Emerging trends in law school include a greater focus on experiential learning, clinical programs and the ethical dimensions of law and lawyering as well as an interdisciplinary approach to instruction.
For three years, law students spend their days in class learning the ins and outs of criminal law, the ebbs and flows of jury trials, and the ups and downs of closing a merger, only to spend their nights in the library cultivating their ability to reason, counsel clients, and draft documents while their personal debt from paying for the privilege climbs steadily. Law school is not for everyone, nor should it be. Law school is one of the most difficult endeavors one could ever choose to undertake. However, upon graduating, it can also prove to be one of the most rewarding. For those who decide to pursue a juris doctor, be sure to do your research, know what you’re getting into beforehand and establish a post-graduate plan for landing that dream job that fits with your interests.
You have graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and started working at the law firm with which you interned two summers ago as a young professional. But as soon as you start, you run into some moral “grey…
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Practicing lawyers have been tapped by a task force of the New York City Bar Association to be change agents in Developing Legal Careers and Delivering Justice in the 21st Century. As has been detailed in a myriad of reports…
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What makes law a profession and not a business? One difference that snuck up on me after I had finished law school was the background check a/k/a character and fitness review. Maybe I was told about this at some point…
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“I went to law school because I hated math.” I’ve heard that sentiment, in one form or another, quite a lot over the years. Unfortunately for those who feel that way, the days when math and computer skills were not…
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Three of us in our office attended our law school reunions this fall, and that has put me in a nostalgic frame of mind. It also has me pondering the purpose and value of reunions, and why I have always…
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On Tuesday, I told you about a criminal law MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that I signed up for as my first venture into the online course world. I enrolled through Canvas Network, a Utah-based MOOC provider. The criminal law…
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Pop quiz – do you know what a MOOC is? When I asked my friends over the weekend, about half of them had heard of MOOC; the other half looked at me as if I were speaking gibberish. MOOC, for…
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Last week, in advance of discussion during Saturday’s ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, the ABA’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education issued its extensive working paper. The Task Force contends the current system for financing a law…
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This fall I am returning to Ann Arbor for my five-year law school reunion. I have spent a great deal of time thinking of my first days at school and how one short week in August changed the course of…
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You’d have to be living under a rock to not be aware of the fact that the average law student graduates with a high amount of debt. Lots of people have been talking about this debt load and whether law…
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The term “practice-ready” attorneys and the drumbeat for the profession to produce them have been making increasingly loud noise ever since the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching produced its 2007 report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of…
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