Making Law Students Client-Ready: A New Model in Legal Education

Abstract

This paper examines the current state of legal education and assessment in the United States, as well as a new and innovative method of bar examination, and makes recommendations for institutional change. It first provides a brief overview of the history of legal education and assessment in the United States and discusses many of the factors that have led to our current system. It then reviews recommendations for change, including the recommendations of the1992 ABA Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession, generally known as the MacCrate Report; the 2007 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s report, Educating Lawyers, and; the 2007 Clinical Legal Education Association’s report, Best Practices. In addition to recommendations for change in legal education and assessment, the paper focuses on a licensing alternative to the traditional bar examination currently offered by the New Hampshire Supreme Court through Franklin Pierce Law Center, and known as the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program. The paper describes the two-year program in detail, and demonstrates that the program has already implemented most, if not all, of the major recommendations for legal education reform. In addition, the program provides an alternative method of bar examination which addresses many of the criticisms levied by critics of the traditional bar exam. The paper recommends replication of the pilot program in other states, and describes the process for implementation.

Keywords: legal education reform, bar exam, alternative bar exam, legal education, MacCrate, Carnegie, Best Practices