The Law Society of Ontario has announced that they will allow their June Barrister and Solicitor exams, and their July Paralegal exams to take place online in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. CEO Diana Miles has said: “The Law Society is confident that the new online delivery model will continue to ensure entry-level competence…
Current Day Realities of Legal Education in Nigeria: Challenges, Prospects and Productive Way Forward
Abstract “We need to raise the standard of legal education in Nigeria. The standard is too poor and too weak, and we see it in the quality of lawyers that come to our chambers”. The above were the words of the former chair of the NBA while describing the pitiable state of legal education in…
Regulatory responses to COVID-19
We’ve put together the following list to examine different regulator responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have any questions or best practice for the rest of the ICLR community, please do get in touch, and we will be happy to include any of these in the next newsletter. The Nederlandse Orde Van Advocaten has…
Outlooks, Techniques, and Words: Product Design, Practicing Law, and Engaging Students in Legal Practice
Abstract This paper is a reflection by a law school teacher and corporate lawyer about learning from the design disciplines. The paper describes how design influences the author’s understanding of and approach to legal documents, his use of visual methods in doing legal work and engaging with students, and concepts and language he uses in…
Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan to launch new skills course with CPLED
A new skills course designed by the Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) will be launched for articling clerks in Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. The course, known as The Practice Readiness Education Program or PREP is designed to equip students with the necessary practical skills to pursue a career in law in the future. The…
What Happened to the Class of 2010? Empirical Evidence of Structural Change in the Legal Profession
Abstract Poor employment outcomes have plagued law school graduates for several years. Legal scholars have debated whether these outcomes stem from macroeconomic cycles or from fundamental changes in the market for legal services. This Article examines that question empirically, using a database of employment outcomes for more than 1,200 lawyers who received their JDs in…
The End of Law Schools: Legal Education in the Era of Legal Service Businesses
Abstract Law school as most of us know it is doomed. Law school today – which is but a gloss on Langdell’s Harvard – attempts to prepare students to practice general law in an 1870s world. Students learn a bit about criminal law, a smattering of contracts, a little about torts, a smidgeon of property…
Singapore Ministry of Law public consultation on Committee for the Professional Training of Lawyers proposals
The Ministry of Law (MinLaw) has launched a public consultation on the proposals to implement the recommendations of the Committee for the Professional Training of Lawyers (“CPTL”). In August 2018, MinLaw announced that it had accepted, in-principle, the CPTL’s recommendations and that implementation of the key changes would take place from the 2023 session of…
Innovation: A New Key Discipline for Lawyers and Legal Education
Abstract: Over the past two years, I have interviewed hundreds of in-house and law firm lawyers from around the globe to explore the changing legal marketplace, expectations of clients, and innovation in law. One of my main conclusions is that we are experiencing an Innovation Tournament in Law and almost everyone is playing in it….
Law School as a Consumer Product: Beat ’em or Join ’em?
Abstract: With rising costs, pressure on performance metrics and competitive high-profile rankings, law schools are more than ever before being judged on a consumer satisfaction basis by both students and the public. While this perception has been growing over the past two decades, it has reached a crisis point in legal education. When students have…