The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/34686
The New Rules for Law Schools recording classes, a practice that allows students to focus more on classroom discussion than on taking notes. Schools with large clinical programs use Time Matters, CaseMap or other legal management software. The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) has over 800 heavily used interactive online tutorials written by law professors on a wide variety of legal topics. All of these are positive developments, but the reality is that most law schools have yet to see widespread use of technology throughout the curriculum. A game changer for the use of technology in legal education, however, is the increased availability of Skype, WebEx, and other videoconferencing technologies. Converting Skills for Successful Lawyers Law schools recognize that effective lawyers have many skills beyond legal analysis and advocacy in litigation settings. Leadership, collaboration, and negotiation skills are three examples of characteristics exhibited by successful lawyers. At the University of Maryland School of Law, a three-year grant project sponsored by the Fetzer Institute aims to help students develop their leadership potential, develop good ethical and moral judgment and gain the cross-cultural competence essential for practice in a global environment. The initiative has expanded the school’s already extensive live-client clinical law program by sending students to Mexico, China and Namibia under faculty supervision to work on projects that offer valuable multicultural experience. Legal profession courses are moving away from focusing exclusively on the rules of professional responsibility and are incorporating a broader look at ethical issues within the profession. It is important that students are exposed to the impact of the expanding use of email, social networking and e-discovery. Schools such as Indiana University are leading the way, with innovative legal profession courses that require students to work in teams on realistic problems that apply the rules of professional responsibility in a variety of practice settings. Many of these new legal profession courses are offered during the first year of law school to allow students to approach upper-division courses and clinics with a better understanding of the underlying structure and responsibilities of law practice. from the traditional casebook method to a teaching method that more closely integrates technology is a significant time investment for faculty who might already be considered outstanding teachers and have no real incentive to change. Bringing practitioners and other experts into the classroom through the use of technology, however, does not require a great deal of effort by faculty, but could potentially make the substantive law come to life for students as they interact with attorneys who work in the area of practice the course covers. This is a win-win situation, because it gives alumni and other friends of the law school the opportunity to support the school without a significant time investment. Integrating legal theory with practice can be accomplished relatively easily in substantive courses. For example, attorneys could participate in a virtual class discussion about a case they worked on. In the middle of a corporate law course, students could draft a business agreement with the assistance of a corporate attorney who joins the discussion from her office. International law and law reform courses would benefit from bringing experts from around the globe into the classroom. This type of effort could be used to enhance almost any law school course. The technology is available to do this, but law schools must expand from having only a single room dedicated to videoconferencing to providing standard videoconferencing equipment in each classroom. Responding to the Demand for Change Today’s legal educators face a perfect storm of pressures from many different directions. The high cost of legal education and high student debt levels are causing some to question the value of law school. Law firms operating under new market conditions are calling on law schools to do a better job of preparing students for practice. Students who have grown up with computers arrive at law school expecting faculty to make extensive use of technology. While law schools have historically been slow to change, momentum is growing for a reconceptualization of the structure of legal education. There is no shortage of ideas for how theory and practice can be integrated and more lawyering skills added to law school curriculums. By 2020, it seems likely that the types of innovative programs described here will have been implemented in many law schools, and a new race to the top for law schools will include a focus on bringing the goals of the Carnegie report to fruition. ILTA Barbara Gontrum is the Assistant Dean for Library and Technology at the University of Maryland School of Law where she is responsible for academic and information technology. Barbara serves regularly on law school site evaluation teams for the American Bar Association. She can be reached at bgontrum@law.umaryland.edu. Peer to Peer the quarterly magazine of ILTA 87