Last November, 57 law school deans, associate deans, faculty members, and others gathered at the University from throughout the country to discuss recommendations for improving legal education nationwide.

The conference was planned and facilitated by Carolina law school professor Roy Stuckey and Judith Wegner, a former dean and current faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Judith Wegner

The conference was the result of calls for significant changes in the content and methodology of legal education in the two books' prior studies. It also was one of several recent developments in a national legal education reform movement in which Stuckey has been a leader.

Law schools are seen as doing a good job teaching legal concepts, reasoning, and analysis, said Stuckey. But within the profession there are growing numbers of those who believe schools could do a better job of incorporating ethical considerations into their curricula. Critics also think law schools could brush up on their instruction in relevant skills needed to practice law, Stuckey said.

"The basic problem is that law schools haven't focused on what they should do to prepare students for practice as best they can," said Stuckey. "The Carnegie Foundation feels that professional education should focus on the apprenticeships of knowledge, role, and practice, that is, teaching legal analysis, teaching what it means to be and act like an attorney, and teaching how to do the things professionals in the field need to do.

"Right now, they're teaching legal analysis and knowledge well, but are short on imparting skills and values."

While not everyone in the legal profession agrees on the need for legal education reform (some are objecting on the ground that change would be too time-consuming or detract from legal scholarship) a growing number of educators and practicing attorneys have acknowledged that the issue is ripe for review, Stuckey said.

Law school dean Walter F. "Jack" Pratt agrees.

"It's certainly a focal point that needs to be talked about and merits discussion," said Pratt, noting that changes in legal education probably will end up being more of a tweaking of the process than a major overhaul. "The more attention we pay to what we do as legal educators the better the process will be," he said.

Pratt recently talked about the Carnegie report at a meeting of the Inn of Court in Columbia, a group of judges, lawyers, students, and academics who meet monthly to discuss professional topics. Audience reaction to his talk was mixed, he said, but further developments indicate that, overall, the legal profession is warming up to the idea of listening to concerns of reform advocates.

At the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in New York in early January the Carnegie report was a central topic of discussion, Pratt said.

Other law schools also are hosting conferences to discuss the issue, and Pratt has suggested to the dean of the Charleston Law School that they collaborate on a series of conversations at county bar associations across the state to gauge attorneys' reaction to reform proposals.

Faculty at the Carolina law school have been surveyed to identify the purpose of the school, its mission, and what they are teaching in each of their courses.

The school also is reviewing its curriculum to see how it might benefit from some innovation and, with the S.C. Bar, developed a survey of bar members to get their input, Pratt said. A best practices for legal education blog, albanylawblogs.org, has been created to encourage improvement in legal education.

"If we think about this then we'll improve inevitably," said Pratt. "Almost everybody who is in education really does want to do a good job, and if we talk and understand there are these critiques, then we'll change and make it better."

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