Glickstein, Howard A.

English

St. John's University School of Law

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 15 Issue 3 Volume 15, Spring 2001, Issue 3 Article 6 March 2001 The Masters of Professional Studies of Law Program Howard A. Glickstein Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred Recommended Citation Glickstein, Howard A. (2001) "The Masters of Professional Studies of Law Program," Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development: Vol. 15 : Iss. 3 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred/vol15/iss3/6 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact selbyc@stjohns.edu. THE MASTERS OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES OFLAW PROGRAMHOWARD A. GLICKSTEIN °I also want to say how pleased I am to be in Finley Hall. I was afriend of Leon Finley and I knew of his great love for this law schooland I knew of how he appreciated throughout his life what this lawschool had done for him.1In February, I received a letter from David Kromm, the Editor-in-Chief of the St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary. He invited meto appear as part of this symposium to represent schools that offer aMasters of Legal Studies program. These are programs that areintended to give basic legal education to professionals from otherfields who do not want or are not required to hold a J.D. degree. Inhis letter, Mr. Kromm said, "We believe that you would be the idealperson to discuss the impact the program has had on your school,your students and your community." I called Mr. Kromm and toldhim that I would be happy to participate in this symposium, but if Icarried out his assignment, I doubted that my remarks would takemore than a minute or two.You see, although Touro developed a Masters of Legal Studiesprogram that was approved by New York State and the AmericanBar Association, the program was never implemented. We built theprogram but no one came to participate in it.I am here, however, and do intend to speak for more than two orthree minutes. With Mr. Kromm's concurrence, I intend to focus onfour topics. First, to explain why we developed a Masters of LegalStudies program. Second, what we planned to offer as part of theprogram. Third, how we expected the program to contribute to ourstudents, to the community, and to the school. And fourth, why IDean, Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center. Dean Glickstein is a graduate ofDartmouth College and Yale Law School and he has an LLM from Georgetown.87 See St. John's University School of Law, Programs and Applications Package. On June 8,1991, benefactor Leon Finley ('29) broke ground to expand St. John's Law School to includeFinley Hall, doubling the school's size.303304 ST JOHN'S JOURNAL OF LEGAL COMMENTARYbelieve the program has been difficult to launch.Let me start by explaining why we developed a Masters of LegalStudies program. The topic of this panel is the impact of economicson legal education. Perhaps what qualified me to speak today wasmy candid quote that appeared in the New York Law Journal sometime ago.I explained to the Law Journal reporter that over the last severalyears, we have decreased the size of our entering class to take intoaccount the nationwide decrease in size of the law school applicantpool. I went on to say, "When you get very dependent on onemarket and that market shrinks, you need to find other ways tosupplement your income." Can there be a better example of theimpact of economics on legal education?While economics is a part of the reason for what we did, it is notthe entire explanation. In the early 1980's, I was the Dean of theUniversity of Bridgeport School of Law located in Fairfield County,Connecticut. Fairfield County is the home of the headquarters ofmany of our Fortune 500 companies. Over the years I observed theinterest of busy corporate executives in many aspects of the law.Some of them were anxious to learn more about the many laws thatimpacted on their own businesses. Some of them, as significantcommunity leaders, felt it was important for them to betterunderstand our legal system. I felt confident that there were manypeople who wanted to know what the law is; how the law is created;how the legal system operates; how lawyers think and function;what the sometimes mysterious language of the law means and howit is used; and how the law is, can be, and ought to be applied to thesolutions of social, political and personal problems.2These were the circumstances that lead me to first think about aprogram that would offer an overview of the law that would beuseful to professionals who did not feel it necessary or have the timeto acquire a JD degree. The program was not implemented atBridgeport, but my thinking was revised at Touro when one of our2 See generally David Barnhizer, Prince of Darkness and Angels of Light: The Soid of theAmerican Lawyer, 14 NOTRE DAME J.L. ETHICS & PUB. POL'Y 371, 376 (2000) (emphasizinglawyers' duty to provide zealous and competent representation for their clients); AshutoshBhagwat, Hard Cases and Evolution of Constitutional Doctrine, 30 CONN. L. REV. 961, 987 (1998)(discussing impact of constitutional decisions on society); Comparative Law and Legal History ofthe United States, 46 AM. J. CoMP. L. 1, 7-9 (1998) (discussing historical development of U.S.law); Peter G. Glenn, Commentary: Some Thought about Developing Constructive Approaches toLawyer and Law Student Distress, 10 J.L. & HEALTH 69, 72-74 (1995-96) (suggesting reform tolegal profession).[Vol. 15:303MASTERS OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES OF LAWstudents, a medical doctor, proposed to me that we should have aprogram for professionals who did not wish to spend the timeacquiring a JD degree. He felt that there were many healthprofessionals, particularly, that would be interested in such aprogram.We did not do a, feasibility study but concluded that in the LongIsland area, there were likely to be many people interested inacquiring knowledge and skills in law without becoming qualifiedto practice. We believe that the Masters of Professional Studies ofLaw would permit non-lawyers to study the law relevant to theirfield and gain perspectives in the intersection of law and suchdisciplines as medicine, technology, business and government.In short, the development of our Masters of Law program had aneconomic motivation but it was also grounded in the belief that itcould provide an education to a segment of our population that wasnot being served by any current educational programs.3Second, let me explain what we plan to do as part of the program.We decided that we would limit our program to certain specificfields. To invite nonprofessionals in every field to participate in theprogram might make it difficult, and economically infeasible, tooffer specialized courses in so many different areas. We structuredour program for business, healthcare, and technology professionals.The program required 30 credit hours of coursework, a requirementtypical of many Master's programs. Students were expected tocomplete the program in four semesters of part-time study, but wewere prepared to accommodate students who wished to go full-timeor students who wished to participate on an extended part-timebasis.In the first semester, MPSL students were required to take eightcredit hours of evening classes structured to provide a survey of thesame core curriculum that is normally offered in the first year orfirst two or three semesters of law study. Of the eight credit hours,there are two required two-credit-hour introductory courses: A3 See Note, Essay: Decline of Professional Legal Training and Proposal for its Revitalization inProftssional Law Schools, 48 BAYLOR L. REv. 201, 201-02 (1996) (discussing education of lawyersand responsibility of law schools to prepare students to work in professional world); see alsoPaul D. Carrington, Revolutionary Idea of University Legal Education, 31 WM. & MARY L. REV.527, 527-28 (1990) (emphasizing need to educate citizens about law); George J. Seidel, SixForces and the Legal Environment of Business: The Relative Value of Business Law Among BusinessSchool Core Courses, 37 AM. Bus. L.J. 717, 730 (2000) (stating comprehension of law is essentialto setting business policy).20011306 ST. JOHN'S JOURNAL OF LEGAL COMMENTARYcourse in U.S. law and legal institutions and a course in legalresources, discourse and conventions. For the balance of their creditload, that is for the other four credits, students could choose two ofthe four specially designed two-credit survey courses inconstitutional law, contracts law, property law and tort lawaccording to their professional needs.These survey courses were to be specifically designed for theprogram and taught by teachers who ordinarily teach these subjectsto JD students. The survey courses would be limited to Masters oflaw students since the survey courses would not qualify for our JDprogram. Beginning with the second semester, Masters of Lawstudents could attend classes in the day or evening and take any ofthe non-clinical, non-practice electives from the JD curriculum.The key to the program was flexibility. Once students hadsatisfied the first semester requirements, they could work at theirown pace to complete the program creating individual law specialtyconcentrations in healthcare, business, and technology law.In terms of the economics of this program, there would be someinitial cost in creating the survey courses and the requiredintroductory courses in U.S. law or legal institutions and legalresources, discourse and conventions. We intended to use ourregular faculty to teach the two introductory courses and the surveycourses and sought volunteers among the faculty to teach thecourses as an overload, in addition to their normal teaching load.Let me say a few words about how we expected the program tocontribute to our students and the community. We believe that ourstudents would benefit by improving the quality of discourse inupper-level classes, given the different objectives of the Masters ofLaw candidates and the JD candidates. For example, in healthcarelaw, the healthcare professionals in the class could probably help thelaw students better understand the problems that were discussed invarious cases that the students would consider. In a business-planning course, a corporate executive's real-life experience mightcontribute to a law student's understanding of the legal issuesinvolved in many business problems.What we expected to occur was an amplification of the discoursewe now see in many of the classes in our part-time program. Manyof our part-time students work full-time during the day. They comefrom impressive backgrounds that contribute to their understandingof the legal situations they encounter in their classes. Many teachers[Vol. 15:303MASTERS OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES OF LAWwho teach such students in our JD program find that the classdiscussion is much richer as a result of these students.I already have touched on how we expected the program tocontribute to the community. It would do so by providing manyprofessionals an opportunity to further their education and todevelop knowledge in areas that would help them enhance theirskills in their current occupations.We also thought that the program could be a great benefit to thelaw school as an institution. If we were able to attract successfulprofessionals to our student body and they left with a degree thatthey felt was a value to them, we would have another group ofalumni from whom we could seek support for the law school.Since fund-raising has become such a critical function for lawschools, this prospect could not be overlooked. Again, we weresomewhat influenced by economics.Finally, let me explain why I believe it has been difficult to launchthe program. I first should say a few words about what we did topromote the program. When we decided to focus to business,technology and healthcare professionals, we developed a strategyfor advertising the program for these groups. We published ads inprofessional journals that business, technological and healthcareprofessionals were likely to read. We acquired mailing lists andmailed out large numbers of brochures and we held open houses inthe law school. The open houses were all extremely well attended.The group that was best represented were the healthcareprofessionals. Apparently the extensive regulation of the healthcarefield has made healthcare professionals particularly sensitive toissues of law. It is also possible that many healthcare professionalshave become disenchanted with their fields and wanted to see if lawmight be a possible second career.Unfortunately, the extensive interest that there seemed to be inthe program did not result in a sufficient number of applications toallow us to launch the program in the Fall of 1998 as we intended.We did seek to ascertain from those who had shown interest whythey did not actually matriculate. Some said that they wereinterested but needed a couple of years to plan their schedules sothat they would have time to devote to a demanding program ofstudy. It was not surprising to find that some professionals alreadyhad professional commitments that extended over a 12 to 18 monthperiod. Such commitments probably were not the principal reasons20011308 ST. JOHN'S JOURNAL OF LEGAL COMMENTARYthese people did not matriculate.It is now a year and a half since we first planned to launch theprogram and some of those who showed an early interest have notreturned with deposits for the first semester.Another concern was the number of credits. Many persons withprofessional degrees in other areas thought that 30 credits were a bittoo much for a Masters program. They explained that in manyfields it is typical for a Masters program to be satisfied with 25 hoursor less of coursework.Some others were concerned that the time commitment to theprogram, even if the number of credits were reduced, was too great.They were not interested in attending a program where they wouldbe required to go to school twice a week for 14 or 15 weeks.Some pointed out that there were executive MBA programs wherea degree could be obtained in four extended sessions. I believe thatHofstra University has such a program.4Finally, there was concern about cost. We had decided to pricethe program at the same level as the JD program. We felt that itwould be unfair to students taking the same course, one a JDstudent and one a Masters of Law student, to pay different tuitions.Although, such disparate pricing does not seem to trouble theairlines. 5We have not given up hope that we can successfully launch thisprogram. We are considering modifying the program either byreducing the number of credit hours or by giving participants somecredit for their work experience or for courses that they have takenin other institutions.We also are looking at the feasibility of arranging the program soparticipants would not have to attend more than one night a week,with possibly some weekend sessions.4 Hofstra, at http://www.hofstra.edu/Academics/Business/biz-graduate-embal.cfm(stating Zarb School provides focused curriculum in management education); see also Touro, athttp/ www.touro.edu/CBA/MBA/Mai. html (stating Touro offers CBA/MBA program);University of Houston, at http://www.uhemba.org/edp.html (stating University of Houstonoffers one-year executive MBA or professional MBA program).5 See generally Helen Leskovac, Distance Learning in Legal Education: Inplications of FrameRelay Video Conferencing, 8 ALB. L.J. Sci. & TECH. 305, 312 (1998) (discussing videoconferencingas cost-effective method of teaching law school); Thomas D. Morgan, Law & Economics andLegal Education: Admission of George Mason to Membership in the Association of American LawSchools, 50 CASE W. RES. L. REv. 445, 454 (1999) (discussing economics of legal education);Robert J. Wood, Capital Iiproveiients: A Guidefor ie Constriction of a Modern Law School, 27CAP. U. L. REv. 709, 710 (1999) (discussing Capital University's success in designing modemlaw school building, reducing tuition and meeting budgets for operation of law school).[Vol. 15:303MASTERS OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES OF LAWFinally, we have decided to reduce the per-credit cost to theprogram. It does not seem inappropriate to charge a student to whois seeking a JD degree, which will permit that student to take the Barexam and then practice law, a higher fee than the student who istaking a Master's Degree which is unlikely to have as significant ofeconomic benefit.Economic reality has always influenced legal education. Themodel of legal education that was created in this country over acentury ago flourished because it was so economically viable.6 Formany decades, legal education was accomplished with extremelylarge student-faculty ratios, with many part-time faculty membersand with virtually no equipment except the library. Universitiesloved law schools because they generally were cash cows.When clinical legal education was first proposed, there was greatresistance, some of it on economic grounds. If we limited clinics toten students per teacher, as most are, would that not increase thecost of legal education? If we increase the cost of legal education,would we not have to raise tuition? If we did not raise tuition, therewould be less money in the pool left for salary increases fortraditional faculty members. I think there is no embarrassment in6 See generally Christopher T. Cunniffe, The Case for the Alternative Third-Year Program, 61ALB. L. REV. 85, 85 (1997) (discussing alternative third-year apprenticeship program); Gary S.Laser, Legal Education 1: Educating for Professional Competence in the Twenty-First Centun:Educational Reform at Chicago-Kent College of Law, 68 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 243, 243 (1992)(recognizing American law schools do not adequately educate their students to practice law);Michael Norwood, Scenes from the Continuum: Sustaining the MacCrate Report's Vision of LawSchool Education in the Twenty-First Cenhn, 30 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 293, 293 (1995)(discussing legal education); Daniel T. Ostas, Postmodern Economic Analysis of Law: Extendingthe Pragmatic Visions of Richard A. Posner, 36 AM. Bus. L.J. 193, 193 (1998) (discussing economicanalysis of law).20011310 ST. JOHN'S JOURNAL OF LEGAL COMMENTARYconceding that economics have an impact on legal education.7 Thatitself is not an evil. I think our focus must continuously be toprovide quality education and not think that we are reducingquality by promoting programs that help support our institution orproviding instruction in less traditional but perhaps moreeconomical ways.7 See generally Cunniffe, supra note 6, at 97 (discussing intermediate consumer model withregards to legal education); The History and Influence of the Law Review Institution, 30 AKRON L.REV. 15, 20-21 (1996) (discussing economics of market saturated with law reviews); John R.Kramer, Legal Education in an Era of Change: Will Legal Education Renain Affordable, by inho,and How?, 1987 DUKE L.J. 240, 240 (1987) (discussing financing legal education).[Vol. 15:303

The Masters of Professional Studies of Law Program

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1248&amp;context=jcred

The Masters of Professional Studies of Law Program

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

St. John's University School of Law