“Most law schools give only

casual attention to teaching students how to use legal thinking in the complexity of actual law practice. Unlike other professional education, most notably medical school, legal education typically pays relatively little attention to direct training in professional practice. The result is to prolong and reinforce the habits of thinking like a student rather than an apprentice practitioner, conveying the impression that lawyers are more like competitive scholars than attorneys engaged with the problems of clients. Neither understanding of the law is exhaustive, of course, but law school’s typically unbalanced emphasis on the one perspective can create problems as the students move into practice.”

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession © 2007

“Medical students learn the ropes

on real patients during hospital rounds. Student journalists practice by writing stories. But if learning-by-doing seems an obvious way to master a profession, one corner of higher education has largely avoided it: law schools. Critics say the country’s 200 accredited law schools are guilty of building some of academia’s tallest ivory towers, where students learn to ‘think like lawyers’ but get little preparation for what attorneys actually do. The result: a rising chorus of complaints from employers that even after three years of school (and $150,000 or more in tuition), the nation’s 50,000 annual law school graduates still need to be trained on the job.”

Associated Press, March 2008

“Most educational institutions

have to overcome decades of outmoded practices in order to innovate. In contrast, we get to start fresh and define the culture and community of the law school for the first time. This challenge alone ensures that we will attract forward-looking and adventuresome intellectual leaders to our faculty and to our student body.”

Rebecca Ávila, Assistant Dean of Administration and Finance