Not Your Father's Law School

Responding to complaints that many newly minted lawyers are clueless about the "business" part of law, Washington and Lee is trying something new.

By Jonathan N. Crawford, Researcher-Reporter, the Kiplinger letters

April 10, 2008

An experiment may have a big impact on the law school experience. The Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia is abandoning lecture-style classes in the third year of its program in lieu of a more practical approach to learning the ins and outs of practicing law. The move is a sharp departure from the traditional ways of teaching law, says law school dean Rodney Smolla, one of the architects of the reform effort.

Smolla believes that law schools have fallen short in preparing students for the careers ahead of them. "The criticism has been that law schools have been very good at teaching students to think like lawyers but have not done as good a job in teaching them in being lawyers," he says. For example, he says students can recite a legal principle but often are not as adept in using the legal principles to advise clients as to the best course of action to take.

Law students in the school's third year won't attend classes nor will they take final exams, as is the norm for many law schools. Instead, for the entire year, law students will participate in activities that simulate the real-life work of a law professional. They will counsel clients, negotiate business solutions, serve as advocates and counselors and draft mock business agreements.

Students will also be required to obtain a Virginia practice certificate -- a sort of learner's permit for lawyers -- that will allow them to argue before a judge and advise clients under the supervision of a senior lawyer. The program, which is being phased in over the next three to four years, will cover the full gamut of law subjects, including transactional law, estate tax law and civil rights law.

The new program is winning praise from some education critics. William Sullivan, senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, says that Washington and Lee's experiment is heading in the right direction. "The need to prepare students for legal thinking in the way it relates to how to practice law is absolutely correct," says Sullivan.

Among the abilities many students typically lack upon leaving law school, according to Sullivan, are writing skills and developing a positive rapport with clients. He adds that deficient skills could pose more of a problem today because some firms indicate that they have less time and less of an inclination to train new associates.

Lisa Hedrick, a third-year law student at Washington and Lee School of Law who is also a representative on the committee that is overseeing the curriculum reform, says that she is excited about the new teaching model. "I was bored with the traditional course. ... This is making me act and think like an attorney," she says.

Even so, many skeptics say there's plenty of time after graduation to get mentoring and supervised practice. Carl C. Monk, executive director of the Association of American Law Schools, applauds Washington and Lee's approach, but says it isn't a one-size-fits-all type of scenario. "I don't think it would be healthy for all [Association of American Law Schools] member law schools to do the same thing. They should look at their own needs," he says. His praise for the law school's embrace of a practical approach to teaching law comes with this caveat: "You can't engage in effective practice without knowing some theory and how theories work and whether they apply."

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