The crisis of legal education in America has been getting the attention of students, administrators and practitioners alike in the last year or so. Some law schools are combating the slide in applicants and the difficulties graduates face in the job market by creating practice-ready programs for their students, according to Alli Gerkman of Education Tomorrow’s Lawyers. These classes, such as the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, help students develop skills and judgment by putting them in simulated and real-life legal situations, such as taking depositions, counseling clients and appearing before judges.
But Gerkman notes that it’s not just law schools that need to change. Legal employers have to do their part too. “If law schools are going to develop programs that better prepare students to be lawyers, and if prospective students are going to invest their time and tuition money in those programs, then legal employers must value them,” she writes.
