Attendee Discussion: How Should Legal Educators and Law Schools Respond to These Changes?

Michael Kelly. The Gaping Hole in American Legal Education. Major changes that have occurred in law during the last three decades (such as intense competition and phenomenal increases in compensation in the private sector, and consolidation in law practices of all kinds) have been driven by tightly managed and strongly focused practice organizations. But understanding how organizations function is not part of law school curricula or pedagogy or the agenda of those who would reform legal education. Equipping law students for a career in law in the 21st Century now requires understanding organizations, whether lawyers represent them, oppose them or work within them. And legal ethics teaching in law school--focused on the rules and principles applicable to all lawyers in a unitary profession--needs extension to the ethical realities of organizations that are now fundamental to a highly differentiated and segmented profession