Thus, the Law School has no nearby competitor. The potential for innovation is one advantage of not looking up the road to see what a neighboring school is doing, but there is the danger that isolation may interfere with our ability to be in the forefront of legal education, or, even worse, of becoming complacent and parochial. Awareness of both these opportunities and dangers helps to focus this Law School's mission. For rather than narrowing the Law School's responsibilities, emphasis on serving New Mexico imposes obligations on the school that may be beyond those of other law schools. Of perhaps greater significance, our graduates will be expected to play a major role in the development of the legal system of this state, and if they have not been trained on the cutting edge of the law, the system will suffer.
Additional obligations flow from our mission.
Few of our graduates will have the post-graduation training offered by many firms in larger cities. We must provide an education that better prepares students for the practice of law, a task that is far from mundane. Thus, our skills courses, including our clinic, become of greater importance. However, over-emphasis on teaching skills that are relevant only today must be avoided. The core of a good legal education still revolves around theory and conceptualization.