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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Law - "Are Law School Faculties Part of the Problem with Legal Education?"

That is the heading to this interesting WSJ Law Blog entry today by Ashby Jones. Some quotes:

It’s often struck us as an obvious question: how can law schools provide better real-world training to students when their faculties are made up of article-writing academics? * * *

“The academy — both in terms of its preparation of law students to enter the profession and the type of scholarship being produced by the professoriate — has lost its practical moorings,” Newton wrote.*

Much of the problem, Newton writes, owes to the fact that many law professors have too little experience or understanding of the practice of law to teach practical skills to students. “Could such a professor who writes law review articles about the First Amendment effectively represent a client in a civil rights litigation? Could such a professor whose expertise is securities regulation effectively represent a client or the government in an SEC enforcement action?” he wrote.

Newton’s suggestion: that that law faculties be divided into two tracks — research professors and teaching professors, both of whom would be tenure-track. Research professors would account for one-third of a faculty and would concentrate on “theoretical, interdisciplinary research and scholarship” and teach fewer classes. The remaining two-thirds would teach doctrinal, clinical and legal reading and writing courses.

Here is the article by adjunct Georgetown law prof and deputy staff director of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Brent Evan Newton.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 31, 2010 01:25 PM
Posted to General Law Related