To be sure, U.S. law schools are not known for their rapid response to change. Law graduates have long given their alma maters failing grades in preparing them for the actual practice of law, citing an absence of training in negotiation skills, client development, basic business practices and government-service acumen, and an inordinate emphasis on analysis and regurgitation of case law. Many students view the third year of law school as a waste of time and, according to some professors, some students interested in counseling dot-com companies are finding even the second year of school irrelevant to their future livelihoods. An expert panel on the future of legal education, convened at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in London in July, did not fully explore the many possibilities of the future of U.S. legal education. Instead, they merely suggested changing the curriculum to encompass more comparative law and Internet courses.
Students are free to do what they please.
Dean Sexton noted the extraordinary variety of legal education today. Changes in the legal environment, in technology and in demands on lawyers can, and are, accommodated by individual law schools, responding both to student demands and to faculty strengths within the existing structure. The NYU dean willingly acknowledged that the tools lawyers actually need, such as communication, writing and negotiation skills, might not be emphasized in the three-year curriculum, but his solution would not encourage those who believe that law school already drags on too long. What You Teach A glance at legal education elsewhere in the world reveals a great variety of training models, including greater integration with practitioners through internships and apprenticeships. In many European countries, legal education is integrated with the undergraduate curriculum.