I remember hearing time and time again from junior lawyers that it was not necessary to worry about what electives one took or how much one learned or did not learn during those three years of legal education as “the real learning, unless you are planning on pursuing a career in academia, starts once you enter the workplace.”
While I was at law school, I remember hearing time and time again from junior lawyers that it was not necessary to worry about what electives one took or how much one learned or did not learn during those three years of legal education as “the real learning, unless you are planning on pursuing a career in academia, starts once you enter the workplace.” The focus was on getting the best grades possible, surviving the three years and getting an articling role.
Unfortunately, in many ways, they were right! Even today, much of what a lawyer learns, especially for in-house lawyers, comes from the experiences obtained in the board room, at the negotiation table, within the court system and from working with your business partner in assessing risk.
Today, this model is no longer sustainable. Law students are graduating with substantial debt as a result of skyrocketing tuition over the last few decades. These students are coming into a tight job market, where it is not just difficult to get an articling role but, even if one is secured, there is little to no guarantee that there will be a job at the end of that process. To add insult to injury, most law students are coming out with little to no marketable and practical skills. After sleepwalking through three years of law school, articling becomes the first time that a student is actually expected to start learning the practice of law.
Unfortunately, not all articling roles are made equally, so some law students will emerge after eight months with a solid understanding of the practice of law, while others will have spent these months conducting research and photocopying and come out no further ahead than they were before.
Now, there are some silver linings as universities are starting to make an effort to expand the practical elements of law to students, but a course here and there does not a solid legal education make. So, you may ask, what would you do differently, Fernando, if you were given the ability to start a law school 2.0?
Well, because you asked, these are some of the core skills that I would seek to develop:
OK, there will still be core classes and law students will still need to learn the fundamentals of tort, contract, constitutional, criminal, property and other courses that are routine in all law schools. However, by incorporating some or all of the points raised above, we are developing “T-shaped lawyers” who will be able to survive and thrive with regard to their career, regardless of which direction it takes them. I am not selfish — I hope that law schools steal as many of these ideas as possible, as at the end of the day, law students are making a tremendous investment of time and money.