"Top 10*" law schools teaching the technology of law practice

With the help of the ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services, the Taskforce on eLawyering sent a survey last year to 203 ABA accredited law schools to determine the extent to which they are teaching legal practice technology.  Specifically, the survey asked what schools are doing by way of coursework or other steps to teach students electronic "document assembly and drafting, courtroom technology, decision support systems, the ethics of legal technology, legal tech start-ups, marketing, matter and knowledge management, new model law firms, online dispute resolution, project management, software development, legal process engineering, access to justice and legal technology, cloud computing, law firm Web development, online marketing issues, social media and lawyering, and computer security and law practice."

Because only 32 schools returned the survey* (a 16% response rate), the Task Force acknowledges it is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about which schools are doing the most to teach students the technology skills they will need in practice.  Nevertheless, the Task Force has identified what it calls "10 points of light" regarding schools that offer "multiple courses or have dedicated centers—and actively involve regular faculty" in teaching these vital practice skills.

In alphabetical order, those "top 10" schools are:

1. Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School
2. Chicago–Kent College of Law
3. Columbia Law School
4. Florida Coastal School of Law
5. Georgetown University Law Center
6. Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law
7. Michigan State University College of Law’s ReInvent Law Laboratory
8. University of Pittsburgh School of Law
9. Suffolk University Law School
10. Vermont Law School

Continue reading here for a summary of the coursework and other offerings each of the schools on the list have taken to provide students with law practice technology skills.

(jbl).