Workshop: Legal Education in Crisis? Bringing Researchers and Resources Together to Generate New Scientific Insights

美国的法学院最近成为激烈批评和越来越大的经济压力的焦点。书籍、报纸、博客和其他媒体都宣布了法律教育中日益严重的危机。尽管有这些宣传，但人们对这场危机的性质和原因仍然知之甚少。当然，法律系毕业生的就业机会随着申请入学人数的减少而下降。与此同时，在卡内基基金会发布一份批评报告之后，法学院面临的压力越来越大，要求它们改变培养学生的方式。美国律师协会本身也改变了要求，向法学院施压，要求在核心课程中增加更多的实践培训。一些人将危机归因于直接的经济原因，而另一些人则认为，信任危机长期以来一直在积累，因为法学教授和法学院辜负了他们的消费者(学生)。虽然一些研究人员目前正在研究美国法律教育的不同方面，但他们并没有相互协调。因此，很难对法律教育的变化和这些变化的原因形成一个总体的、系统的观点。这次研讨会将召集研究法律教育变化的研究人员，并利用社会科学证据证明法律教育正处于危机之中，并就建议的改革提出建议。这不仅有助于我们更好地了解当前的危机，还将使研究人员能够汇集数据，避免研究工作的重复。在迫切要求改革的呼声以及法律教育系统面临的外部压力之际，协调研究工作将有助于改革者评估如何最好地分配日益匮乏的资产。仅在美国就有大量不同类型的法学院--而且越来越多的美国法学院被吸引到涉及世界各地法律系学生的网络中。关于不同的制度结构和文化、市场、全球法律影响以及种族、性别、阶级和历史轨迹在法律教育中的影响的社会科学理论尚未有效地用于分析法律教育中正在发生的事情。通过跨学科的合作，工作坊参与者将对法学院及其对不同位置的学生(以及不同群体的公众和法律服务市场)的影响形成一幅复杂的图景。这种以科学为基础的研究对于理解目前针对美国法律教育中被认为存在的问题提出的无数解决方案是否能够解决实际情况(或者这些解决方案是否可能产生假设的效果)至关重要。

U.S. law schools have recently become the focus of intense criticism and increasing economic pressure. Books, newspapers, blogs, and other media have announced a growing crisis in legal education. Despite all this publicity, the nature and causes of this crisis remain poorly understood. Certainly, the number of jobs for law graduates has dropped along with the number of students applying for admission. At the same time, in the wake of a critical report by the Carnegie Foundation, pressure on law schools to change how they train students has been mounting. The American Bar Association itself has moved to alter its requirements, pressuring law schools to add more practical training to the core curriculum. Some attribute the crisis to straightforward economic causes, while others argue that a crisis in confidence has long been building because law professors and law schools have failed their consumers (students). While a number of researchers are currently studying different aspects of U.S. legal education, they have not coordinated with each other. As a result, it has been difficult to develop an overarching, systematic view of the changes in legal education and the causes of those changes. This workshop will assemble researchers studying changes in legal education together and bring social science evidence to bear on the perception that legal education is in crisis and on recommended reforms. This will not only help us understand the current crisis better, but will also allow researchers to pool data and avoid duplication of research efforts. At a time when there are urgent calls for reform, along with external pressures on the legal education system, coordination of research efforts will help reformers assess how best to allocate increasingly meager assets.There is a vast array of different kinds of law schools in the U.S. alone -- and increasingly, U.S. law schools are being drawn into networks involving law students from around the world. Social science theories regarding differentiated institutional structures and cultures, markets, global legal influences, and effects of race, gender, class, and historical trajectories in legal education have not yet been put to effective use in analyzing what is happening in legal education. Working together across disciplines, workshop participants will generate a sophisticated picture of law schools and their impacts on differently situated students (as well as of different segments of the public and of the market for legal services). Such scientifically based research is essential to understanding whether the myriad currently proposed solutions to perceived problems in U.S. legal education can address the actual situation (or whether such solutions are likely to have the hypothesized effects).