Joint Report Recommends Changes to Legal Education for Practice and CLE Training

Posted by Alan Childress

From a press release this morning:

Recommendations for improving the training of lawyers to meet the challenges of the 21st century were explored at Equipping Our Lawyers: Law School Education, Continuing Legal Education, and Legal Practice in the 21st Century, a summit organized by ALI-ABA Continuing Professional Education and the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) in October of last year.

The summit examined the entire spectrum of lawyer training and development, and recommended ways in which all constituencies within the profession can improve their cooperation toward the goal of a competent bar.  ALI-ABA and ACLEA have now released the Final Report containing recommendations that emerged from the summit. [or: Download Finalreport] Among the final recommendations are: 

-- Develop model core practice competencies keyed to each level of a lawyer’s professional career.
 
-- Design and share transitional training programs in legal practice skills starting in law school and continuing through at least the first two years of practice.

-- Consider reformulating bar examinations to include phased examination, linked in part to attainment of legal practice skills, with some parts as early as in the law school years.

-- Accredit in-house continuing legal education programming similarly to that produced by other CLE providers.

-- Develop appropriate accreditation standards for all varieties of distance learning CLE.

-- Expand law school and CLE programming to prepare and encourage law students and lawyers to represent underserved communities.