The Future of Legal Education Reading List

We at CALI have been thinking a lot about the future of legal education.

John Mayer, our Executive Director, compiled this fairly comprehensive collection of links to articles, books, blog posts and other materials that relate to how things are changing in legal education, law practice, and higher education.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the Future of Legal Education and other suggested readings. Tweet us @CALILawSchool.

  1. How A Transformative Recession Affects Law Practice and Legal Education by Professor Jame Maule, Villanova Law School
  2. The Problem of Legal Education: What's the Diagnosis? by Professor Gordon Smith, BYU Law School
  3. In Defense of Law Schools, by Professor J.B. Ruhl, Florida State University Law School
  4. Welcome to the Future: Time for Law School 4.0 by Paul Lippe, founder of Legal OnRamp
  5. Are Law Schools Like GM? Why Profs Should Mull End of ‘Salad Days’ by Debra Cassens Weiss, Senior writer/online, ABA Journal staff (especially read the comments here)
  6. Yes, We CArNegie! Workshop brochure
  7. ABA is Taking a Look at Law School Accreditation by Elie Mystal
  8. A White Paper on the Recession, Practical Legal Education, and the New Job Market by Daniel Thies, the law student member of the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar
  9. Law School 2.0: Legal Education for a Digital Age by Professor David Thomson, University of Denver Sturm College of Law (website)
  10. The End of Lawyers: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services (book) by Richard Susskind (Amazon)
  11. With the Downturn, It’s Time to Rethink the Legal Profession (NYTimes Editorial) by Adam Cohen
    How Much Change Will the Recession Bring to Recruiting? NALP Roundtable article
  12. Teaching Skills by Teaching Naked by Gordon Smith
  13. When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom by Jeffrey R. Young in Chronicle of Higher Education
  14. What Law Schools Should Teach Future Transactional Lawyers: Perspectives from Practice by Michael Woronoff of Proskauer Rose LLP; University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law
  15. Will Higher Ed Ever Change Like It Should? by Robert Zemsky in Chronicle of Higher Education
  16. At Public Law Schools, Tuition Jumps Sharply by Karen Sloan
  17. Welcome to the Future: Law School 4.0, Part Two by Paul Lippe
  18. The Old Solutions Have Become the New Problems by Shoshana Zuboss - Businessweek (This is an article from a (former) Harvard B-school instructor.  If you replace "business" with "law" in this article, the resulting advice is amazingly relevant, IMHO.)
  19. Law Schools Waking Up - Dumping 3rd Year Curriculum For the Practical by Susan Carter Liebel
  20. Reality's Knocking: The Recession Is Forcing Schools to Bow to Reality, by Karen Sloan
  21. A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges by Zephry Teachout in the Washington Post
  22. The Year the Edupunks Killed the University by Stuart Shaw, Blogger
  23. Next: An Internet Revolution in Higher Education by Kevin Maney of Businessweek (and discussed on Slashdot
  24. County library could be endangered legal resource by Francesca Jarosz in the Indianapolis Star Tribune (I have been seeing more and more articles like this.  Access to legal information is a another element of the future of legal education as it relates to how the public perceive and obtain legal information/representation)
  25. Do We Need More Law Schools? by Professor Gary Rosin of South Texas College of Law
  26. The Legal Market in 2020 by Altman Weil, Inc.(This is a fascinating look at the future of the legal services marketplace using scenario planning techniques)

 

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