News & Updates

IAALS is pleased to announce "Foundations for Practice." Led by Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers, this ambitious project focuses on improving legal education and closing the gap between how students are being taught in law school and the knowledge and skills legal professionals say new graduates need to succeed.

Last week, Bill Sullivan, lead author of Educating Lawyers and the founding director of Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers, did an interview with Insight Labs on the future of law, discussing legal education (and reform history), the Carnegie Report, experiential education, teaching judgment, the role of the profession, and the importance of law in society. It's worth reading in full, but here's a glimpse.

One of my primary responsibilities as Counsel to the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court is to start and maintain dialogue among Colorado's law schools, bench, and bar in an effort to find and promote commonality among their efforts to improve our state's legal profession. Naturally, then, I was interested in attending the 2013 Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers conference, which sought to connect the legal academy and members of the legal profession.

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers announces its second annual conference, which will focus on connecting the profession and the academy to ensure that law graduates are prepared to begin a career of service to clients, service to the legal system, and service to society. Conference participants will focus on how to design and deliver a modern legal education that educates lawyers to the highest standards of competence and professionalism.

If there's one thing the people in the room at the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education can agree on today, it's that something has to give. But just what has to give? That still seems to be up for debate. In the opening session, opinions ranged nearly as wide as the topics, which included the deregulation of the profession, the deregulation of law schools, online education, US News, faculty scholarship, student expectations, consumer expectations, access to justice, and curriculum.

In September 2012, 21 law schools sent representatives to Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers’ first conference, which sought collaboration among schools to identify best practices for forming professional identity, encouraged schools to share examples of programs and curricula that support professional development, and fostered new ideas and approaches that representatives could take back to their schools. Out of this meeting comes the Report on the 2012 Conference.

Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Fellow, Professor Michael Madison, has written a blog post examining the state of legal education and emphasizing the need for change. Professor Madison suggests that law schools need to integrate the client relationship throughout their curriculum to prevent the turmoil in the profession from escalating.

Justice Christine Durham has been on the Utah Supreme Court since 1982, and served as Chief Justice from 2002 to 2012. As we launch IAALS Online, she joins three other former Chief Justices in the conversation about IAALS and its initiatives by discussing the work of our Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Initiative. "There are widespread conversations occurring about the future of lawyers and law schools. Current phenomena include dramatic decreases in legal sector jobs and a restructuring of the legal market that appears to be extremely durable. Changes in the way legal services are delivered are occurring rapidly, with on-line forms and guidance being increasingly utilized by consumers. Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers is a project grounded in the faith that “knowledge, practice and professionalism” will remain the touchstone for the role of lawyers in a future that is likely to look much different from the past."

The ABA Journal discusses the impact of Big Law's preference for graduates from Ivy League and other “elite” law schools. The article notes that such “near obsession with pedigree . . . is damaging to the entire profession” because new statistics…

Mark Nadeau is a member of the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Advisory Committee and the co-managing partner of the Phoenix office of DLA Piper, one of the largest law firms in the world. He recently took some time to talk with us about new lawyers, hiring needs, and legal education, including the limitations of “thinking like a lawyer.”

Mark Nadeau regularly teaches oral advocacy and trial tactics and is a leading commentator on international dispute resolution. As a member of the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Advisory Committee, he recently sat down with ETL to discuss his insights into legal education and the issues facing both law schools and new attorneys venturing into practice.

A NALP survey of lawyers suggested that government and public interest lawyers were more likely to participate in clinics and other experiential classes than law firm associates.

Terre Rushton is Associate Executive Director of Programs for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) as well as serving as a member of the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Advisory Committee. In her Voices from the Field interview, Rushton comments about learning professionalism, practical learning as a gateway to understanding the role of a lawyer, and developing common skills and understanding different perspectives.

Professor Ben Madison explores how students develop their “professional identities,” –as recommended by the Carnegie report—through journaling assignments. Journals, he observes, help students appreciate the need for mentorship, experience the…

One student’s exploration of whether the phrase “think like a lawyer” has lost a uniform definition, if not all meaning altogether. Here’s her take on this “flurry of semantical, romantical fun,” inspired by Judith Welch Wegner’s Reframing Legal…

The Legal Skills Prof Blog provides seven tips for how law firms and attorneys can make sure that skills-based legal education is a priority--including making a commitment to interview at schools with strong skills programs, like those in our Consortium.

John S. Gleason is Regulation Counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court, where he directs the office responsible for lawyer admissions, registration, regulation, and client protection. He recently sat down with Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers to talk about legal education and the needs of the profession. In his Voices from the Field interview, Gleason talks about the ethical pitfalls that many law students and new attorneys need exposure to and practice navigating through, and provides insights into how law professors can help.

This collection of articles takes a look at changing career outlooks and expectations for law graduates interested in pursuing a career in NLJ 250 firms.

From February 6 to February 8, the Legal Ethics Forum held an online symposium about "the implications of economic pressures on the way we teach our students," which included posts from 22 contributors.

Beth Tomerlin took Professor David Thomson's Discovery Practicum while still a student at University of Denver Sturm College of Law. In an article for the Denver Bar Association Docket, she discusses the class and how it prepared her for practice.