Next Phase Pedagogy Reform for the Twenty-First Century Legal Education: Delivering Competent Lawyers for a Consumer-Driven Market

The underpinnings for law school training has or, I submit, soon will be, outstripped by real world requirements dictated by the demands of the legal profession marketplace. This Article is designed to add to the discourse relating to the question of what law schools supply and what law practice requires—a paradigm shift in the methodology of implementing legal education. The Article begins by reporting on the state of the law school process and how it has evolved from an apprenticeship, replete with on-the-job training, to an intellectual exercise that is somewhat removed from the requirements for becoming competent legal professionals. The Article concludes that meeting the current and future needs of the public and the legal profession will require fundamental changes in law school structure, curricula, and priorities, including some teaching methodologies that have been downplayed or discarded. Law schools have to prepare students for the semi-holistic dimension of legal practice, which includes the interpersonal component of the practice of law. The Article further concludes that a transformation of legal education is a moral imperative and a competitive necessity to meet the demands of the current and future attorney marketplace