Executive Summary of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World

Abstract

This Executive Summary is designed to acquaint the reader with the main ideas found in Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World. It provides a concise summary of every section of the book, which is not a second edition, but a follow up to Best Practices in Legal Education: A Vision and a Road Map. The book addresses the law school missions, a balanced curriculum, and pathways, integration, and sequencing the curriculum. It provides a comprehensive analysis of experiential education and all its forms, including law clinics, externships, and alternative clinical models. The book provides a broader view of what legal education must do to train lawyers of the future, and identifies ten essential areas of legal education, together with guidance on what and how to teach them. Finally, the book identifies how to create an institutional culture of assessment in law schools, and how to transform legal education in today's world.

Keywords: Legal Education, Law Schools, Experiential Education, Clinical Teaching, Externships, Learning Theory, Faculty Development, Law School Administration, Law Professors, Skills

JEL Classification: K00, K49, Y20, Z00