ETL Collaborations Help Lead the Way in Improving Legal Education

In a recent article for The Recorder, Rachel Van Cleave, dean of Golden Gate University School of Law, an Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers (ETL) Consortium School, champions the efforts of ETL and its collaborative approach to changing legal education, including the conference we held earlier this month.

Dean Van Cleave suggests that experiential learning opportunities, like clinics and simulation courses, can be expanded even further to give students a more well-rounded education that exposes them to broader skill sets, including empathy, collaboration, engendering trust, and resilience—qualities that law firms are increasingly looking for in new recruits. By providing enhanced experience-rich opportunities that allow for this kind of professional reflection and growth, Dean Van Cleave believes that law schools will be supporting “a professional community of richly competent and ethically sound lawyers. Lawyers with the ability to come together, keep together, and work together to ensure our justice system and democracy may flourish.”

Katherine Kirk is a third year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and contributes to IAALS Online. Please direct inquiries about this post to iaals@du.edu.