Executive Director's Report, 0714 ALBJ, 75 The Alabama Lawyer 160 (2014)

• Author: Keith B. Norman, J.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Vol. 75 No. 3 Pg. 160

Alabama Bar Lawyer

July, 2014

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0 Keith B. Norman, J.

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0Legal Internships: Helping Law Students Become Practice-Ready

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0This past January, the American Bar Association's Task Force on the Future of Legal Education released its much-anticipated report. The report examines current problems and conditions in American legal education and offers recommendations that are intended to be workable and, it is hoped, have a chance of broad acceptance.¹ The task force report is in direct response to the pressures affecting the legal education system in this country including the price of legal education, the large amount of student debt, consecutive years of sharply falling applications and the dramatic changes, possibly structural, in the job market for law school graduates.

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0The price of a legal education has been rising at twice the rate of inflation.² Concomitant with this increase has been the equally large increase in student debt.³ The student debt-load of law graduates taking the Alabama Bar Examination is a graphic example of this troubling trend. In July 1998, the average for those examinees who had student debt, roughly 60 percent of all taking the bar exam that year, was $50,41 S. By July 2013, 70 percent of the examinees had debt and the average debt had increased to $102,650. This is a 104 percent increase in 15 years. By comparison, the consumer price index rose only 43 percent during the same time.

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0Employment for recent law graduates has been equally problematic. During the past decade, roughly one-third of law school graduates nationwide have not obtained jobs as lawyers.⁴ Over the last few years, this percentage has passed 50 percent,⁵ and legal employment prospects for the next few years are not very encouraging. The U.S. Bureau of Labor projects that there will be about 22,000 law job openings annually through 2020 [counting departures and newly-created jobs).^[6]Although total law school enrollment in 2013 numbered a little more than 40,000, enrollment has decreased by 24 percent since 2010. Nonetheless, law schools are anticipated to graduate more than 40,000 students a year for the foreseeable future.⁷

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0In examining current problems and conditions with legal education and developing workable recommendations, the task force report concentrates on and discusses five specific areas. These include pricing and funding of legal education, accreditation, innovation, skills and competencies and broader delivery of law-related services. In the area of skills and competencies, the report acknowledges:

The principal purpose of law school is to prepare individuals to provide law-related services. This elementary fact is often minimized. The profession's calls for more attention to skills training, experiential learning and the development of practice-related competencies have been well taken. Many law schools have expanded such opportunities for students, yet there is a need to do much more. The balance between doctrinal instruction and focused preparation for the delivery of legal services needs to skirt still further toward developing the competencies required by people who will deliver services to clients.

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0With the twin problems of high student debt and fewer legal jobs, today's graduating law student is entering a profession that is far different from the one most of us experienced upon leaving law school. Today's new lawyer, working in a large firm, a small firm or as a solo practitioner, must be able to handle client matters competently and skillfully from the start-hence, the need for law students to leave law school "practice-ready" or "client-ready"

\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0The task force concluded its report with specific recommendations directed to all of the legal profession's stakeholders for dealing with the factors and forces that the report describes are affecting legal education. Among the six suggestions for state supreme courts, state bars and regulators of lawyers and law practice is the specific suggestion to "reduce the number of doctrinal subjects tested on the bar examinations and increase the testing of skills." No doubt, many law schools have increased the number of practical skill...