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

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在开发LawMeets，这是一个通过虚拟学徒制教授律师技能的网络平台。LawMeets采用了一种创新的教学方法，将基于绩效的学习、基于算法的对等评审和专家视频演示相结合，以低成本、大规模地复制高成本、一对一学徒式学习的好处。LawMeets的目标市场是25万需要培养实用技能以成为该行业有价值成员的新律师。在数十所不同法学院的数百名学生参加的beta测试中，LawMeets被证明是引人入胜、有效且易于使用的。这个项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于交易律师在社会中扮演的角色。熟练的“交易”律师是创业过程中的关键因素，因此，对依赖于充满活力的创业生态系统的经济增长至关重要。长期以来，法学院和法律雇主都在为如何教授企业家律师作为大师的律师技能而苦苦挣扎。法学院已经推出了各种体验式学习计划，包括临床课程和模拟。律师事务所也尝试过类似的培训项目。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业知识的认知能力的互动成分。没有一种解决方案能够提供一种低成本的、可扩展的工具，用于开发高级从业人员社区中的专业知识储备。LawMeets的目标是提供低成本的大规模“动手”学习，并成为法学院和律师事务所实践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.