Jury Still out on Law School Curricula

Recently, LexisNexis interviewed a young law associate (Matt D.) at a top tier, national law firm to get his reaction to pertinent results of the LexisNexis survey on the "The Future of the Legal Industry." He concurred with the survey's results indicating that more than one-third of law school graduates feel they were not properly prepared to succeed in today's marketplace. He commented that law school prepares students to become litigators, more than transactional attorneys.

Matt's comment prompted an interview with another young attorney (Abi K.) who chose not to go into private or corporate law, but from her Cornell University Law School graduation in 2004 to a position as a prosecutor in the District Attorney's office of a major U.S. city. Our purpose - to find out whether law school prepared Abi better for her career as a litigator than it prepared Matt for his job at a private law firm.

LNG: Abi, what is your job in the DA's office?

AK: I'm a prosecutor in a general trial bureau as well as a member of the sex crimes unit and the domestic violence unit.

LNG: How prepared were you when you arrived in the DA's office after graduation from law school?

AK: Not at all prepared! I walked in, they handed me a stack of cases and said, "Try them." I had taken a trial advocacy class in law school, but that was the closest I'd come to being prepared. 

LNG: What does that say to you about your law school experience?

AK: I don't fault the law school. No one can properly prepare you for that first interview with a police officer or how to help people going through a traumatic experience talk to you about personal and even intimate topics or you how best to make a connection with people from all walks of life.

LNG: You were well-trained at Cornell in litigation, weren't you?

AK: I had the training to be a litigator, but not the actual experience, and there's nothing that compares with real world experience. I needed to know how to conduct hearings, too, and I had no idea. 

LNG: Was there on-the-job training to get you up to speed?

AK: There was very little. The bulk of the training is learn-as-you-go. After nine months, we were trained in trial advocacy, which helped but doesn't compare to actually doing the job. We're pretty much on our own in the courtroom, we don't work in teams, and so ultimately I'm responsible for the bottom line.

LNG: Can you think of any courses they might have offered to prepare you better?

AK: I needed courses in interview skills, stress management, sensitivity training for people going through massive trauma, interacting with judges and other lawyers.

LNG: Those kinds of courses are not necessarily what you'd expect a law school to provide, are they?

AK: No, but more real world experience could have been a larger part of my law school's offering. We could have trained in front of real judges, learned how to talk to a jury and how to talk to witnesses. That's not something you practice at law school.

LNG: Were there no opportunities for practical experience?

AK: My school did offer "externships" in the third year, but I was on law review and also a teaching assistant, which left me little time. Cornell also offers clinics, but they were defense-oriented and I wanted to be on the prosecutorial side.

LNG: So, what recommendations would you have for law schools if they were open to curriculum changes?

AK: I would suggest that law schools develop their curricula with more of an eye towards what kinds of jobs people are headed to - whether corporate counsel, private law or public law...the various needs are very different, but currently no one's needs are being met sufficiently.

Read the first in the series of articles on the future of the legal industry, More Support for Practical Legal Education.