Law Schools Adopting Skills-based Legal Education

• The University of Buffalo Law School is reinventing the way it prepares students for day one of practicing law. By integrating innovative and practical legal skills immediately into the curriculum, graduates will be better equipped immediately after they graduate to file a brief, cross-examine a witness or make a special pleading. As part of the new Legal Skills Program, students will be given a framework of courses and experiences that encompass critical skills for the professional field. Highlighted throughout the curriculum will be legal research and writing, litigation and non-litigation skills, and professional development. 

Improving legal education was also a topic debated at a panel discussion of legal industry leaders sponsored by LexisNexis.  The program, "Evolution or Revolution: The Future of the Law Firm Business Model."   looked at the future of the legal industry generally.  The group discussed the need for change in the way new lawyers are trained.  One panelist recommended an internship similar to physician training programs.  The group agreed that the expense of such a program might be prohibitive, yet they also conceded that real-world legal training is essential to the success of future students.

Why the push  now to change a legal education system rooted in theory and used by nearly all US law schools for more than a century? Over the past year, the nation’s top 250 Law Firms decreased in size by 5,259 attorneys. This 4-percent drop is the largest since the National Law Journal began keeping such statistics 32 years ago. These figures reveal the dramatic toll that the economic recession has taken on law firms over the past year and points out the need to focus on innovation in both the way law firms operate and  the methods used to prepare law students for practice.

By Lori Webster Sieron, Lexis Hub Staff