MacCrate\u27s Missed Opportunity: The MacCrate Report\u27s Failure to Advance Professional Values Symposium

The 1992 Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap (the Task Force ), Legal Education Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, popularly known as the MacCrate Report (the Report ), was the most ambitious effort to reform legal education in the past generation. Some commentators have described the Report as the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case method in the late 19th century.” Although the Report sought to promote education in both lawyering skills and values, its major influence has been in the area of lawyering skills. The Report has contributed little to promoting professional values.5 This result is not surprising. The Report\u27s treatment of values suffers from two basic flaws. First, the text makes values a low priority and then does not explain them coherently. Second, the Task Force fails to consider that the dominant values of the Bar and the Academy oppose those of the Report

Faith and the Lawyer\u27s Practice Symposium: Law Religion and the Public Good

If there is a religious way to read, is there a religious way to be a lawyer? More and more lawyers, judges and scholars are answering yes to that question. We heard earlier from Cardinal Bevilacqua about the history of the Religious Lawyering Movement, which blossomed in the 1990s. There was writing about the law and religion before that time. We can date religious lawyering as a body of work in mainstream legal literature, as Cardinal Bevilacqua did, to the work of Professor Thomas Shaffer in the 1980s.Why did this movement take off in the 1990s? Again, what accounts for the growth of the Religious Lawyering Movement? A renewed interest in religion across society as a whole is one reason. Related to that, lawyers, like others, are engaged in a search for meaning in their work. In the past, many lawyers would have found this meaning in professionalism, but during today\u27s crisis of professionalism, lawyers are unable to find a satisfactory way to reconcile their personal aspirations with what they consider to be the harsh realities of the marketplace

MacCrate\u27s Missed Opportunity: The MacCrate Report\u27s Failure to Advance Professional Values Symposium

The 1992 Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap (the Task Force ), Legal Education Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, popularly known as the MacCrate Report (the Report ), was the most ambitious effort to reform legal education in the past generation. Some commentators have described the Report as the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case method in the late 19th century.” Although the Report sought to promote education in both lawyering skills and values, its major influence has been in the area of lawyering skills. The Report has contributed little to promoting professional values.5 This result is not surprising. The Report\u27s treatment of values suffers from two basic flaws. First, the text makes values a low priority and then does not explain them coherently. Second, the Task Force fails to consider that the dominant values of the Bar and the Academy oppose those of the Report

Religious Lawyering in a Liberal Democracy: A Challenge and an Invitation William A. Brahms Lecture on Law & Religion

At a time when many believe that law is no longer a noble profession, many lawyers see no reason to devote time and energy to promoting the public good. Religious lawyering may offer a powerful antidote: a robust framework for lawyers to integrate into their professional lives their most deeply rooted values, perspectives and critiques, and persuasive reasons to improve the quality of justice and work for the common good. At its best, religious lawyering echoes Martin Luther King\u27s advice to the street sweeper. How wonderful it would be, indeed, if we practiced law so well that the host of heaven and earth would pause to say, here lived great lawyers who did their job well

Lawyer and Public Service, The Historical Perspectives on Pro Bono Lawyering

Historically, the first way of viewing the lawyer\u27s role was as a member of America\u27s governing class. Second came cause lawyering on behalf of a particular issue. Third, and most recently, arose the idea of pro bono lawyering, a less ambitious incarnation of the governing class lawyer who contributes time to helping cause lawyers. These categories are not rigid: for each individual they may overlap to one degree or another. This framework is preliminary and requires further research and development. Nonetheless, it provides a useful tool for explaining how lawyers-and in particular the heroic lawyers described in this symposium-connect to public service and for identifying a basic strategic question the bar must answer in determining how best to encourage lawyers to engage in public service in the future