Law School

Two Years of Law School

Bill Gratsch — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:58:44 GMT

Interesting note this weekend, Law School in 2 Years (Same $$?) — Assessing Northwestern’s Program, on Northwestern's coming two year law program

Here is a snippet on the subject from the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog:

Is the plan, spearheaded by Dean David Van Zandt, an innovative break with the conservative, time-honored traditions of law school? After all, how much law is learned in that third year? Or, as Chicago’s Professor Stone suggests, is the two-year program an “irresponsible” ploy that risks churning out substandard lawyers?
Here are the details of the program, according to Van Zandt:
Tuition: Don’t expect to save money. Northwestern announced the program but won’t answer the $42,672 question of whether the compressed plan will be cheaper. Van Zandt told the Law Blog that, rather than the prospect of a cheaper degree, the financial attraction of the program is more likely to be the ability to be earning a salary a year earlier. (And yes, the $42k figure is NU’s annual tuition.)

Time This is a five-semester program that will begin in May. The 25 to 60 students expected to join will take the same number of credits as students in the three-year program. They’ll take extra courses each semester and pick up one or two credits through mini-courses between semesters.
Curriculum While the two-year option will have the same curriculum as the traditional program, the two-year students will be the first to test two new required courses: quantitative reasoning, including accounting, finance and statistics; and the dynamics of legal services behavior, including skills such as teamwork, leadership and project management.
Admission Applicants will be required to have two or three years of “substantive work experience” after college. People with work experience are likely to have “the good time management” necessary to success in the program, Van Zandt told Insider Higher Ed.

Graduate Certificate in Law Firm Management

Bill Gratsch — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:33:36 GMT

Hat tip to Silvia Coulter at The Legal Compass for pointing out George Washington University's Graduate Certificate in Law Firm Management.

The Graduate Certificate Program in Law Firm Management is a challenging, highly interactive education experience for lawyers and other law firm administrators who want to broaden their skills and career opportunities.
Co-sponsored by The George Washington University (GW) College of Professional Studies and The Hildebrandt Institute, this one-of-a-kind program imparts business and legal knowledge to individuals who want to be leaders in the legal services industry. Through its partnership with The Hildebrandt Institute, a premier consultant to law firms around the world, GW's College of Professional Studies is uniquely positioned to provide law firm professionals with the skills they will need to lead their firms forward in this ever-changing legal environment.

GWU also offers a Master of Professional Studies in Law Firm Management.

This latter program appears to be geared towards working professionals, as its format recognizes the time and location challenges of those already in the workforce.

The Master of Professional Studies in Law Firm Management is a 30-credit program that can be completed in less than two years and is specially designed for people working full-time. The program is divided into two twelve-credit segments, Law Firm Management and Law Firm Leadership, and concludes with a six-credit Independent Research Project. Each of the two twelve-credit segments involves a nine-day residency, a four month distance learning segment and a final four-day residency. The two twelve-credit segments of the program are spaced approximately two months apart. All residencies are conducted at the GW Alexandria Graduate Education Center. The six-credit research project is developed by the student in conjunction with a member of the faculty and is usually completed within a year following completion of the course work.
Students applying for the Master's degree may also earn the Graduate Certificate. This is accomplished at no additional fee by applying simultaneously for the Master's degree and the Graduate Certificate. Once Master's students successfully complete the twelve-credit Law Firm Management segment of the degree program, they are awarded the Graduate Certificate.

For her part, Ms. Coulter is going to Keep on Learning, starting next week. Sounds like a great opportunity.

Technorati Tags: george washington university,gwu,hildebrandt institute,master of professional studies in law firm management,law firm management,certificate in law firm management,silvia coulter

The Importance of Cost in Law School Rankings

Bill Gratsch — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:12:44 GMT

In the National Law Journal article What Law School Rankings Don't Say About Costly Choices, authors William D. Henderson and Andrew P. Morriss suggest that [s]ome students should consider lower-ranked schools that offer more grants, better opportunities. I particularly liked the article because it spends significant time talking through the cost of law school and importance of factoring likely debt load upon graduation.

As I have noted before, it is often difficult for law students just entering law school (especially those coming straight from undergrad) to adequately factor in what their eventual law school debt load could mean in the years after they graduate. Yet, from the vantage point of years down the road (and many monthly debt payments later), many lawyers will tell you that they wish they had had the foresight to not incur such a large debt.

In any case, here are some bullet points snipped from Mr. Henderson and Morriss' article:

Deciding where to go to law school is a difficult decision for many applicants. Law school is expensive and becoming more so each year, making the choice of where to go often the biggest investment decision an applicant has made in his or her life. Yet many prospective law students lack knowledge about the entry-level legal market or even what different types of lawyers do in their daily lives.

During the last three decades, the size and geographic dispersion of the global economy has dramatically increased the demand for sophisticated corporate legal services. In contrast, the demand for personal-services legal work -- wills and estates, personal injury, family law, simple business contracts, etc. -- has grown at roughly the rate of population growth.
These dynamics have resulted in a "bimodal" income distribution, in which there is a heavy concentration of salaries in two distinct ranges, based on salary figures provided by NALP.
For most prospective law students, the most important question is whether law school is worth $100,000 in debt plus three years of lost earnings.

An equally important question is whether to go law school at all. A ranking of 50 law schools by the percentage of students who either flunked out or are unemployed or unaccounted for nine months after graduation includes many schools in tiers two, three and four of the 2007 U.S. News rankings. Thus law school does not guarantee lucrative, or even gainful, employment. Moreover, over-reliance on the U.S. News rankings can be damaging to a law student's financial health.

As the data reveal, the vast majority of students finance their legal education through debt. Some may be surprised to learn, however, that high-rank schools, all with large endowments, are not especially generous with scholarships. In general, their graduates have the highest debt loads. Because of the ready access they provide to lucrative corporate jobs, these schools enjoy enormous market power. They can raise tuition, reduce teaching loads, poach scholars from lower-ranked schools and tweak their course offerings to please tenured faculty.

This data also reveals another key distortion of rankings that combine all 194 ABA-approved law schools: With the exception of a few national firms, the vast majority of legal employment is regional. For T14 schools, 35 percent stay in state upon graduation, versus 58 percent for the rest of Tier 1 and 70 percent to 77 percent for tiers two through three.

Based on our experience with many extremely successful alumni, all of these qualities can be developed (sometimes better and faster) in smaller firms, state court clerkships, government practice or public interest jobs. Yet the key is avoiding the financial vise of excessive law school tuition.
For many prospective lawyers, the best strategy may be a careful evaluation of the regional job market in the area of the country where they want to work. If they are not competitive for admission into a national law school -- or are sure they are not interested in corporate law -- they can use their entering credentials to negotiate for a substantial tuition discount. By focusing on price rather than rankings, they will have the financial freedom to pursue jobs that will build valuable professional skills and mentoring relationships or leave the law altogether, without debt, to pursue other life ambitions. Further, if prospective law students still want a shot at large corporate law practice, their best bet may be to focus on regional schools in major legal markets that will provide them with substantial scholarships. Virtually all large firms routinely interview at regional law schools in close proximity to major branch offices while ignoring higher-ranked schools farther away.

If you find this topic interesting, I encourage you to read the full article, which is posted to Law.com and includes the above snippets in context.

For myself, speaking with the benefit of hindsight, I was drawn to this single sentence from the article: By focusing on price rather than rankings, they [prospective law students] will have the financial freedom to pursue jobs that will build valuable professional skills and mentoring relationships or leave the law altogether, without debt, to pursue other life ambitions.

After all, in the end, isn't the freedom to pursue life's ambitions among everyone's goals for their life?

Don't overlook the role debt can play in ensuring you have that freedom.

Here is the link: What Law School Rankings Don't Say About Costly Choices

Technorati Tags: law school,law school debt,law school rankings,law school tuition

Madisonian Delivers on Legal Education

Bill Gratsch — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:04:45 GMT

If you have not stopped by Madisonian.net recently, you may want to take a moment to do so. Penned by a collection of law professors and guests, this blawg continues to deliver intriguing posts loosely focused on and around the topic of legal education.

For example, Washington and Lee Law School Dean Rodney Smolla recently posted an overview of the "new model" of legal education being developed at the school.

We are in a period of ferment in which law schools are beginning to experiment, and I think this will enrich all of us in the world of legal education, and be good for the profession and the public at large.
As Dean of Washington and Lee I am proud that we have committed to a bold program to quite radically revamp our third-year of law school, adding to the national conversation about the mission and character of “the law school of the future,” to borrow a phrase from my friend, former colleague, and dean-in-waiting Erwin Chemerinsky.

What follows is a bulleted list of key items in the new model for third years at Washington and Lee; you can read all about it here: Washington and Lee’s New Model and here, Washington and Lee School of Law Announces Dramatic Third Year Reform.

In selecting the weblog platform for Madisonian.net, its founders have also allowed for other interested persons to quickly respond and add their own comments to topics presented in its posts. Which makes the posts even more interesting and worthwhile; see, for example, the post and responsive commentary on the subject Some Musings About Possible Ways To Improve Law Reviews And Law Schools Simultaneously.

Other recent posts at Madisonian include the following:

Too Many Law Schools?

Learning How to Learn

Institutes of Excellence and the Global, Departmentalized Law School

Law School As Community

Washington and Lee’s New Model

The Perfect Law School

A Focus on Quality of Scholarship, Rather than Placement

Are attorneys generalists or specialists?

Good stuff.

Technorati Tags: legal education,law school,washington and lee law school,madisonian.net,blawg

Oral Arguments: What do I do if I don't know the answer to a judge's question?

Bill Gratsch — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:07:01 GMT

Another example of why I love the fact that law professors are such active participants across the blawgosphere...

Hat tip to Kentucky Law Review for pointing out a recent post from Louisville Law Professor Ariana R. Levinson, Legal Writing Tip - Answering Questions at Oral Argument.

Last week my class discussed oral arguments. One student raised a question that many others doubtless have before their first oral argument. What do I do if I don't know the answer to a judge's question?
In response, we discussed tips for answering a judge's question. These tips are not only helpful for first-time advocates but also might be a nice refresher for those with more experience.
1. Listen closely to the judge's question. As many of use have found when engaging in public speaking for the first time, it is difficult to listen to and understand someone's question when you are nervous. Because of this, a new advocate should concentrate solely on listening to the judge's question and should not worry about a response until after the question is completed.
2. Pause and think after the judge has finished the question. After listening to the question, it is appropriate to take a few seconds to collect your thoughts and think about your response. The seconds may feel endless when you are "shaking in your boots." But to the judge and any other onlookers, a few seconds pause before you answer is expected and barely noticeable.

Click here, Legal Writing Tip - Answering Questions at Oral Argument, for the rest of Professor Levinson's tips; there are four more interesting ones.

See also her weblog: Ariana R. Levinson's blog

Technorati Tags: oral arguments,oral argument,ariana levinson,legal writing

One Dean's View on the State of the Legal Profession

Bill Gratsch — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:47:07 GMT

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog highlighted yesterday, in the post Stanford’s Larry Kramer: The State Of Our Profession Is Bad , a letter in the most recent issue of Stanford Lawyer from Dean Larry Kramer,

It is a quick read, but one I found well worth the time. Mainly because Dean Kramer publicly comments on some of the same changes in the legal profession which I hear lawyer after lawyer talk about privately. His opening paragraph sets the tone for the letter:

I have occasionally remarked, though only in small settings before today, that the state of the legal profession brings to mind Rome, circa A.D. 300. On the surface, it looks grander and more magnificent than ever, but the foundation may be about to collapse. It’s meant to be a joke. But the uneasy laugh this comment invariably elicits suggests that it may be closer to the mark than any of us wishes.

If you wish to read the rest of the letter, click here Stanford Lawyer (it is saved in pdf) and scroll down to the first page of the magazine.

More Best Law Schools Rankings

Bill Gratsch — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:48:40 GMT

In case you missed it a couple weeks back, The Princeton Review has posted its Best 170 Law Schools Rankings.

We surveyed more than 18,000 students at 170 law schools and used the information that they reported to us, along with school statistics provided by school administrators, to create 11 ranking lists. None of these lists purports to rank the schools in terms of overall quality; but by using the lists in conjunction with the Students Say profiles and the school statistics, you will be able to identify the attributes of a law school that are important to you—and ultimately, generate a list of the schools that can best help you achieve your personal and professional goals.

The ranking lists include:

Toughest to Get Into
Best Classroom Experience
Professors Rock (Legally Speaking)
Most Competitive Students
Best Career Prospects
Candidates for Heritage Foundation Fellowships?
Candidates for Center for American Progress Fellowships?
Best Environment for Minority Students
Most Diverse Faculty
Best Quality of Life
Most Welcoming of Older Students

Professor Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog has further analyzed these rankings to provide some additional viewpoints:

Last week, with the help of my assistant, I extracted from the individual profiles of the 170 law schools all of the available data and blogged the Top 25 and Bottom 25 schools in each of six categories:

Academic Experience
Admissions Selectivity
Career Preparation
Professors: Accessible
Professors: Interesting
Study Hours

See Professor Caron's post Princeton Review's Top 50 Law Schools for all of the details.

The Single Best Idea For Reforming Legal Education

Bill Gratsch — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:21:13 GMT

At Tax Prof Blog, Dean Paul L. Caron at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and Professor William D. Henderson at Indiana University School of Law posted the 40 different answers they received, Forty Words of Wisdom for Erwin Chemerinsky, in answer to the following question:

What is the single best idea for reforming legal education you would offer to Erwin Chemerinsky as he builds the law school at UC-Irvine.

The question stemmed from the debate flowing from the apparent hiring, firing and re-hiring of Edwin Chemerinsky as the Dean of UC-Irvine law school last month. For more information on that topic, see Brian Leiter Law School Report's final post on the subject, Chemerinsky To Become Dean of the Law School at UC Irvine, as well as all of his earlier posts as he followed developments in the story.

Back to the reforming legal education Q & A, I was impressed by both the breadth of responders and the quality of responses themselves. Whether college presidents, deans, professors or private practice lawyers, forty people took the time to share their two cents worth.

As there were a number of very interesting comments and ideas, for anyone even remotely interest in the topic of reforming legal education, I recommend reading the responses. Click here to see them: Forty Words of Wisdom for Erwin Chemerinsky

The blawgosphere continues to evolve and this sort of spontaneous discussion prompted by--and responded to--the community itself is a great sign of the times.

Good stuff.

Law School and Early Decision Applications

Bill Gratsch — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:06:29 GMT

For anyone going through the law school application process, Ann Levine at Law School Expert, a law school admission consulting service, wrote a useful post about Early Decision Deadlines for Law Schools you may wish to check out:

Some of my clients are already submitting law school applications. Most schools made them available September 1st although there are a few hold-outs. One of the first decisions you'll have to make after solidifying your schools list is whether to apply under an Early Decision program.

The rule with Early Decision applications is that this is a binding agreement you are making with the school; if admitted, you will attend that school and withdraw all applications from other schools. In return, you will receive your admission decision a little bit faster (usually before Winter Break). The caveat is that in many cases your application will simply be "deferred" until the "regular" admissions cycle. But Early Decision is a great option for that school that you know, no matter what, you would attend.

Ms. Levine has also taken the time to collect the Early Decision deadlines for a number of law schools, which she makes available as part of her post. You can get more detail and see the list via this link: Early Decision Deadlines for Law Schools. You can also subscribe to Ms. Levine's blawg Law School Expert, via her RSS feed.

Blogs, Law School Rankings, and the Race to the Bottom

Bill Gratsch — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:37:37 GMT

Professor J. ROBERT BROWN Jr., at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, has posted his paper Blogs, Law School Rankings, and the Race to the Bottom to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Professor Brown earlier shared a draft version with me and I found it be an interesting, very well-researched paper that makes some great points and is worth taking the time to read. Below is the Abstract and Citation. You can visit the above-noted link to find more details at SSRN. You can also visit Professor Brown's collaborative faculty-student weblog, The Race to the Bottom, which provides an analysis of the laws and regulatory measures that govern today's corporations.

Abstract:
Blogs are changing legal scholarship. Although not a substitute for the detailed, often intricately researched analysis contained in law reviews and other scholarly publications, they fill an important gap in the scholarly continuum. Blog posts can generate ideas and discussion that can be transformed into more a systematic and thorough paper or scholarly article. At the same time, blogs provide a forum for testing ideas once they are published in more traditional venues.

While over time, a blog presence will likely become de rigueur for top scholars and law reviews, top tier schools as a group have not yet targeted blogs as a necessary component of scholarly activity. In the short term, therefore, blogs provide unique opportunities for faculty and law schools outside the top tier to enhance their reputational rankings. Blogs can enhance reputation by allowing faculty to route around some of the biases in law review placements and SSRN rankings that favor those at the top tier schools. Blogs also represent a cost effective mechanism for advertising scholarly activity.

The paper discusses the evidence that blogs enhance reputation and surveys the way that scholars at law schools outside the top tier are already harnessing blogs to enhance their reputations. The paper also discusses what it takes to create a successful blog, from the search for content to the benefits of advertising. The paper finishes with a brief history of The Race to the Bottom, a corporate governance blog.

Citation:

Brown , J. Robert, "Blogs, Law School Rankings, and the Race to the Bottom" (July 26, 2007). U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-33 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1003425