Support for Layered Legal Education

November 29th, 2013 / By Deborah J. Merritt

Since writing about multi-tiered legal education, including an undergraduate component, I have discovered several other scholars and practice experts with similar ideas. Here is a round up of proposals related to “layered” legal education with an undergraduate component. Please add to the collection by sending links to similar proposals.

Jordan Furlong’s BA plus MLP

Jordan Furlong, an internationally recognized expert on innovations in the legal market, proposed a BA/MA structure for legal education in 2010. As Jordan recognized, current JD programs do not effectively teach either professional skills or theoretical inquiry at the graduate level. Today’s law school offers a second bachelor’s degree masquerading as a professional or graduate degree.

Jordan, like me, proposes that we move much of the current JD program into the college curriculum: “Four years of undergraduate work would be enough to provide a healthy grounding in legal theory, legal history, aspects of justice, all the things that law schools now teach, in a mixture with Torts and Contracts and Business Associations and so forth.” Jordan also notes the positive impact of these courses for a wide range of students: “[A] a four-year Law undergrad would be a terrific grounding for any number of disciplines — don’t we always tell law students that a law degree opens up vast new career horizons to them? Better yet, students in other fields could minor in Law, or even take a handful of law electives. Think of the boost that would give to legal literacy among university graduates of all kinds, and to public legal education as a result.”

To prepare practicing lawyers, Jordan would establish “an MLP degree, a Masters of Legal Practice to mirror the Masters of Business Administration.” The master’s would build on the undergraduate degree, which would already have grounded students in “the theory and the basics.” The MLP would then “add business skills, professional responsibility training, client focus, project management, and the other hallmarks of a competent practitioner.” Sounds like a plan. (Jordan also notes the possibility of local bar associations creating training programs, perhaps jointly with private firms. That’s another excellent idea worth pursuing.)

Benjamin Barros’s Competency Exams

Benjamin Barros, Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at Widener Law School’s Harrisburg campus, has proposed a different mechanism for moving part of the JD curriculum to the undergraduate level. Rather than create a specific undergraduate major, Benjamin would allow prospective students to take competency exams in law school subjects. If a student achieved a sufficiently high score, the student would receive credit for the corresponding law school course.

As Benjamin notes, these exams would function much like Advanced Placement exams do at the college level. As with AP exams, Benjamin would allow students to develop their competency in any way they chose. Colleges, certainly, could offer courses preparing students for law competency exams; law schools might also enter that market. Students could also study on their own or use online courses. Test performance would offer feedback on the efficacy of these methods, while allowing students to choose methods suiting them best.

Benjamin, like Jordan and me, stresses multiple advantages of this system. Students could obtain a JD with less investment of time and money; a common path might include four years of college (including law-related courses) followed by two years of law school. Those law school years, meanwhile, could cover more sophisticated material. The nature of that more advanced material “might vary – it could be more practice oriented, more theory oriented, or remain doctrinal, but on a deeper level.” Whatever the content, JD students would obtain better preparation for their legal careers. College students would also benefit from law-related “AP” courses, even if they chose not to attend law school.

Benjamin first proposed a version of this idea in 2009. The original post, the more recent one, and the comments on both are well worth reading.

McGinnis and Mangas: BA Plus Apprenticeship

John O. McGinnis, a professor at Northwestern Law School, and Russell Mangas, a recent Northwestern grad practicing at Kirkland & Ellis, propose creating an undergraduate law degree that would include about 60 hours of legal study and 60 hours of general liberal arts courses. Like the other proposals discussed here, their approach would move traditional law school courses (including the first year) to the college curriculum.

McGinnis and Mangas would then require practicing lawyers to complete a year-long paid apprenticeship and pass the bar exam before qualifying for bar admission. Lawyers, therefore, could qualify for law practice after paying for just four years of education. They would devote a fifth year to qualifying, but receive income (rather than paying tuition) for that work.

McGinnis and Mangas, notably, would not eliminate current JD programs; they would maintain those programs alongside the new BA/apprenticeship track. Market choices by employers, clients, and students would determine the popularity of the two tracks.

McGinnis and Mangas, like others proposing layered legal education, note the financial advantages of their proposal. Students could qualify as lawyers with just five years of opportunity cost, four years of college tuition, and a paid apprenticeship. Even if apprenticeships paid low wages, new lawyers would carry much less debt than they do today–and might possess more professional skills.

Writing an article, rather than a blog post, McGinnis and Mangas develop the economic argument more fully. In particular, they contend that alternative educational paths would benefit consumers as well as new lawyers. A less expensive educational path should reduce the price of legal services; it might also enable services for markets that are currently underserved. The full McGinnis/Mangas article deserves a read.

The Kahn Plan

Douglas Kahn, of the University of Michigan Law School, advocates the boldest move toward the undergraduate curriculum. Kahn advocates moving the full three years of legal study to the undergraduate curriculum. Under his plan, students would begin law school after a freshman year of college. The law school curriculum would remain largely as it is today, but students would begin that study three years earlier.

Anticipating cries that his plan would sharply curtail liberal arts education, Kahn notes that law schools offer a good deal of that education within their three-year curricula. Most JD programs also allow students to take some courses from other disciplines, so students could assemble a well rounded education within the confines of a college degree that includes a JD.

Kahn does not advocate the addition of graduate education or apprenticeshps; he would allow students to qualify for the bar exam and law practice after just four years of higher education. His proposal thus moves more aggressively than any of the others discussed here, including my “four plus two” plan. Even if Kahn’s idea proves too radical for a consensus, he firmly supports the feasibility of beginning legal study during the college years.

A Plausible Path?

Each of these plans differs somewhat from the others, but all share a belief that we should begin legal education in college. Although constructing that path would require changes in state bar admission and ABA accreditation rules, these are changes well worth considering. I will continue to post on the practicalities, benefits, and costs of undergraduate “law school” courses and layered legal education.

Meanwhile, please forward links to other authors discussing these issues.