Envisioning Law Students Eliminating the Wasted Third Year of Law School “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”. Attributed to Margaret Meade There is so much that is defective about legal education. Many of the…
It is critically important at this time when there has been a decline in recruiting by the large law firms who have dominated campus interviewing to deemphasize employer outreach. A school unable to attract sufficient employer responses adds to the students’ frustration. Their self-esteem is diminished since they are not…
ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN THE BOSTON GLOBE For law graduates, a public-service detour on road to success By Rich Barlow, Globe Correspondent | April 27, 2009 With his degree from Harvard Law School due in June, Juan Valdivieso makes an attractive prospective hire, and last summer, he scooped up a…
As many of you may know, in July 1992 the ABA’s Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap issued what came to be called the “MacCrate Report”, a withering critique of traditional law schools. In substance, the task force compiled a list of the 10 fundamental…
Aspects of the Traditional Law School Experience Which Inhibit or Divert Law Students From Careers Serving the Legal Needs of the Public. Since in so much I have written I have taken quotes from the ABA’s MacCrate Report and one issued by the Mass School of Law, both in 1992,…
Since in so much I have written I have taken quotes from the ABA’s MacCrate Report and one issued by the Mass School of Law, both in 1992, I decided to publish (in three parts) a handout I distributed at a panel I moderated for the National Lawyers Guild in…
Since in so much I have written I have taken quotes from the ABA’s MacCrate Report and one issued by the Mass School of Law, both in 1992, I decided to publish (in three parts) a handout I distributed at a panel I moderated for the National Lawyers Guild in…
When the U.S. News & World Report issued its ranking of law schools in March, 1990, I drafted a letter criticizing one major defect in its analysis; i.e., failing to include as a criterion the extent to which the law school ensures that its graduates fulfill the legal profession’s obligation…
I recently read about the gathering of law students from a number of law schools that are difficult to get into who have joined together to form Building a Better Legal Profession, (BBLP) which, according to its mission state, is “a national grassroots movement that seeks market-based workplace reforms in…
The background of this letter is that there are seven states which permit apprenticeship (working for a lawyer and studying the law) as a road to becoming a lawyer there. The states are Vermont, New York, Washington, Virginia, California, Maine and Wyoming. A few years ago as Massachusetts considered buying…