SBIR Phase II: Crowd Sourcing Apprenticeship Learning: LawMeets - A Web Platform for Teaching Entrepreneurial Lawyering

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目旨在开发LawMeets，这是一个通过虚拟学徒方式教授律师技能的网络平台。LawMeets使用一种创新的教学方法，将基于绩效的学习、基于算法的对等审查和专家视频演示相结合，以低成本和规模化的方式复制高成本、一对一的学徒学习的好处。LawMeets的目标市场是25万名新手律师，他们需要发展实践技能才能成为该行业的有价值的成员。在对数十所不同法学院的数百名学生进行的Beta测试中，LawMeets被证明是吸引人的、有效的和易于使用的。这个项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于交易型律师在社会中所扮演的角色。熟练的“交易”律师是创业过程中的关键因素，因此，对于依赖于充满活力的创业生态系统的经济增长来说，这是必不可少的。法学院和法律雇主长期以来都在为如何教授律师技能而苦苦挣扎，这些技能标志着一名企业家律师是一名大师。法学院推出了各种体验式学习计划，包括临床课程和模拟。律师事务所也尝试了类似的培训计划。虽然在边际上改善了学习，但这些努力都没有产生根本性的影响。它们的核心都依赖于传统的师生互动模式。各种在线工具提供了获取实质性知识的资源，但缺乏导致发展构成真正专门知识的认知能力的互动部分。没有一种解决方案提供了一种低成本、可扩展的工具来利用高级从业者社区中的专业知识。LawMeets的目标是大规模提供低成本的“动手”学习，并成为法学院和律师事务所实用技能教学的主要工具。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is directed to the development of LawMeets, a web-based platform for teaching lawyering skills through virtual apprenticeships. LawMeets use an innovative pedagogical method that combines performance-based learning, algorithm-based peer-to-peer review and expert video demonstrations to replicate the benefits of high-cost, one-on-one apprenticeship learning but at low-cost and at scale. The target market for LawMeets is the quarter million novice lawyers who need to develop practical skills to become valuable members of the profession. In beta tests with hundreds of students at dozens of different law schools, LawMeets have proven to be engaging, effective and easy to use.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project lies in the role transactional lawyers play in society. Skilled "deal" lawyers are a critical ingredient in the entrepreneurial process and, therefore, essential to the economic growth that relies on a vibrant entrepreneurial eco-system. Both law schools and legal employers have long struggled with how to teach the lawyering skills that mark an entrepreneurial lawyer as a master. Law schools have launched various experiential learning initiatives, including clinical offerings and simulations. Law firms have experimented with similar training programs. While improving learning on the margin, none of these efforts has had a fundamental impact. All rely at their core on the traditional model of student-teacher interaction. Various on-line tools offer resources for acquiring substantive knowledge but lack the interactive component that leads to the development of the cognitive capacities that make up true expertise. None of the solutions offers a low-cost, scalable vehicle for tapping the reservoir of expertise found among the community of senior practitioners. The goal for LawMeets is to provide low cost "hands-on" learning at scale and to become the dominant vehicle for practical skills instruction in both law schools and law firms.