Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law - Hardcover

Sullivan, William M.; Colby, Anne; Wegner, Judith Welch; Bond, Lloyd; Shulman, Lee S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 078798261X ISBN 13: 9780787982614

Publisher: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub, 2007

Synopsis

The Challenge of Educating Lawyers
"This volume, under the presidency of Lee Shulman, is intended primarily to foster appreciation for what legal education does at its best. We want to encourage more informed scholarship and imaginative dialogue about teaching and learning for the law at all organizational levels: in individual law schools, in the academic associations, in the profession itself. We also believe our findings will be of interest within the academy beyond the professional schools, as well as among that public concerned with higher education and the promotion of professional excellence."
--From the Introduction

"Educating Lawyers is no doubt the best work on the analysis and reform of legal education that I have ever read. There is a call for deep changes in the way law is taught, and I believe that it will be a landmark in the history of legal education."
--Bryant G. Garth, dean and professor of law, Southwestern Law School and former director of the American Bar Foundation

"Educating Lawyers succeeds admirably in describing the educational programs at virtually every American law school. The call for the integration of the three apprenticeships seems to me exactly what is needed to make legal education more 'professional,' to prepare law students better for the practice of law, and to address societal expectations of lawyers."
--Stephen Wizner, dean of faculty, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Educating Lawyers is the second volume in a series of comparative studies by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching that examines how the members of different professions are educated for their responsibilities in the communities they serve.

The challenge of professional preparation for the law is to link the interests of educators with the needs of lawyers and the members of the public the profession is pledged to serve—in other words, participating in civic professionalism. Educating Lawyers examines how well law schools meet the challenge of linking these interests. The book is based on extensive field research at a wide variety of law schools in the United States and Canada that involved observations and interviews with faculty, students, and administrators. The book presents a richly detailed picture of how law school goes about its great work of transforming students into professionals and probes the gaps and the unintended consequences of key aspects of the law school experience. Educating Lawyers provides an opportunity to rethink "thinking like a lawyer"—the paramount educational construct currently employed, which affords students powerful intellectual tools while also shaping education and professional practice in subsequent years in significant, yet often unrecognized, ways.

Educating Lawyers offers an important and timely set of recommendations for improving the professional education of lawyers that will help to transform how lawyers are being prepared, practically and ethically, to play a vital and beneficial role, both professionally and in their communities.

About the Author

William M. Sullivan is a senior scholar at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He is the author of Work and Integrity and coauthor of Habits of the Heart.

Anne Colby co-directs The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's Preparation for the Professions Program and Higher Education and the Development of Moral and Civic Responsibility Program.

Judith Welch Wegner is a senior scholar with The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She has served as the president of the Association of American Law Schools.

Lloyd Bond is a senior scholar with The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, working in the area of assessment across several of the Foundation's programs.

Lee S. Shulman has been president of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching since 1997. He is a former president of the American Educational Research Association as well as past president of the National Academy of Education.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 078798261X
• ISBN 13: 9780787982614
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 225