I think about the economic realities facing our law students a lot. Constantly. This concern fuels my teaching, especially in my Professional Responsibility class. I used to stress to my students the importance of choosing a rewarding and meaningful position when embarking on one’s legal career. Now I find myself forced to tell students to take whatever job they can find, that they can worry about the rewarding-meaningful stuff later. But I refuse to believe this is the best legal education can do for our students—to tell them to ride it out. Which is why, together with my colleague and friend Dan Katz, I have been working on new curriculum here at Michigan State designed to help students capitalize on the disruption that the economy has wrought on the profession. For example, in June we will launch our 21st Century Law Practice Program in London, a partnership with faculty at the University of Westminster Law School. You can read more about this first-of-its-kind program here, but a key component is equipping students to practice law in ways that we cannot predict or even imagine—ways that technological innovation and business realities will inspire and demand. I don’t mean to suggest we will solve all that ails legal education with this endeavor (and I don't think that all components of legal education should be replaced by a program like this--Rakesh Anand's earlier post is well-taken), but I would like to suggest that our program is a concrete response toward helping our students create their own rewarding and meaningful careers in the law. Another new course that Dan and I will offer next year is Entrepreneurial Lawyering, and I’ve started the syllabus with two quotes we educators might want to keep in mind:
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” Eric Hoffer
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Alan Kay
Legal education has prided itself over the years in producing members of a learned profession. In this time of change, however, we need to also focus on cultivating learners and inventors.