I've been going over the recently leaked and just recently released U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings and enjoying the annual brouhaha over their validity and the negative effect they supposedly have on U.S. legal education. It was the last place I expected to find something related to legal project management, but then I came across this interesting tidbit in an article on how to get into Northwestern University:
[W]e almost exclusively try to enroll students who have some post-undergraduate full-time work experience --ideally at least two to three years of it.... There are many reasons that we like to see prior work experience but the main reason is that potential employers consistently tell us that they prefer it as well and that it makes a difference to them. In fact, they consistently mention that project management experience and ability is a huge plus for them; it is what makes their new employees stand out.[1](emphasis added)
While it is good to see a top law school recognize the importance of project management and addressing the needs of potential employers, it would be better if they (and this goes for all U.S. law schools) would provide their students with more practical training, including legal project and practice management skills rather than simply selecting students who already have those skills.
I realize there are a host of skills that legal employers look for that are not within the scope of a legal education. We don't expect law schools to teach English language skills. But isn't it strange that a professional education program doesn't include training in much of what is required to succeed in the practice of that profession? Law schools in the United States pride themselves on training their students to "think like lawyers" (well, at least like law professors) but not to do what lawyers do. That they do not has long been a complaint of legal employers who are burdened with the two-to-three year task of making new associates useful, but the recession has exacerbated the problem of new associates with few practical skills and experience.
Perhaps the increasingly cut-throat competition for the shrinking number of entry-level positions and the greater attention being given to this problem in recent conferences and articles[2] will change this. But with applications to law schools increasing,[3] I'm not sure the financial incentive for swift change is there. Until consumers of legal education wise up to what a poor value a legal education is for most of them, it is unlikely we'll see schools deviate from their traditional ways.
[1] How to Get In: Northwestern University Law School, U.S. News & World Report, Apr. 15, 2010, http://www.usnews.com/education/best-law-schools/articles/2010/04/15/how-to-get-in-northwestern-university-law-school.html.
[2] Karen Sloan, Consensus: Law schools aren't changing fast enough, The National Law Journal, Apr. 9, 2010, http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202447864826&Consensus_Law_schools_arent_changing_fast_enough&hbxlogin=1.
[3] Rebecca R. Ruiz, Recession Spurs Interest in Graduate, Law Schools, The New York Times, Jan. 9, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/education/10grad.html.
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