Etl Conference 2016

Last September, we held our 5th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference, where we welcomed approximately 100 legal educators and legal employers from around the country (and the world!) to discuss the measurement of meaningful learning outcomes and development of hiring criteria, focusing on the results of our Foundations for Practice project. It has become a tradition to kick off the first day of the conference with a series of Ignite presentations (snappy, 6 minute, auto-advancing) from ETL Consortium School faculty who want to share their projects, successes, and ideas. Presenters spoke on topics ranging from faculty resources to career development to simulations. You can find recordings of all of the 2016 Ignites below.

Last month, we gathered legal educators, practitioners, and judges from across the country for—wait for it—our 5th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference. As we kicked off the conference on the first day of fall, we reflected on the meaning of harvest.

As a current second-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, having the opportunity to attend the 5th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference last month felt a little bit like eavesdropping on my parents as they discussed what my brothers and I would be getting for Christmas.

Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers honored Martin “Marty” J. Katz, former Dean of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law with the 2016 Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers (ETL) Award. Katz served as Dean of Sturm College of Law from 2009 to 2016 and led its development and implementation of a major strategic plan, which included significant initiatives in experiential learning. He is a founding board member of Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, a national consortium of law schools that are leading efforts to improve legal education. In addition, Katz serves as a member of IAALS’ Board of Advisors.

It’s September which means at IAALS, it's time for our 5th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference. This year’s Conference comes fresh off the heels of ETL’s groundbreaking report, Foundations for Practice: The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient, which revealed the keys to career success.

It is hard to believe it has been seven months since our 4th Annual Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Conference last fall, where we presented initial results from our Foundations for Practice survey. Since that gathering, we have heard from countless legal educators who are embarking on the process to define and measure learning outcomes—and who are using Foundations for Practice to inform that process.