“Law school teaches you the law, but it doesn’t teach you how to be an attorney.” I can’t tell you how many times I heard this sentiment as a law student interviewing with attorneys. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence in my law school studies, and inevitably leads to the question—if that’s the case, where do law students learn how to be successful attorneys?

The adequacy of legal education was the focus of the American Law Institute and American Bar Association (ALI-ABA) and the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) invitational conference, “Equipping Our Lawyers: Law School Education, Continuing Legal Education, and Legal Practice in the 21st Century,” held last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ms. JD was invited to view the ninety-minute live webcast of “The Future of the Legal Profession,” in which a law firm partner, a professor, a communications consultant, and a bar association executive addressed questions about how legal-education providers could better educate and train attorneys, especially in light of the changing economic climate.

Without dwelling too much on identifying the current problems in legal education (i.e., law school professors are rewarded for scholarship, not teaching; CLE-providers who volunteer their time tend not to be the best educators, etc.), the session offered components to an ideal system of education. One recurring idea was that the system should value skills over substance because certain skills transcend practice areas and allow attorneys to adapt to the current legal market. Some of the skills identified during the session include being a self-learner, managing a law practice effectively, and being familiar with the business or industry of a particular client in order to be more attuned to the client’s big-picture needs.

Leaving the task of attempting to reform the law school and CLE system to ALI-ABA and the ACLEA, what does this mean for law students and attorneys? If law schools and CLEs fall short in assisting attorneys in developing these skills, where should we turn to hone them? Practicing attorneys, were there any law school classes or activities that better prepared you for the skills needed to be successful in your practice? And now, after law school, how do you develop skills that enable you to be an attorney who can successfully adapt in this changing legal market?  

The archived webcast of the ALI-ABA ACLEA program will be available by November 2 at http://www.equippingourlawyers.org/

 Sarah Dunn Davis is the 2009-2010 Ms. JD Fellow

Author’s Update (10/21/09)

In a New York Times op-ed piece
published today, “The
New Untouchables,” Thomas L. Friedman discusses the role of education in
contributing to job recovery. The author notes that in order to be successful in
the global market, American employees must be educated in a way that allows
them to learn skills that give them a competitive edge. He uses the example of
law firm associates to illustrate that those who are surviving
amidst layoffs are bringing important non-legal skills to the firm:

"A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I
asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were
used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go
because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t
there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new
opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the
new untouchables."

So there you have it, more evidence that skills will play an important role in determining our ability to thrive in this economy. Even if it takes legal-education providers time to retool curricula and training programs, we need to take the initiative to build these skills ourselves.