Comments on: Resolving the legal education disconnect http://www.law21.ca/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Comments+on+Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.law21.ca%2F2009%2F11%2F20%2Fresolving-the-legal-education-disconnect%2F%23comment-&seed_title=Resolving+the+legal+education+disconnect Dispatches from a legal profession on the brink Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:47:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: Joshua Kubicki http://www.law21.ca/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Comments+on+Articles+%28RSS2%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.law21.ca%2F2009%2F11%2F20%2Fresolving-the-legal-education-disconnect%2F%23comment-1245&seed_title=Resolving+the+legal+education+disconnect/comment-page-1/#comment-1245 Joshua Kubicki Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:42:47 +0000 http://www.law21.ca/?p=1164#comment-1245 This debate is obviously not restricted to just Canada but is present in the US as well. This article clearly delineates the current roles of all the major stakeholders in this arena. It would be easy to take the cynical perspective as many do – that none of the stakeholders – the Bars, the Law schools, the law firms – have an interest in altering the status quo. Whether or not actual law students want a change or not I am not sure how much research has been done in this area though I assume there would be a cross-section of stances. Nevertheless the business models of attorney education and recruiting is constructed around the status quo. Getting anyone (let alone lawyers) to change what could be perceived as a successful business model is challenging. A more instructive view but perhaps too “utopia-seeking” is to recognize that in order for any of this to change, the profession needs to begin to depart from a structured business mentality and look at the profession as a whole. But I fear this will not happen naturally – there must be a force in order to start this process. What that force is I am not sure but I have a suspicion it will involve actual students – after all they are the customers and products of these institutions. This debate is obviously not restricted to just Canada but is present in the US as well. This article clearly delineates the current roles of all the major stakeholders in this arena. It would be easy to take the cynical perspective as many do – that none of the stakeholders – the Bars, the Law schools, the law firms – have an interest in altering the status quo. Whether or not actual law students want a change or not I am not sure how much research has been done in this area though I assume there would be a cross-section of stances. Nevertheless the business models of attorney education and recruiting is constructed around the status quo. Getting anyone (let alone lawyers) to change what could be perceived as a successful business model is challenging.

A more instructive view but perhaps too “utopia-seeking” is to recognize that in order for any of this to change, the profession needs to begin to depart from a structured business mentality and look at the profession as a whole. But I fear this will not happen naturally – there must be a force in order to start this process. What that force is I am not sure but I have a suspicion it will involve actual students – after all they are the customers and products of these institutions.

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