Consortium Schools

Princeton Review released their 2018 law school rankings at the end of October—top 10 lists with categories like “Best Classroom Experience,” “Most Competitive Students,” and “Best Career Prospects.” Many of the rankings are based on student feedback; in fact, 10 of the 11 categories either feature or are based entirely on responses to a student survey (“Toughest to Get Into” is the only category based wholly on institutional data). The surveys asked students about professors’ teaching ability and accessibility, number of hours spent studying, diversity, sense of community, and opportunities for externships, internships, and clerkships, among many other topics.

When law school applications took a downturn around 2011, some law schools redesigned their curricula to add more experiential learning opportunities. Aimed at ensuring that their students were prepared for practice after graduation—and improving their graduates' chances of getting hired—schools hoped the refocused offerings might attract more applicants. In the midst of this shift, David Thomson and Stephen Daniels planned a three-year study of students at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. The results were published recently in an article titled, "If You Build it, They Will Come: What Students Say About Experiential Learning."

Deans of law schools throughout the nation are faced with unprecedented challenges in legal education: significant restructuring in the legal employment market, high student debt loads, dramatic declines in applicants for admission, rapid technological advances, students who learn in new ways, shifting accreditation standards, national ranking systems, and concerns from the bench and bar about the preparedness of new lawyers. Against this background, it is so critical that deans have a forum to interact with each other, practitioners, judges, a variety of legal employers, and the many parties interested in and committed to the future of legal education.

The Journal of Experiential Learning at Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center (an ETL Consortium school) is looking for papers for the Fall/Winter 2016 volume. The topic is “Loosening the Walls of the Legal Academy: The Bench and the Bar as Legal Educators.”

Many law schools are answering the call for “practice-ready” graduates by implementing and growing clinical programs, externships, and simulation courses. The National Jurist recently announced its 2015 Best Schools for Practical Training, with rankings and grades given to schools based on the percentage of their full-time students who participate in practice-focused programs.

Last month, Suffolk University Law School, an Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium school, hosted the first-ever "Hackcess to Justice" legal hackathon. The event was designed to bring together some of the best legal and technological minds to brainstorm and devise ways to improve access to justice using technology.

Last month, preLaw Magazine released its list of best practical training schools for part-time students. preLaw considered 97 part-time programs, all having 20 or more students, and 22 were selected for the magazine's top honors. Four Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium schools were named to the list: Georgetown, Hofstra, Loyola Chicago, and the University of Maryland.

The University of Denver Sturm College of Law, one of ETL's Consortium schools, now offers a Live Client Guarantee. The Guarantee ensures that every student can receive hands-on client interactions outside of the classroom. The University of Denver is one of only 16 law schools that have such a guarantee, including three other ETL Consortium schools.

Change is happening in law schools across the country. While most are evolving independently, many schools are working toward the same end: developing new teaching methods and strategies that teach students skills that will give them an edge with employers. A recent U.S. News and World Report article highlights a few of these efforts from Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium schools, which emphasize practical skills training and a more hands-on understanding of what it means to be a lawyer.

The National Jurist has named its top 60 law schools that offer practical training, including a number of Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium schools. The rankings were determined by the number of clinic positions per enrollment, the number of field placements or externships per enrollment, the number of simulation courses per enrollment, and additional information about practical training offerings.