After Law School, Associates Learn to Be Lawyers - NYTimes.com

Associates training at Drinker Biddle

Although I took 1/3 of my law school credits in clinics, and worked my first summer at the Constitutional Litigation Clinic on a landmark case; interned the next at  Mercer County Legal Aid (where I conducted hearings for imprisoned mental patients); and interned for the GC at a trade union, I wouldn't say that I was road ready when I started practicing. Good mentors in practice were necessary. Law school can get you started but it can't train you for any particular job.  So much of the lamentation is overdone.

Nonetheless there are some points here that are persuasive: clinical faculty should have equal voting status and tenure with `academic' faculty. The ABA Section on Legal Education - the accrediting body - sanctions the two-tier approach. It mandates tenure for 'regular' faculty - but "reasonably similar" five year contracts for clinicians.

And the problem of the "stigma of practice" could be similarly addressed - if the ABA would set some measure such as a median of practice experience for professors - say five years. That would help. As to U.C. Davis Dean Kevin Johnson's remark that law schools don't want to be "retirement homes for washed up lawyers"...I trust he didn't have me in mind.  - GWC
UPDATE: Lots of commentary at Prawfs blog and more at Balkinization
And this by Len Cavise/DePaul on the SALT blog.

Director, Center for Public Interest Law

DePaul College of Law

I actually don’t think we need a major reconfiguration.  Clinics are extremely expensive.  Extern programs are very often problematic.  I would be satisfied if each and every law school teacher would include practice components in every course taught with the possible exception of con law.  Every legal principle discussed should be followed with a discussion of how the principle is implemented in the real world.  In addition, there should be an advanced course in the curriculum that focuses on practice aspects for each substantive discipline.  Finally, I think recruitment committees and faculties as a whole should be reeducated to value practice in the candidate pool and the willingness of candidates to not only teach practice but to get involved in school service that exposes students to practice and helps students make career choices.

After Law School, Associates Learn to Be Lawyers - NYTimes.com:
by David Segal

 "This has helped to hasten a historic decline in hiring. The legal services market has shrunk for three consecutive years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Altogether, the top 250 firms — which hired 27 percent of graduates from the top 50 law schools last year — have lost nearly 10,000 jobs since 2008, according to an April survey by The National Law Journal.
Law schools know all about the tough conditions that await graduates, and many have added or expanded programs that provide practical training through legal clinics. But almost all the cachet in legal academia goes to professors who produce law review articles, which gobbles up huge amounts of time and tuition money. The essential how-tos of daily practice are a subject that many in the faculty know nothing about — by design. One 2010 study of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced law for a single day. If medical schools took the same approach, they’d be filled with professors who had never set foot in a hospital."

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