Educating LawyersPreparation for the Profession of Lawthe foundation’s two-year study of legal education involved a reassessment of teaching and learning in american and Canadian law schools today. intensive field work was conducted at a cross section of 16 law schools during the 1999-2000 academic year. the study re-examines “thinking like a lawyer”—the paramount educational construct currently in use. the report shows how law school teaching affords students powerful intellectual tools while also shaping education and professional practice in subsequent years in significant, yet often unrecognized, ways. the study was funded by the atlantic Philanthropies.About the Authors WILLIAM M. SULLIVAN is a senior scholar at the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. He is the author of Work and Integrity and co-author of Habits of the Heart. ANNE COLBY co-directs the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching’s Preparation for the Professions Program and Higher education and the development of Moral and Civic responsibility Program. JUdIth WELCh WEgNEr is professor of law at the university of north Carolina at Chapel Hill where she has served as dean. formerly a senior scholar with the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, she has served as president of the association of american Law schools. LLOYd BONd is a senior scholar with the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, working in the area of assessment across several of the foundation’s programs. LEE S. ShULMAN is the 8th president of the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. He is the first Charles e. ducommun Professor of education emeritus and Professor of Psychology emeritus (by courtesy) at stanford university, past president of the american educational research association (aera), and a member of the national academy of education.A P U B L I C A T I O N O FSU M M A RYEDUCATING LAWYERSPrePArATION FOr ThePrOFessION OF LAwwilliam M. sullivanAnne ColbyJudith welch wegnerLloyd BondLee s. shulmaned u c ati n g l aw y e r s: Pr e Pa r ati O n FO r t H e P r O Fe s si O n O F l aw | 3Sum m aryIntroductionThe profession of law is fundamental to the flourishing of American democracy. Today, however, critics of the legal profession, both from within and without, have pointed to a great profession suffering from varying degrees of confusion and demoralization. A reawakening of professional élan must include revitalizing legal preparation. It is hard to imagine that taking place without the enthusiastic participation of the nation’s law schools. Law school provides the single experience that virtually all legal professionals share. It is the place and time where expert knowledge and judgment are communicated from advanced practitioner to beginner. It is where the profession puts its defining values and exemplars on display, and future practitioners can begin both to assume and critically examine their future identities.Educating Lawyers examines the dramatic way that law schools develop legal understanding and form professional identity. The study captures the special strengths of legal education, and its distinctive forms of teaching. It follows earlier studies of professional education conducted by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Beginning with the landmark Flexner report on medical education of 1910 and other pioneering studies of education in engineering, architecture, teaching and law, the Foundation has for nearly one hundred years inf luenced improvement of education for the professions. As the Foundation enters its second century, Educating Lawyers becomes part of a series of reports on professional education issued by the Foundation through its Preparation for the Professions Program. Educating Clergy was the first in this series, which will include reports on the education of engineers, nurses and physicians. Educating Lawyers is thus informed by the findings of the Foundation’s concurrent studies of professional education. It is also, like the other studies, grounded in direct observation of education in process. Over the space of two academic semesters, a research team visited 16 law schools in the United states and Canada. The schools, both public and private, were chosen to be geographically diverse, ranging from coast to coast and north to south. several are among the more selective schools. several are freestanding schools, while others are less selective institutions within large state university systems. One school is historically black, while two (one in Canada, the other in the United states) are distinctive for their attention to Native American and First Nation peoples and their concerns. several schools were chosen because they were judged by many to represent important strengths in legal education.4 | t H e c a r n e g ie FO u n dat i O n FO r t H e a dva nc em e n t O F te a c H in g Sum m aryOverview of Legal Educationeducation of professionals is a complex educational process, and its value depends in large part upon how well the several aspects of professional training are understood and woven into a whole. That is the challenge for legal education: linking the interests of legal educators with the needs of legal practitioners and with the public the profession is pledged to serve—in other words, fostering what can be called civic professionalism. Like other professional schools, law schools are hybrid institutions. One parent is the historic community of practitioners, for centuries deeply immersed in the common law and carrying on traditions of craft, judgment and public responsibility. The other heritage is that of the modern research university. These two strands of inheritance were blended by the inventors of the modern American law school, starting at harvard in the 1870s with President Charles william eliot and his law dean, Christopher Columbus Langdell. The blend, however, was uneven. Factors beyond inheritance—the pressures and opportunities of the surrounding environment—have been very important in what might be called the epigenesis of legal education. But as American law schools have developed, their academic genes have become dominant.The curriculum at most schools follows a fairly standard pattern. The juris doctor (JD) degree is the typical credential offered, requiring three years of full-time or four years of part-time study. Most states require the degree