• Amanda, thanks for bringing up this topic. I have some thoughts/questions that I believe are relevant. A reason I keep hearing as to why I should work at a firm is that they provide the training that I will need to be able to use our degree in future practice. Common wisdom is that law school does not train you to be an attorney. I wonder why that is? Why don't law schools make more of an effort to train us? Why do they rely on employers to fulfill that goal? The only school I know of that makes a strong effort to give their graduates the work-training they need is Northeastern with its co-op program. I think that the lack of concrete, practical training may be another reason that students go from the classroom to the firm. -- JustinColannino - 20 Feb 2008

That is an interesting question Justin. Why isn’t law school more “practical”? I don’t know. I think I will respond with another question: should it be? What are we supposed to get out of law school? I already feel like I am in trade school. (this is my law school complaint) I came here straight out of college. As an undergrad, I was a theory hound. Sophomore year I decided college should give me a framework, some analytical tools to help me think about the world around me. The professor throws some theory at me, and I apply it in some 25 page paper at the end of the semester. It’s a wonderful system. I am sort of hoping to get the same out of law school: a law specific tool kit. I am not sure practicums are the way to achieve this goal. The LAW is already a narrow category of study. I, for one, do not know what kind of law I will be practicing, so I do not want my studies narrowed by learning a specific way to study the law.

I hope I haven’t misunderstood your point, Justin. What do you mean by “practical”? What should law schools train us in? Should we have more research courses? Less case study more statutory analysis? Externships? When I hear “practical” I have images of document review and brief after brief, and networking skills workshops (the horror!).

Waiver: This is not to say that I approve of our current curriculum.