Chronicle of Higher Education Op-ed, There’s More to the Law Than ‘Practice-Ready’, by Alfred S. Konefsky (SUNY-Buffalo) & Barry Sullivan (Loyola-Chicago):
[C]onsider the ABA’s recent adoption of a resolution calling for “legal education providers” to use “curricular programs intended to develop practice-ready lawyers.” It certainly does not sound like a vote of confidence. Presumably, the impetus was to help newly minted lawyers provide more competent professional services sooner, whether they represent clients on their own or as employees of law firms and other organizations. Perhaps the purpose is simply to suggest the need for balance in legal education, by emphasizing the critical value of skills training, clinical experiences, and capstone courses. Such courses are costly because they involve small-group or individual teaching, but they are indispensable. In today’s world, law schools must ensure that their graduates have the skills necessary for achieving success in the first stages of law practice. …
So “practice-readiness” is indeed an important goal of legal education—but we think that law schools owe students more than that. Successful careers begin with competent practice in the early years, but preparation for the long haul is also essential. At the very least that means acquiring an array of skills beyond those usually mentioned in connection with practice-readiness. When we look back at the changes we have personally seen in society and the world, as well as in the legal profession and in legal education, we can only begin to imagine the world in which today’s law students will finish their careers. The real task of legal education must be to prepare students, as best we can, for a lifetime of successful, ethical, and personally rewarding practice.
Law graduates must be practice-ready, not simply in the sense of being ready for the first stage of practice, but by being equipped for a lifetime of professional growth and service under conditions of challenge and uncertainty. … The real challenge for legal education is to prepare lawyers for the future without knowing what the future holds. Sound training in practical skills must go hand in hand with a broader and more capacious view of law….
The most significant problems lawyers face are often novel and distinctive. What seems “theoretical” today has often proved to have extraordinarily practical effects in the hands of well-educated and well-informed practitioners. In the ever-challenging world of law in action, effective advocacy and wise problem-solving require an extensive and sophisticated set of skills.
This is a critical moment in the history of legal education and the profession. Law faculties must come together, talk seriously about how lawyers should be trained for the world ahead, and take action. The choice cannot be between skills training and a broader education; it must be both. But some law schools have not acknowledged the necessity of those difficult discussions. Unless law faculties can say what a sound legal education requires for today and tomorrow, who will—or should—take us seriously?
