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强烈批评和日益增长的经济压力的焦点。书籍、报纸、博客和其他媒体都宣布了法律教育日益严重的危机。尽管有这么多宣传，但人们对这场危机的性质和原因仍然知之甚少。当然，随着申请入学的学生数量的减少，法学院毕业生的就业机会也在减少。与此同时，在卡内基基金会（Carnegie Foundation）发布一份批评报告之后，要求法学院改变培养学生方式的压力越来越大。美国律师协会（American Bar Association）也开始改变其要求，迫使法学院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，长期以来，信任危机一直在积累，因为法学教授和法学院辜负了他们的消费者（学生）。虽然目前有许多研究人员正在研究美国法律教育的不同方面，但他们之间并没有相互协调。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。本次研讨会将汇集研究法律教育变化的研究人员，并带来社会科学证据，以承担法律教育处于危机中的看法和建议的改革。这不仅将帮助我们更好地了解当前的危机，而且还将使研究人员能够汇集数据，避免重复研究工作。在改革呼声迫切、法律教育体系面临外部压力的时候，协调研究工作将有助于改革者评估如何最好地分配日益微薄的资产。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正被吸引到包括来自世界各地的法律学生的网络中。关于制度结构和文化差异、市场、全球法律影响、种族、性别、阶级和历史轨迹在法律教育中的影响等社会科学理论，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，研讨会参与者将对法学院及其对不同处境的学生（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感知到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).