Public Radio: Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers with the Foundations They Need

June 17, 2014

On June 5, Alli Gerkman, Director of Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers, appeared on Colorado Public Radio to talk about efforts being made on a national scale to change legal education and how Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers is leading the way.

During the interview, Gerkman acknowledges that law firms and legal employers are finding that new lawyers are ill equipped to succeed in the practice of law directly out of law school. No one factor is to blame for this disparity, but the problem presents an opportunity to bring the profession together with law schools to forge a better path forward.

One of the shifts that's happened is that as pressures have mounted from clients, firms are feeling under stress about the amount they are actually able to train new lawyers. And so there's an opportunity there for law schools to position themselves in a way that they're helping to get those lawyers to a place where they are more ready to hit the ground and so that they have—as we say—the foundations they need to begin that practice.

Once these “Foundations for Practice” have been identified, they will serve as a catalyst for broader changes in the legal profession, both in how law schools teach their students and how legal employers hire new graduates.

What we want schools to do is to create an environment where their educators are really focused on these positive outcomes for students and these positive outcomes for the profession, and they are trying new things.

Click here to listen to the full interview.