Foreword

• Author: Gail B. Agrawal
• Position: Dean and F. Wendell Miller Professor of Law, The University of Iowa College of Law.
• Pages: 1449-1459

1449

Foreword

Gail B. Agrawal

The Iowa Law Review hosted a thought-provoking symposium entitled

“Rethinking Legal Education” on February 25–26, 2011. The symposium—

nearly a year in the planning—brought together leaders in legal education,

the practicing Bar, and the Bench to discuss and assess their shared mission

to prepare the next generation of legal professionals. The conversations

occurred at a time of great challenge for legal education and for legal

practice. These challenges, including the cost of legal education and the

employment opportunities for recent graduates, are being debated publicly

in the news media and the blogosphere and, presumably, privately as

prospective students consider whether law school is a sound investment. The

debt burden of recent law graduates and the competition for jobs that pay

well enough to service that debt lend a new focus to an old question: how to

ensure that law graduates are ready for the demands of law practice as they

leave law school to begin their careers. The new legal economy must also

confront some long unsolved problems—foremost among them the need to

increase diversity within the profession. The presentations on these issues

were thoughtful and the questions probing. The symposium papers are

published in this issue.

FRAMING THE DISCUSSION

“Rethinking,” or perhaps more to the point, redoing legal education will

require significant change in a profession long characterized by its resiliency

and resistance to change. While change has often been characterized as the

only constant,1 comprehensive change is many multiples more difficult than

the incremental changes that have long characterized legal education. From

basic doctrinal offerings with a single teacher, a hundred students , and a

chalkboard, to specialized seminars, tutorials, and independent studies,

from large classrooms to clinics and the offices of externships, today’s law

students have a very different law school experience than the law deans, law

professors, lawyers, and judges who made up the symposium panels. The

face of the modern law-school classroom is increasingly diverse, with more

 Dean and F. Wendell Miller Professor of Law, The University of Iowa Col lege of Law.

1. The quotation is sometimes attributed to Francois de La Rochefoucauld, a French

classical author (1613–1680).