3D
December 13th, 2006 at 0:42At the time, I was in transit between one snowed-under Canadian metropolis and another deep-frozen one, and so maybe that’s how I missed this. But at the end of November the Stanford Law School announced that it would not be one-upped by Harvard’s plans to dramatically reform the long-standing American law school curriculum. The Stanford changes, like Harvard’s, are progressive and sweeping—and because both sets are coming from the rarefiedest of the elitest (Stanford is #2 and Harvard #3, if you believe in rankings), they will be facile trendsetters.
Here’s a look at the essentials of the two revamps:
| Pacific Coast: the “3D JD” |
Atlantic Coast: a 1L Retool |
| * Reforms second- and third-year curriculum. | * Reforms first-year curriculum. |
| * Major components are increased opportunities for multidisciplinary study, new “simulation courses” that emphasize problem solving, an expanded clinical program, and greater international law emphasis. | * Major components are new required 1L courses, an added January term focused entirely on problem solving, and increased emphasis on statutes, regulations, and international law. |
| * Driving philosophy is to combat “disengagement” in the 2L and 3L years and to prepare students to be problem solvers comfortable with the jargon and trends of many fields. | * Driving philosophy is to prepare students for modern legal practice that increasingly demands creative solutions to multinational issues that intersect with legislation, regulation, technology, and culture. |
Both schools hope their new setups will churn out problem-solving, internationally-competent lawyers. While problem-solving is surely a good thing, the overall tenor of these reforms doesn’t seem geared toward the legal needs of most of America. Of course, Harvard and Stanford lawyers have by and large never been the ones serving most of America. But, it’s only a matter of time before the schools further down the totem pole start mimicking these curricular adjustments.
Does that mean that in 30 years we’ll have a bunch of multidisciplinary, internationally-savvy solo practitioners spread out across the mid-size towns of America, trying to do everyday family law by analogizing to their in-depth understanding of the UNIDROIT Conventions?