View Karen Sloan's original article here. Posted by LST on January 10, 2012.
Excerpt:
Judge José Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit offered a three-part remedy for what ails the U.S. legal academy before a packed ballroom of legal educators who gathers in Washington for the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting.
Cabranes, like others before him, noted that law schools are in “something of a crisis,” given the skyrocketing cost of tuition, ever-higher graduate debts and a growing feeling that legal scholarship is of little use to the bench or practitioners. These themes emerged as the hottest topic of discussion during the four-day conference, which drew about 3,000 legal educators.
“For years, [the rising cost of tuition and growing debt loads] have raised eyebrows. Now, they raise blood pressure,” Cabranes said on Jan. 6. “These developments literally threaten the enterprise of legal education.”
To get back on track, law schools should shift their curricula back to core courses and away from the interdisciplinary classes that have grown in popularity, he said; they should introduce a two-year core law program followed by a yearlong apprenticeship, and increase transparency regarding costs, job prospects and financial aid information. …
Cabranes lamented the move by law schools toward specialized, often interdisciplinary courses that can displace “black-letter” law courses …
Similarly, law schools should give students the option of completing their classroom work in two years, then spend a third year apprenticing with practicing attorneys or working full-time in law school clinics while earning modest stipends, he said. That would give students real-world experience and some income rather than requiring them to pay a third year of tuition. …
Cabranes himself was a law professor at Rutgers University before becoming the general counsel at Yale University and later being appointed to the bench.