Educating Lawyers, a new book from the Carnegie Foundation, analyzes our modern system of legal education, and, in some measure, finds it wanting. The authors set out to evaluate legal education\u27s response to decades old criticisms that it fails t teach lawyering skills and legal ethics

Leiter, Richard

English

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln The Marvin and Virginia Schmid Law Library Law, College of 7-2008 The Missing Lawyering Skill Richard Leiter Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/lawlibrary  Part of the Law Librarianship Commons, Legal Profession Commons, and the Legal Studies Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law, College of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Marvin and Virginia Schmid Law Library by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Many people both inside and ourside simulated client. -IF-he stud-v uses modern after reflectine-, I think that there isthe profession have long critlcizt--d law medical education as a model of what truth to the observation above andschools for failincy- to teach law students how professional education should be. important lesson that law llbrarian,5to practice. The charge gained momentum Thus, the book proposes a new model in the traininc- of law-yers should taM the 19//()s when Chief Justice %X/arren of legal education that integrates the seriously.Bururer declared that law schools had teachina of lawvering skills, moral ethicalFirst, when Langdell developedgenerally fitiled. to train lawyers how to training, and analysis. The proposal is hard casebook method of teachina, thercpractice. The criticisin received. added -to argue with, and the book presents it was really very little in the way of LPower in the early 1990s when the In hiahly readable, even en'ovable, prose.b . 11 , bibliography. In the mid- I 8770s, arrAmerican Bar Association issued the But as a law librarian, I was curious other things that today's le.gal rescajMcCrate reporc, which severely criticized what the authors had to say about the state take for o-ranted, there were very fe,law schools and challen(red them to focus of le yal research instruction in modern bi b n reporters of record; the National R(more attencion on tra ning lawyers in lecral academe. SUrprisingly 'bUt perhaps?D t" S-v-stem wasn't developed yet; therepractical skills. not), lecyal research insiructk-m gy-C-ts almostI b official sources at all to federal caseOn the whole, few observers of modern no mention anywhere in the book. There law reviews were extant; the t JS CIClegal edUcation will fiinid. much to disag-ree is not a sinole reference to legal researchonly a desperate drearn; and the G-with, nor will mariv find fault with, the Ill the index. Le(yal research is rarely Federal Regulations wasnt even a dauthors' suggested remedies to Cix it. The mentioned as a lawyering skill. This YotI'D Perhaps, rcading cases and treatisesi i i i ili i ii igraph legal issues developed multiple (I posit that it has never been properly on the best mhods for measurgraphic dimensions. Nearly every defined), the meaning of"legalresearch" materials, readingPlans,andtha lawyer is now called upon to advise ms lob aatdbfnalaaa imustalsobe aapte. ofna[s needed to hold uip a sru,nt about may involve matters of state Working with the sources of the law possible thtlc eerh is Ilkcertainly is legal research, and today this a hammer o rebu sri c iher it's family law, a small business takes place practically anywhere for many In this case, hat can be sailr, or criminal law. As this complexity types of material. But there are some kinds teaching students how to resear(s, so also do the sources of materials of research that simply can't be performed own approach is that it is less inire available to help lawyers. But as the on an iPhone, even if the sources can be to teach students how to use ceies themselves proliferate, we now have accessed on one. There are also some kinds or databases than to teach themdded burden of learning the multitude of research that don't lend themselves they're trying to find. Like learnmats, too. From film to fiche, exclusively to work in the library or on a an animal, it is most importantram to loose-leafs, and online services computer, but may require a bit of both. subjects' habits.eb-based resources, the field for legal And then there is the curious phrase The law is invisible, of cour)graphy is getting more interesting quoted above, in which the authors of of primary importance for studcnore challenging than ever before. Educating Lawyers state that as students where, for instance, cases comehe sources of the law-the modern were reading Langdell's casebooks, they they are made, and (the million)graphy of the law-stays the same,oe formats are changing, combining,e-combining at an alarming rate. We must be able t o eveiop the vocabularynost of these developments are new.necessary to allow s to spea accuraely:est and most exciting of these @ $S y || U $ a CUat yopments are very new, but are by about legal research and, therefore,-eans yet settled.advocat for.I ts IncHusmon in the curriculais understandable, therefore, thatder legl a demORe0e? Orrninese-nporigroutUUy 2008

The Missing Lawyering Skill

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=lawlibrary

The Missing Lawyering Skill

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