News & Updates

The ETL survey found that many law schools have been making changes in their curricula, and among the prominent areas of change are the curricula in the second and third years of law school and the introduction or expansion of course work focused on practical skills (especially the creation of new clinics and certificate programs). We need research that looks at such programs in detail to see what difference, if any, that they make.

Previously, we have drawn from the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers (ETL) survey to describe the 23 ETL Consortium schools, explore the kinds of curricular innovations currently in place, and look at their support for faculty engagement in the improvement of teaching and learning. This post continues those analyses by looking at what schools are doing with respect to faculty professional activity related to teaching and learning.

Previously, we have drawn from the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers’ survey to describe the 23 ETL Consortium schools, explore the kinds of curricular innovations in which they may be engaged, and see how they compare to law schools more generally. This post continues our description by looking at support for faculty engagement in the improvement of teaching and learning among the ETL Consortium schools.

In the wake of the recent economic downturn and its aftermath, law schools and legal education are again the focus of intense scrutiny. Unfortunately, there is often more rhetoric than constructive discussion.

As described in an earlier post, Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers initiated a unique, far-reaching survey of 210 U.S. and Canadian law schools. Now completed, the survey has a 58% response rate. Before presenting the findings in a series of future posts, we face a key prior task – describing the responding schools and seeing how closely they resemble all schools and the non-responding schools.

In the first blog for Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, Bill Sullivan argued that legal education is more than meritocracy – that while academic merit is essential in the training of lawyers as professionals it is not enough. It is necessary, but not alone sufficient for professional excellence.