I am not alone in my criticism of the current model of legal education which the ABA has pushed on American law schools. Fortunately, according to the Associated Press, some law schools are getting back to the basics of training men and women to actually represent clients.
The latest law school to depart from the ivory-tower only approach to educating lawyers and toward including the actual use and honing of practical skills, which are the bread and butter of every lawyer who isn't a law professor, is the venerable Washington & Lee University School of Law which is instituting a "New Third Year" Program.
According to the W&L program website:
The new third year curriculum will be entirely experiential, comprised of law practice simulations, real-client experiences, the development of professionalism, and development of law practice skills....Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
Students will not study law from books or sit in classrooms engaging in dialogue with a professor at a podium. The demanding intellectual content of the third year will instead be presented in realistic settings that simulate actual client experiences, requiring students to exercise professional judgment, work in teams, solve problems, counsel clients, negotiate solutions, serve as advocates and counselors—the full complement of professional activity that engages practicing lawyers as they apply legal theory and legal doctrines to the real-world issues of serving clients ethically and honorably within the highest traditions of the profession.
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