News here. I really like their plan. (Disclaimer: I may be contributing some materials to it.) Here's a quote from Bill Henderson:
Yes, that is right. After a year of committee work and a few weeks of intense deliberations, the faculty at Indiana Law recently voted to revise our 1L curriculum to make room for a new 4-credit Legal Professions course.
Our theory is two-fold. First, drawing upon carefully edited ethnographies and empirical studies, the course will provide students with a systematic overview of various practice settings. . . . . If students have a better theoretical and factual understanding of the modern legal marketplace, they can better understand the subtle factors that push lawyers to cross ethical lines--and the serious consequences that can follow.
Second, by frontloading legal ethics in the 1L curriculum, we hope to address the issue, flagged by both the recent Carnegie Report and the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE), that legal education tends to marginalize ethics, morality, and personal and professional values.
We've had a 3 credit course here at Mercer for several years, and won an ABA award for it last year. It's an important trend that I'm glad is catching on.
Posted by: David Hricik | May 23, 2007 at 11:07 AM
The award is described here: http://www.law.mercer.edu/about/news/index2004-2005.cfm
Posted by: David Hricik | May 23, 2007 at 11:10 AM