Faster, Cheaper and Hands-on: Law School For a New Generation

The job market for new lawyers has tightened and law schools are already seeing declining enrollment, leading many to rethink the way that legal education is delivered.

Financial pressures of the recession, led to downsizing or hiring freezes at many law firms. At the same time, those boom times for law school enrollment led to a glut of new law school graduates competing for a smaller number of jobs.

According to the Triad Business Journal, a growing number of law schools are overhauling their legal degree programs and finding innovative ways that emphasize producing new lawyers faster, at less expense and with more real-world knowledge and experience. The bottom line is new law school graduates will emerge with less debt, and with a resumes that boast of courtroom experience.

“What you are seeing for instance at schools like Elon is something called residency in practice. They'll actually be arguing cases in front of judges. They will be preparing briefs, they'll be deposing witnesses. It's really that sort of practical experience on a full time basis that's being integrated into the legal curriculum now,” says Covington.

Last August, the American Bar Association's section on legal education adopted new accrediting standards that pushed up the number of experiential learning credit hours from one to six to underscore this new emphasis. Ron Wright, executive associate dean for academic affairs at Wake Forest University School of Law, says most of his school's students are typically graduating with 10 to 12 credit hours of experiential learning. 

Beyond changes in curriculum, law schools are increasingly focusing on paring back what's required, both in time and in money, to successfully complete a law degree. Law schools, including Wake Forest University, are offsetting their tuition sticker price via grants or scholarships to reduce the overall cost to students to complete a degree.

Elon says residencies in practice will become a fully integrated part of its curriculum beginning this fall.

The Business Report on 88.5 WFDD is a partnership with the Triad Business Journal.

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