Carnegie Report Implementation Concerns

An interesting post over at Empirical Legal Studies re: concerns with putting the Carnegie Report into meaningful action.  Carnegie report previously discussed on LLB here. 

Earlier this year, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published Educating Lawyers.  Drawing upon extensive field work at 16 law schools, the book is a carefully researched critique of U.S. legal education.  Although I agree with many of the assessments made in the book (now commonly referred to as the Carnegie Report),  it pains me to write that I worry about its long-term impact.  In the context of legal education, good--or even brilliant--ideas are not enough to effect change. 

Rather, major systemic change requires, at a minimum:

1. A careful assessment of the institutional incentives that have created and perpetuate the current system;
2. Creative strategies for breaking down or subverting those institutional forces in a way that produces a greater good.

Unfortunately, the Carnegie Report touches on #1 only briefly; and #2 is entirely absence.  I am hoping that the Carnegie Center working group, which is being formed to help execute the study, can address these issues.  To that end, I am writing this post.  [Disclosure:  via my law school, I am a member of the working group.]

More at ELS.  Check it out.  [JJ]