Joseph Kearney (Dean, Marquette), Overregulating Legal Education:
[T]he Council’s proposal would mandate a startling redirection of resources. Given the integrated nature of a program of legal education, the proposal would constitute an unprecedented invasion into the upper-level curricula of law schools, diminish substantially the schools’ appropriate autonomy, and impair their ability to innovate and to adapt their programs to local needs and institutional missions—all at a time of other extraordinary pressures on legal education. More succinctly and concretely: The proposal ignores the curricular tradeoffs that will necessarily result for schools and students and dismisses the likely financial costs of the new requirements.
The proposal’s apparent general animating philosophy—which has scant regard for the precept that accreditation standards are intended to establish minimum requirements for “adequate” education while protecting each school’s leading role in defining its own educational program—is regrettable enough. More specifically objectionable is that the proposal to double the current minimum requirement of experiential-learning credits lacks adequate evidentiary support. Valuable though experiential education is, a “more is better” approach to its requirement is not adequately supported in the proposal—notwithstanding the observation that other, very different professions, with different educational pathways, have more experiential education. Given the weak evidentiary basis for increasing the number of mandatory experiential-learning credits, the absence of a rigorous (or really any) cost-benefit analysis should prompt the proposal’s withdrawal.
Brian Leiter (Chicago; Google Scholar), Another Penetrating Critique of the ABA Proposal to Double the Number of Experiential Credit Hours Required:
If the Council does not withdraw this ill-considered and inadequately justified proposal, then it really will be time to seek alternative accreditation agencies for law schools, ones that respect both law students and the academic freedom of law faculties to plan different courses of study.
Derek Muller (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), My Comment in Opposition to the ABA's Proposed Amendments to Standards 303, 304, and 311:
Higher education is experiencing a period of extraordinary and costly disruption at the moment. Universities are making significant budget cuts for 2025-2026, with some universities cutting expenses between 5% and 10%. A “demographic cliff” approaches, which threatens future enrollment. The House and the Senate agree that student loans from the federal government should be capped and mull increasing taxes on endowments. Artificial intelligence and large language models may well alter the nature of the legal profession and the enterprise of legal education altogether and require significant changes in law school curricula.
This Proposal is undoubtedly well intentioned. It aspires to make law schools a place where professional development can occur better. It relies on myriad statements over the years about the value of a particular kind of educational experience. But this is a time where higher education needs to be more flexible, more nimble, more creative, and more diverse than ever. The Proposal admits it will increase costs at institutions. It lacks the evidence to justify this change. And it certainly lacks the evidence to depart from the Council’s longstanding position that law schools should manage their curriculum, not the Council.
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
- ABA, Legal Ed Council Proposes To Double Experiential Learning Accreditation Requirement To 12 Credits
- ABA, Survey on Credits for Experiential Learning Courses: Summary of Results
- Barry Currier (Former Managing Director, ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar):
- Brian Leiter (Chicago), Law Schools Should Oppose an ABA Proposal to Double the Experiential Learning Credits From 6 to 12
- Derek Muller (Notre Dame), Hard Questions About Experiential Learning, Legal Education, And The ABA
- Derek Muller (Notre Dame), Inside the ABA's Relentless Quest to Make Law School Accreditation More Tedious and More Expensive
- Reuters, ABA Plan To Double Experiential Learning Accreditation Requirement Spurs Criticism About Accreditor Overreach
- Reuters, ABA Proposal To Increase Number Of Experiential Credits Required Of Law School Graduates
- Daniel Rodriguez (Northwestern), ABA Accreditation Once More: Are They Making Me Eat My Words?
- David Yellen (Miami), The ABA Standards And Regulatory Modesty
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