Why Law Schools Aren’t Preparing Students to Succeed

Employers and graduates say practical skills are sorely missing from law school curriculums

It’s a question that’s being raised louder and louder in legal circles: Are law schools graduating students with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in today’s legal landscape? For a substantial number of graduates and employers, the answer is unequivocally no.

An astounding 95 percent of hiring partners and associates in a LexisNexis survey say recently graduated law students lack key practical skills to become successful attorneys at the time of hiring. The graduates themselves are quick to agree: 87 percent say the U.S. legal education system needs to undergo “significant changes” to better prepare future attorneys for the changing demands of their chosen profession.

Law schools, the graduates explain, are too theoretical and unconcerned with useful real-life applications, filling classes with outdated concepts like the variety of property law in post-feudal England instead of seemingly essential how-to lessons like how to get a merger done. In fact, The New York Times reports that the median amount of practical experience among professors at top-tier law schools is one year – and nearly half of faculty members have never practiced law at all. Instead, law professors are revered for academic prestige and producing esoteric law review articles, which too often lead to a disconnect from what students really need to learn to hit the ground running in their jobs.

Students have generally mastered basic research skills by the time they graduate, although some schools are still teaching students how to conduct legal research using books instead of web-based research platforms. But most students have failed to learn advanced research techniques and other critical practice skills such as interviewing, counseling clients, negotiating, effective legal writing, and oral communication that allow them to bridge the gap between legal concepts and jumping into client matters. Most have no concept of how litigation or transactional matters happen in real life, forcing law firms to spend valuable time and resources instilling foundational knowledge in first-year associates before they can become productive members of the firm.

Put simply, law schools are churning out students with law degrees who aren’t capable of providing legal services. The New York Times reports that nearly half of law firms have had clients request that first- or second-year associates don’t appear on their bills.

And that’s after those students spent three years and as much as $150,000 for their degrees. Graduates also say they are not prepared for the technological, economic, and structural changes impacting the legal profession. Today’s lawyers need to demonstrate expertise in leadership, management, and legal technology, with knowledge of specialized areas like eDiscovery and legal operations helping to drive success. Law students’ exposure to technological or business skills is limited, however, and they aren’t being taught about key developments changing the legal field like limited-scope representation, the impact of group legal service plans, or the encroachment of accounting firms into legal areas.

A defense of the status quo in the face of mounting problems

All this considered, it’s not surprising the practice of law is losing appeal among many of today’s top students. Law school applications to top universities declined 44.9 percent between 2008 and 2017 – and overall enrollment dropped to its lowest point in 42 years.

At the same time, the number of applicants with unimpressive LSAT scores is soaring. After mean scores on the July 2014 Multistate Bar Exam sunk to their lowest level in 10 years, Erica Moeser, former head of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, fired off a memo to law school deans lamenting that today’s graduates are simply “less able” to pass the test.

The intensity of practicing law – combined with the lack of preparedness for the realities of the job – is causing attrition in the legal industry to reach alarming heights as well. Nearly 45 percent of associates leave their firms after three years, according to Attorney at Work.

Eighty-five percent of lawyers say their law firm or corporate legal department struggles to find skilled professionals to fill open positions, according to the Robert Half 2019 Legal Salary Guide.

Even so, change rarely comes easy, and that’s especially true for law schools governed by tenured faculty members content with the status quo. They argue that apprenticeships – and not law school – are the proper place to teach practical skills because law is divided into so many niches, making it impossible to cover them all in classes. They also note that a law school’s reputation is tied to the quality of scholarship it produces – and the U.S. News and World Report’s rankings, which became the go-to standard in the late ‘80s, are largely based on a “quality assessment” survey given to lawyers, judges, deans, and professors, most of whom value traditional teaching methods.

Law schools say their stance is also supported by American Bar Association standards, which only mandate six units of experiential courses. And there is a pervasive sentiment among professors that spending extensive amounts of time preparing graduates for law practice won’t help them pass the bar exam.

Real-world experience helps students develop essential skills

People pushing for more practical content say they don’t expect graduates to shed their graduation gowns and start seeing clients, however. They simply want to see less opposition to professional training and more classes that explain the law as it exists today.

There have been some steps in this direction. Externships are often the best ways for law schools to promote the “soft skills” students need to develop to become successful lawyers, imparting professionalism, attention to detail, and the ability to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences. And legal clinics – programs where students learn to counsel clients, draft documents, and even occasionally litigate under faculty supervision – are becoming a presence on nearly every law school campus.

Nevertheless, these programs are often modest. They are typically staffed by teachers who are not voting members of the law school’s faculty, and are relegated to a second-class status at the school. Between 2005 and 2013, the average number of experiential courses taken per upper-division student increased nearly 60 percent, but the reality is still just over two per student. Between 2005 and 2017, the number of law schools requiring or guaranteeing a clinic placement increased fivefold, but it’s still only 33 percent.

A growing number of law schools are also embracing the need to introduce technical skills to their curriculums. Popular topics include legal technology, data analysis, cybersecurity, and eDiscovery, which combines the legal expertise of attorneys with the technical skills of IT professionals and is touted as one of the fastest-growing specialties in the legal industry.

An eDiscovery course at the John Marshall Law School, for instance, attempts to establish a foundation for students to understand and strategize on eDiscovery in the professional realm by exposing them to core concepts such as the eDiscovery reference model and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Hands-on experience gives students valuable practice with the tools and technology in use among today’s law firms and corporate legal teams.

As evolving technologies like eDiscovery and artificial intelligence continue to impact the legal profession in new ways, it’s arguable that law schools border on negligence if they fail to educate their students about the strategic, logistical, and ethical challenges they may face.

Innovating new study areas is another important way law schools can adapt to the changing legal environment. Legal operations, a role that has become increasingly popular in corporate legal departments, is a perfect example. A Chief Legal Operations Officer (CLOO) deals with everything but law in a corporate legal department, managing budgets, data, technology, human resources, and many other fields.

There is not currently a specific track for these jobs in law schools. But schools such as Vanderbilt Law School are examining the possibility of combining a course specifically designated for legal operations with existing programs already available on campus in business, technology, and law, potentially offering graduates a new path to success.

Embracing a new way of thinking

A high-level knowledge of the law is not enough to succeed in the evolving legal environment. The most successful lawyers of tomorrow are problem-solvers with a business mindset who are comfortable with technology, social media, and soft skills. They will have management abilities, leadership skills, and practical knowledge that enable them to add value to firms without months of expensive training. To produce these hirable attorneys, law schools need to embrace a new way of thinking, delivering practical knowledge to students and exposing them to changes that will influence the way they practice law when they graduate.

Carrington Legal Search is devoted to finding the ideal candidates for our clients’ recruitment needs. We have particular expertise in the Financial Services (banking, insurance, investment management, etc.) and Technology verticals. To make our nationwide network work for you, get in touch at 512-627-7467 or email carrie@carringtonlegal.com.