Law Schools as Legal Education Centers

Martin H. Belsky

Legal education in the early Twentieth Century was divided into three concurrent paths -- study at one of the "elite" law schools, consisting of mostly full-time students already possessing a college degree; study at one of the other mostly part-time practice based schools; and a course of study with a practitioner/mentor outside of formal educational institutions.

Except for a few theory-based schools, almost all the subject matter of learning was fixed and based on core courses, often tied to bar admission requirements.

There was little attention given to the relationship of politics to the law or international relations and international law. Students received a Bachelor of Laws [LL.B] degree and almost always intended to take and pass the bar and then to practice law.

By the end of the millennium, almost all lawyers received their legal education, either part-time or full-time [and mostly full-time] from ABA accredited law schools, after graduation from a four-year college or university. Students had much more freedom to take electives, and even specialize prior to or after they received their Juris Doctor degree.

A significant percentage of students received joint degrees and others had no intention to practice law as such. Many attended foreign programs and they and others took an increasing number of courses in comparative, international or transnational law. Almost all course-work was done in a classroom, with some simulation courses and clinics. Teaching was done primarily by full-time law-trained professors.

In the next 25 years, law schools could evolve into Legal Education Centers, with full responsibility for the teaching of law to any who need to know or want to know something about the law. Employees in such Centers will provide legal education to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as to those seeking a law diploma [still a J.D.].

Most lawyers will see the need, as doctors have done, to specialize [and like doctors, general practice will be considered a specialty]. Legal Education Centers [law schools] will supply the course-work for these specializations, either during or after the regular course of study. Students will secure proof of their special expertise through certificates, Master's degrees, CLE certification, or post-graduate diplomas.

These Centers will also provide continuing education law-related course work for business leaders, educators, political leaders, administrators, scientists and other interested citizens and will also be responsible for the initial and updated training of legal assistants, secretaries and paralegals.

Course-work will be done in classrooms, in clinics, through distance learning, and by multi-media. Instruction will be given by law trained and non-law trained professors, practitioners, technicians, and machines.

My Father's Law School Experience

In 1965, before I entered law school, my father described to me his law school experience at Temple University in Philadelphia. We were looking at law school catalogues and he was shocked at how much legal education had changed from his time. In the late 1920's, a graduate of a college or university, recognized by the Supreme Court, was "admitted on presentation of diploma." Others had to specially apply and get a certificate from the local Prothonatary. My father probably had to register and get such a certificate as he went right from high school to evening law school while he worked full-time.

Classes were held at a downtown site, distant from the main University campus and usually taught by skillful practitioners, almost always in lecture format. Students were expected to be prepared and recite and not to challenge. Office hours, if any, were at the professor's downtown office or chambers [many of the professors were judges] or just before or after class. There were no clinics, no small sections, no seminars, no writing classes, no foreign programs, and no student bar association or student organizations, except for one student run law quarterly and some mock trials.

Tuition was paid on a course-by-course basis and there was little if any financial aid and no school arranged loans. There were no admission or career services counselors, and few secretaries or clerks to service the needs of the law school, faculty and students. In fact, my father recalled there were only three full-time staff people, not including the Dean [who had an active outside practice].

Almost all his evening classes were mandated, and he had little choice of times. Students were expected to attend classes six days a week and during the summer. The focus of most lectures was on "the law." The subject matter was on "the fundamentals" [which he interpreted as "passing the bar"].

My father remembered the course load as heavy, but not as heavy as the hours he saw described in the catalogues he saw me reviewing. He recalled two semesters of constitutional law, criminal law, torts, procedure, contracts, property, commercial law and evidence. He also remembered one semester each of Pennsylvania practice, equity, and ethics. The most specialized courses offered [mandated] were in business law, insurance, public utilities and trusts.

Being an urban law school, there were a few -- but only a few - people of color, and some women - whom he noted were always the smartest ones in the class. There were no parking lots as students took the bus or subway to school. There was no cafeteria but quite a few nearby local restaurants. There was no formal law school library but law books were available at the courthouse and some were available in the University library about two or three miles away. The now famous line -- look to your left, look to your right - was used to explain the accurate prediction that about one-third would not make it through.

Graduation was a serious event, as students were already thinking about passing the bar exam. That exam was Pennsylvania based and the only bar review material was your notes, textbooks, or tidbits from friends or associates who had taken the bar before. The character and fitness review was a serious business and one's affiliations, religion, writings, and family were legitimate areas of inquiry. Even after graduation and passing the bar, you would not be admitted to practice until you served - at pauper's wages - a preceptership for a practicing attorney or judge.

My father's experience may have been unique but I doubt it. Except for those attending a few "elite" law schools, legal education in the 1930's was probably similar to that described above.

The 1960's and early 1970's

Between 1961 and 1974, I had a series of opportunities to observe and learn about how much legal education had changed from my father's time. These experiences now also give me an opportunity to compare the law school of the 1960's and early 1970's with those of the present.

Legal education by the early 1970's had become more rigorous and academic and less trade school premised. All law schools had their own buildings, and most were part of and located on the campus of the University. They had law libraries of significant scope and staffs of librarians, secretaries, and other assistants for admissions, financial aid, placement, alumni relations and fund-raising.

Almost all students had baccalaureate degrees and expected to complete their legal education before taking the bar. There were more women and people of color and even some foreign students. Some law schools had evening divisions, but most students went to school full-time during the day. And at most schools, even "elite schools," most students came from the state where the law school was located. Still, even at non-elite schools, a significant portion came from other states.

Students had the opportunity to take many electives, but still, most students took the "core bar-related courses." More faculty members were considered full-time but many had a substantial outside practice.

There were seminars but few clinics and no formalized specializations. Classroom teaching was either lecture or "Socratic" with occasional seminars. There was an increasing number of student organizations, including multiple journals, moot court teams, subject based associations [like for international law, trial advocacy, and business law].

Being the 1960's, politics, including the Vietnam War, was a part of student life and policy discussions were common and student bar associations were quite active and vibrant. There was still a large dropout rate -- and entering classes still heard the decanal refrain -- "look to our right; look to your left." Still, it was expected that if you did the work required, you would survive. While in law school, many students tried to and often got law-related jobs during the academic year, the summer, or both.

Upon graduation, students usually took a bar review course, concentrating on material for a particular state's bar. The character and fitness review by the bar was a process and not a hurdle. So long as you had not committed some truly egregious act, you could be assured that passing the bar meant admittance.

The Modern Law School Experience

Anybody who knows even a little about the history of legal education knows that dramatic changes occurred in legal education starting in the mid 1970's, because of the increased authority, responsibility and oversight of the American Bar Association, through its Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, of the American Association of Law Schools. Most State Supreme Courts delegated accreditation to the ABA, which in turn established a comprehensive set of Standards and Interpretations and regular sabbatical accreditation visit and review. The law professor member-based American Association also established a set of rules and guidelines and applied them to those schools which sought membership in that Association.

Selection of faculty became much more competitive and procedural. Hiring could still be done on an ad hoc basis but most law schools sent teams of recruiters to annual AALS sponsored recruitment conferences. The elite law schools dominated the new law professor classes each year. Students at the non-elite school often felt the need to get a Masters from an elite school to be competitive.

Classroom teaching changed as new user-friendly styles balanced out the traditional Socratic "Kingsfield" intimidation mode. More study aides became available and grading sometimes did not depend entirely on one final exam.

Like other University entities, law schools sought Chairs and named professorships and demanded that full-time faculty work full-time. Specifically, a full-time faculty member was expected to be in his or her office at least four day a week, and not have a formal relationship with a law firm.

Accreditors and the legal community pushed for more diversity in students and faculty. They also scrutinized instruction to make sure that regular faculty and not adjuncts taught most basic courses.

Student bodies, in fact, became more diverse, both in gender and race and also in geography. Full-time students became truly full-time as accreditation rules now provided that they should not work substantial hours during the academic year and perhaps not at all in the first and second semesters.

Tuition could be credit based or per semester and while tuition increases were substantial so were increases in financial aid, both by scholarship and readily available loans.

There were increased varieties of law school experiences. More schools strived to be ranked as national schools, or at least regional schools of national impact. Some choose to develop specially focused curricula or a number of special tracks. Others prided themselves on being "core curriculum" state-law based schools.

At all schools, even those that focused on state law, the number of required course hours decreased and more opportunities were allowed for specialized courses, small sections and seminars, and even joint degrees with other University colleges. Education at overseas locations grew dramatically as more and more law schools offered summer or semester abroad programs.

Law schools increasingly held special seminars, and conferences and law professors increasingly lent their expertise to the media on hot issues. They also published multiple law journals, and more newsletters, brochures and magazines promoting each school’s faculty, programs, visitors, and quality.

Standards and reviews promoted increasing profession-alization of staff positions for librarians, career services and admission personnel and then later of alumni directors and fund-raisers, and many more buildings. The ABA pushed more skills training, as part of the regular curriculum, and encouraged heightened status for clinicians and research and writing instructors. Accreditation reviews looked at quality and quantity of library collections, student-full-time faculty ratios, faculty salaries and clerical, research and other support for faculty.

Law Schools, even state law schools, sought to diversify their economic base through fund-raising, alumni cultivation, grants, contracts, and special programs, many of which offered continuing legal education credit.

Bar exams were still given state by state, but most states included an exam prepared by a multi-state association, which used multiple choice questions as the testing method. Even the state-based portion of the two-day bar exam often focused on non-local issues, and had questions prepared by Professors from states across the nation.

Legal Education in the 21st Century

As we reached the end of the Twentieth Century, several indicators of the future were evident. Computers became a more dominant research tool for faculty and students, and libraries changed to legal information centers. The profession's push for more skills teaching in law schools led to active consideration by state bar examiners of practice based exams.

A backlash against some accreditation standards has already led to differing measuring standards for clinical faculty, specifically excluding salary and similar comparisons and more flexibility in decanal administration.

In light of the greater flexibility in oversight, better technology for computer-assisted legal education, new allowances for distant legal education, and even some talk of total "e-learning," it is likely that, by the year 2025, law schools could become more Centers for law students to choose from a menu of options, including skills courses, in a clinic or simulation, interactive training, lectures by video, Internet, or disk, or small electronic sections and seminars with interactive live faculty.

By the 1990's, transnational and global issues were increasingly considered "core topics" and new schools were being established that were religiously based or otherwise specially focused, and even for profit. In addition, revised ABA Standards allowed students to go five or even six years to get their degree. Other Standards are being considered that also provide flexibility and new definitions of residency.

Extrapolating these trends, Legal Education Centers could include in their menu of options, access to special courses or programs in their own school or through their school.  

Such Centers would be able to provide mechanisms for flexible study. Students could take some classes a few hours a week, and some at home or while working on another job. Others could take courses only a few months over a number of years. Still others would go full-time for a year and then part-time with distance learning.

Legal Education Centers would market their courses to other schools and students and some students could spend their time in two or even three schools over a longer and part-time school experience.

This ability of legal educators to use technology and flexibility to allow geographical and topic cross-fertilization will, of course, lead to more joint programs and consortia between schools [with special contractual arrangements].

It should also lead to a further lessening of differences between admission standards from state to state, and possibly the elimination of state-based bar exams and the minimization of restrictions on out-of-state or state to state admissions.

As noted earlier, by the end of the 1990's, deans of all types of law schools felt pressured by outside ranking entities and the students, faculty, alums and University administrators who paid attention to such rankings. Money was spent on "visibility," publicity, "buying students," and carving a special niche to overcome generalized comparisons. By the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, as with medicine, only a few schools would be able to claim dominance in all areas.

Most would seek recognition in one or more specialty or sub-specialty areas, or by appealing to specific religious or ethnic populations. As described above, they would market themselves in their particular focus or with particular appeal to certain types of students.

They would sell certain course or programs and be less worried about rankings generally as compared to making a profit [or for non-profits providing higher perquisites] by focusing on their niche. They would have to become more "user friendly" to compete with other schools and even other professions.

Part of this new competitive angle might be to broaden what law schools, now retooled as Legal Education Centers, consider to be within their mandate.

The legal profession has already seen the need to broaden the concept of legal education and to encourage lawyers to teach about the law to a wide audience of interested parties. In addition, the profession has already seen the need to provide a process of certification to law-related professions and to post-law school training. Finally, the profession has become more vocal about educating the public about the legal aspects of almost everything that happens in our society. I believe that law schools should and will, working together with other entities, assume more and more responsibility for these learning processes.

As early as the 1960's, the American Bar Association developed a curriculum to teach legal concepts and the rule of law to elementary and high school students. Curricula were developed. Teachers were given special training. Special projects, like mock trials, and lectures by practitioners, and court visits were organized.

Law school involvement in these programs was encouraged, and some law schools developed their own parallel programs. Elementary and high school students were brought on campus and law students and law faculty organized special lectures, library demonstrations, or moot courts.

I have found that such activity, by law students, staff and faculty benefited not just the visitors but also those dealing with them. Law students have indicated that they learned a great deal about law topics, by having to prepare a talk or a mock trial for young students. They had to translate complex topics into ordinary English and as a result came to understand the topics better. They also renewed their enthusiasm about the law and being lawyers.

Law faculty and staff also suggested the positive nature of these visits. Many -- but by no means all - faculty members similarly enjoyed having to break down complex topics and learning to explain the law to a younger audience. They absorbed the excitement about the law generated by the students. As show-persons [and many faculty members are, as we all must admit, actors in part], some law teachers loved the performance and the adulation.

Law school administrators enjoyed the visits as it gave them an opportunity to recruit future law students, especially minorities, and also permitted them an opportunity to highlight the role of the law school in the community, and perhaps, just perhaps, generate some much needed positive publicity not just for the school but also for the profession. Finally, it allowed them to work closely with local bar associations, the judiciary, and other professional entities.

The elementary and high school teachers and administrators enjoyed the "one-stop shopping" aspect of bringing students to the law school and/or having the law school develop one or more programs. They also felt much more at ease in a law school environment. Even when outside visits to a courthouse or a law firm were included, the teachers felt more comfortable when these were organized through another academic entity - the law school.

Teaching in a Post-Secondary Setting

Some of the reasons that law schools can deliver legal education to elementary and secondary students, obviously apply to junior college, college, and non-law school graduate and professional education as well.

There are, of course, numerous courses about the law already taught at colleges and universities outside of law schools. Among the most common are constitutional law and business law courses. Others are designated as "policy courses" and include environmental law and policy, health law and policy, science and the law, educational law, and law and society.

Graduate and professional schools often have courses describing legal issues involved in the practice of their profession. These include accounting and the law [sometimes called legal accounting], tax law, medicine and the law, energy law, environmental law, media law, the law of management, international law and policy.

Finally, there are specialized courses available to students in both undergraduate and graduate schools. These can include law and literature, law and the media, jurisprudence and legal theory, and agricultural law.

A mere recitation of these courses makes it clear that they are similar or even identical to ones taught in law schools to law students. In fact, because of many joint degree programs, where students can get an M.B.A. for example at the same time as a J.D., law students often take these law related courses in other colleges. And there are graduate degree programs, like a Masters in Public Administration or a Masters in Environmental Policy which offer identical courses to both law and non-law students.

Finally, there are now an increasing number of "Legal Assistant" or "Para-Legal" or "Legal Secretary" or "Legal Administrator" programs, some within a University environment and some totally outside. The curriculum for these programs is almost a "Reader's Digest" version or perhaps, a bar prep version of familiar topics like contracts, procedure, evidence, commercial paper, administrative law, criminal law, or estates. These courses are taught by instructors, almost always lawyers, who may or may not also be adjuncts in law schools, or teachers in other programs in junior colleges and colleges.

Like law students, the law office trainees also learn about book-based and computerized legal research, trial preparation, and record-keeping. This training is often done by the same companies and law library staffs that work with law students.

A law-school based Legal Education Center could become responsible for teaching all such law-related courses. This can be done by allowing a variety of students [undergraduate; graduate; law] in one law school class or differing classes for different levels of approach. This, of course, is similar to the approach in most law programs outside of the United States. In many countries, law is an undergraduate curriculum and may be based in a larger college. These schools may or may not have graduate law programs.

Some countries have both law-based undergraduate and graduate professional programs - focused on specific career tracks. In either circumstance, the faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate students are often the same.

Even in the United States, and depending on faculty-approved requirements, many law schools open their classes to selected junior and senior undergraduates and to graduate and professional students from other departments or colleges. In other cases, law faculty members can "cross-list" their courses under both law and another curriculum.

Finally, there are faculty members who have dual or multiple appointments and others who teach courses jointly with colleagues in other disciplines.

It would seem not a big jump to ask the law school to be the responsible entity to coordinate legal education in an entire University or provide legal education to those colleges and Universities without a law school. The advantages are obvious. Law faculty members would be able to broaden their teaching experience and, with cross-fertilization, perhaps also their scholarship.

For non-law faculty, their visibility and reputation might be enhanced by teaching under a law school umbrella but in any event, they would be increasingly recognized as peers.

Finally, students of multiple disciplines can only be helped by enjoying a multi-disciplinary approach to their teaching by faculty and by student-colleagues.

As a final suggestion, law schools should also coordinate the teaching of future legal assistants, paralegals, legal secretaries or legal administrators. In some cases, law students and law alums could be invited to attend specialized classes in law office management or regular classes in contracts to better understand how what they do relates to the work staff members are being asked to do. These paraprofessionals could also meet present and future lawyers and get a better sense of their perspectives and needs.

Post-Graduate Education

I have never been able to understand why law schools do not have a larger role in Bar Review Preparation. It is clear, and the ABA demands, that law school education itself should not be exclusively focused on preparation for the Bar. Still there is no reason why law schools cannot provide a non-credit course, in the senior year, or after graduation, on the Bar.

In my opinion, it would be especially helpful if the law faculty would teach some or all of these courses. Even non-traditional teachers would gain credibility if they are also perceived as able to teach "hard" bar passage law. Moreover, it might take some pressure off the push to teach bar exam content in regular courses.

This is not a big stretch. Law faculty now are often paid by commercial bar review courses to teach one or more subjects either live or by tape or now DVD. Having a student taught by someone he or she is familiar with, in their own classrooms, and near their old library seat would seem to make the process easier. It might also help faculty understand the crossover between material taught in the law school and what is needed to pass the bar faculty.

Additional benefits to law school provided bar review courses could include providing a vehicle for additional compensation to faculty, and subsidies to students of special needs.

Providing bar review courses should not interfere with the desire of some schools to be national or at least regional entities. If I am right, there will be an eventual end to state by state testing and admissions. But even if things do not get that far, almost all states now give the "Multi-State Exam" and preparation for this exam can be given anywhere. Even the state-based part of the exam is often national in scope and even if state focused, can be given by video or other distance learning techniques. Or law schools can, of course, develop reciprocal relationships for students in law schools in other states.

Another obvious area for the synergy that a Legal Education Center provides is in Continuing Education. At the present time, many law schools do provide CLE [Continuing Legal Education] programs for alums and non-alums. Sometimes this is done as a service and sometimes as a revenue source and sometimes as both.

It is unlikely that law schools will be able - politically or practically - to take over full responsibility for CLE.  Still, the changing nature of legal education does provide increased opportunities for law schools.

Law schools can open their classes or provide mini-courses for practitioners in specialized areas or even in more general areas, where a refresher course would be useful. To make this even more attractive, a law school could offer practitioners the ability to obtain a specialty recognition in one or more of the special certificate programs it offers to its students.

Second, with distance learning techniques, courses or mini-courses, can be offered off-campus with little additional expenditure by the law schools and with ease of access by the practitioners.

Third, these areas of specialization can mature into Masters in Law programs for some practitioners.

Another area for continuing education that can be provided by law schools is to non-lawyers. Just as law courses can be opened to non-law students, such courses can be opened to non-lawyers. Business-people might want to take a course or a mini-course in Corporate Transactions. Government zoning administrators might wish to sit in on a course on land use law. Energy companies might want to organize a seminar for their employees on natural resources law. Corporate officers might want to take a course on Securities Law. School Districts might send Principals to a course on Education Law; Hospitals send young doctors to courses on health law. Journalists and Ministers could attend a course on the First Amendment.

As with law students or law alums, law schools could offer certificates or even Masters degrees to these non-lawyers in some areas.

Last, but not least, Legal Education Centers could better fulfill our profession's obligation to inform and assist the broader public.

Law Schools as Public Education Centers

For the last twenty-five years, law schools have served increasingly as a forum for debate of public issues -- all at least tangentially law-related. Seminars, symposia, conferences or special law review or law journal issues have focused on every conceivable topic -- from traditional areas like criminal law and tax to less traditional "legal" areas like "The Good Society," and Energy Policy.

As noted earlier, when the press has an issue that has even a marginal legal angle, they will increasingly call upon a law professor for analysis or commentary. Local civic organizations will invite legal academics to come to their meetings to talk about every conceivable topic - from education vouchers to society post-911.

Law professors are often asked to serve as consultants to for-profit and non-profit entities; to serve on Boards of Governors and Trustees; and to become paid or unpaid analysts for the media.

To provide increased visibility, many courts hold actual trials or hearings in law schools for observation by not just law students but also other students and the public.

Law libraries are expected to be open to the public and be used, at least on an occasional basis, by citizens who want access to legal information. This trend has been accelerated by increasing use of web-cites and the voluntary effort of some law schools to become repositories of legal information over the web.

For many years, law professors have served as leaders in pro-bono representation. And in more recent years, law schools have been asked to provide such services through clinics, and now through pro-bono mandates on faculty and students.

Some law schools have adopted more formalized consulting services for profit and non-profit entities. Using the expertise of faculty and the energy of students, the law school operates as a mini law firm to provide legal services. Revenues can be used to offset other law school expenses.

Over the next twenty-five years, these activities will be accelerated. As our society becomes even more complex and overlapping, what is defined as "legal" will be broadened to make "legal information" be almost synonymous with all aspects of public policy. Law libraries will become more and more "Legal Information Centers."

Government, Bar Associations, businesses, media, political parties, charities and other groups will rely more and more on the "neutral" and academic law school to supply objective information or at least provide the mechanism for all points of views to be expressed. Some law schools will become mini-consulting firms and even specialized law firms and be seen as the place to go for certain information. In short, law schools will become public education centers.

This public education mandate will be combined with the other trends in broadening what is meant by legal and law-related training and expanding the role of law schools in providing that training, through ever changing methods of education. The result will be that law schools will become in name and in fact, Legal Education Centers.

The final issue, then, is how Deans and others can manage effectively this evolution.

Conclusion - The Role of the Dean

The transformation of law schools in the last quarter century has certainly not been without its complications. And, of course, the changes in legal education has meant changes in law school deaning. Many others have written, some in this Journal, about the many different obligations and roles of today's dean. But the increased understanding of the skills that a dean has been forced to learn and apply will serve future deans well - and help them to cope with their new obligation to oversee Legal Education Centers.

A dean now has to work with University administrators or independent schools Boards of Trustees on management and budget issues. These skills will now be helpful in demonstrating the cost savings and management sense involved in having one entity coordinate the providing of education about the law to a much broader set of parties.

The obligation of a dean to be a fund-raiser and marketer will be essential as he or she now has to decide what "market" or set of markets, a particular law school must decide to focus on.

The traditional obligations of a law teacher - teaching, scholarship and service - will be the building blocks for deans to use as assessment tools. The academic leadership role of a Dean can be used to assess the skills of individual faculty and staff to see which individuals would be best for working with new technology, with non-lawyer, with non-law students, and with other outside entities.

The public representation and leadership obligations of a dean will be expanded as law schools, and particularly their leaders, will be asked to provide even more coordination and information on a broader set of issues. The networking skills of a Dean today will be essential to deal with the changing nature of ABA and outside regulation, the increasing conflicts with other academic entities, the alumni concern about change, and the public's reliance on legal education and information from law schools.

My belief that law schools can, should and will evolve into Legal Education Centers is, of course, only one vision. It may be, as others have suggested, that law schools will continue to operate as they have before or even go "back to basics. Or there will be no structured law schools at all and all education will be by mentoring or electronics, with little administration or central leadership by a dean. Or ----