Extending Legal Education through Skills Training

“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?

U.S. State Department's Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan to Host Afghan Women Lawyers

The U.S. Department of State's Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan will host a group of 14 Afghan women judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys from January 9-24.  The participants in this program will participate in a wide range of sessions, including intensive legal seminars, roundtable events, and consultations with senior governmental officials, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  Discussion topics include: legal decision-making and mediation, domestic violence, family and mental health, narcotics law, an comparative analyses of the American and Afghan legal systems.

The group is being led by the former Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Dr. Kerry Healey, and U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson of the Central District of California.  For more information about the Public-Private Partnership click here.

Learning to be a Lawyer?

(Part one of a two-part post. The second post can be found here.)

Think back to the first days of your second year of law school. In your first year, you covered the basics of civil procedure, property, torts, and contracts; in your second year, you’re ready to buckle down and learn how to practice in areas of interest to you. You know how to brief a case; you know how to spot issues. Now that you know how to discern legal problems from fact patterns, isn’t it time to learn how to deal with such problems, how to file a complaint, submit an answer, or draft a contract?