A radically changed job market since the financial meltdown – in
which law firms have retrenched, salaries have fallen and many new
attorneys have struggled to find a job that puts their J.D. to use – has
led to a precipitous drop in law school applications.
Enrollment
in 2013 was down 24 percent from what it was in 2010, making law school
a bit more of a buyer’s market. So even as hiring shows signs of
recovery and average starting pay inches up from the post-crash low of
$78,700 for the class of 2011 to about $82,400 for 2013 grads, many
schools are dreaming up new ways to make their programs stand out.
More than a dozen schools now offer some form of a compressed program, an innovation pioneered by Northwestern Law School in Illinois in 2009. Brooklyn Law School
launched a two-year option last summer, for example, in which students
start by accumulating six credits over the summer, then take 14 credits
in the fall and 15 or 16 each term thereafter, with three-credit
intersessions between semesters and an externship during the second
summer.
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Regardless of how you crunch the credits, the load makes for an intense two years.
“It’s clearly not for everybody,” says Brooklyn Law President and Dean
Nick Allard. “It’s for highly motivated, highly qualified and mature
students.” He notes that most of the 30 students in the first class
arrived from the work world.
It’s no coincidence that these programs appeal to a more seasoned student, agrees Drexel Law School Dean
Roger Dennis, who notes that one aim of starting the
Philadelphia school's two-year program was to appeal to a wider
audience. While not required, work experience is strongly preferred for
admission to Northwestern’s accelerated program.
In another nod to shifting economic realities, law schools have been expanding their interdisciplinary options. Stanford Law School, for one, now offers 27 joint J.D. degrees; possible add-ons include computer science, bioengineering, public policy and medical degrees.
In addition to its unusual post-J.D. master’s program in space, cyber and telecommunications law, the law school at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln
boasts one joint degree in law and public health and another that adds
gerontology, both of which Dean Susan Poser sees as being increasingly
attractive in the highly regulated hospital and nursing home industries.
And
while joint law and MBA degrees are nothing new, some schools are now
packing business studies directly into the J.D. curriculum.
Northwestern, for instance, collaborates with the university’s Kellogg School of Management
to offer law students a concentration in business enterprise, and the
law school operates the Entrepreneurship Law Center, where students team
up to advise small businesses.
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Beyond using class time to teach skills like writing briefs and
reading a balance sheet, law schools are rapidly implementing other
sorts of practical training. Some emphasize simulation; others,
real-world experience. “There’s quite a lot of momentum in experiential
education,” says Daniel Rodriguez, dean of Northwestern's law school.
Other schools have borrowed a page from medicine to incorporate clinical rotations or “residencies.” At New York Law School,
3Ls now spend the entire year in three 10-week clinical rotations that
have them working with officials at the New York City Law Department and
on civil litigation at the Legal Aid Society, for example.
In one of the most radical reforms, Elon University School of Law
in North Carolina will introduce a complete overhaul of its curriculum
this year. The program will shift to trimesters so students graduate in
two and a half years and can prep for the February bar exam and enter
the job market in the spring. The new curriculum is much more
intentionally sequenced; shadowing a litigator leads to participation in
moot court and then to a residency with a trial and appellate practice
firm, for example.
“The real innovation here was to take legal
education and make it logically progressive,” says Luke Bierman, dean of
the Elon law school. “We want to make sure students learn each part
before they move on.”
While experiential learning is the latest
buzzword in legal education, the extent to which students can truly
participate in proceedings remains highly regulated by the American Bar
Association, which accredits law schools.
“You cannot give legal
advice to somebody unless you are a licensed attorney,” Nebraska’s Poser
points out. So clinics that serve real clients are typically limited to
third-year students certified by their state supreme court to work
under the supervision of a lawyer.
The limitations frustrate some
educators, who can see the potential for even greater innovation.
Rodriguez believes that falling enrollments could jeopardize some law
schools, ultimately pressuring the ABA to allow greater freedom of
movement.