News & Updates

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.

The current standards for education of new lawyers are problematic, but we cannot fix legal education without addressing the challenges that face the legal system as a whole.

Pundits are drawn to extremes. Perhaps that is simply the nature of things. But in the debate over the future of legal education, espousing extremes hinders the discussion. At one extreme are the loudest critics of the current state of legal education. At the other extreme are the defenders of the status quo. But at its core, this discussion draws a false dichotomy between theory and practice.

Larry Ribstein comments on changes in corporate legal services, which find companies first doing away with the law firms as middle men and the then restructuring internal legal teams and “embedding” lawyers throughout the organization.

Economist and Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Winston has co-authored a new book that has created conversation around its premise, which is evident in its title: First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers. In this New York Times op-ed about the legal profession, he asks: "What if the barriers to entry were simply done away with?"

In a segment on experiential legal education, the National Jurist featured the work of Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers and one of its consortium schools, Washington and Lee University.

Law schools saw a decrease in applications this year and some believe prospective students are becoming more skeptical about the value of a law degree. Click here to read the article.

IAALS has launched a unique, national initiative to change the way law schools educate students. “Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers” provides a platform to encourage law schools in the U.S. to showcase innovative teaching to produce more practice-ready lawyers who can better meet the needs of an evolving profession

The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver today launches a unique, national initiative to change the way law schools educate students. “Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers” provides a platform to encourage law schools in the U.S. to showcase innovative teaching to produce more practice-ready lawyers who can better meet the needs of an evolving profession.