Future Law Works

For most of this blog’s existence, I and my co-authors wrote primarily for our fellow law professors. This re-boot is directed instead, primarily, to the legal profession – or rather, to what is now often referred to as the “legal services industry.”

With my change in focus, from time to time I’ll write here about what’s changing and what’s staying largely the same in legal education. My conversations with practicing lawyers and judges tell me that US law schools are still largely “black boxes” to the bar and bench. Even though hiring markets for new law graduates have changed in some dramatic ways over the last decade, those who hire our graduates seem largely to assume that what happens in legal education today still substantially resembles what was happening in legal education 10 years ago … 20 years ago … 30 years ago … even 40 years ago.

In some respects, that’s true! And in other respects, it’s not.

I was invited recently to have madisonian.net included in Kevin O’Keefe’s new “LexBlog” venture (https://www.lexblog.com/about/). Accepting the invitation, which I did, implied that I might resume writing here, so I am. What’s new?

Since the last signs of life flickered at madisonian.net, in connection with the “Invitation Regarding Law and Legal Education, and Imagining the Future” and the symposium at Prawfsblawg that it provoked, a small but ambitious crew of “disruptors” from legal education, higher education, and the legal profession (n/k/a the “legal services industry”) have organized themselves around a couple of ventures.

“The Futures of Legal Education: A Virtual Symposium” is the title of the program convened by Dean Dan Rodriguez at Prawfsblawg for the month of March 2018, eliciting critiques of and extensions of the ideas organized in the provocations posted in December 2017 as “An Invitation Regarding Law, Legal Education, and Imagining the Future.” [Part I, here] [Part II, here] [Part III, here] [Part IV, here] [Part V, here] [And the piece in full, as a single document, from SSRN]

The symposium is organized under the “2018 Symposium: Future of Legal Ed” tag. I have collected highlights from all of the posts, approximately 10 posts at a time. The first batch appears here. The second batch is here. The third batch is here. The fourth batch is here. The fifth batch is here.

Final posts:

“The Futures of Legal Education: A Virtual Symposium” is the title of the program convened by Dean Dan Rodriguez at Prawfsblawg for the month of March 2018, eliciting critiques of and extensions of the ideas organized in the provocations posted in December 2017 as “An Invitation Regarding Law, Legal Education, and Imagining the Future.” [Part I, here] [Part II, here] [Part III, here] [Part IV, here] [Part V, here] [And the piece in full, as a single document, from SSRN]

The symposium is organized under the “2018 Symposium: Future of Legal Ed” tag. I have collected highlights from all of the posts, approximately 10 posts at a time. The first batch appears here. The second batch is here. The third batch is here. The fourth batch is here.

Ten additional posts:

“The Futures of Legal Education: A Virtual Symposium” is the title of the program convened by Dean Dan Rodriguez at Prawfsblawg for the month of March 2018, eliciting critiques of and extensions of the ideas organized in the provocations posted in December 2017 as “An Invitation Regarding Law, Legal Education, and Imagining the Future.” [Part I, here] [Part II, here] [Part III, here] [Part IV, here] [Part V, here] [And the piece in full, as a single document, from SSRN]

The symposium is organized under the “2018 Symposium: Future of Legal Ed” tag. I have collected highlights from all of the posts, approximately 10 posts at a time. The first batch appears here. The second batch is here. The third batch is here.

Ten additional posts: