Should Law Professors Have a Continuing Practice Experience (CPE) Requirement?

Emily Zimmerman

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2165551

Legal education is in peril. Fewer students are applying to law school,I and the cost of legal education is soaring. Students are accumulating massive amounts of debt to attend law school and then, once they graduate, are not finding jobs,' let alone jobs that will enable them to pay off their loans. Moreover, students who do obtain legal jobs may find that they are unprepared for the work that those jobs require.o In fact, law schools have regularly been criticized for failing to adequately prepare students for law practice. Furthermore, law professors have been criticized for writing scholarship that does not contribute to the legal profession and that is out of touch with the work that practicing lawyers and judges do. In addition, the priority given to scholarship (by the legal academy generally and law professors individually) creates pressure on law professors to devote more of their time to their own research and less of their time to teaching. One author has recently argued that the focus on scholarship means that law students' tuition dollars are being used to pay for the non-teaching work of law professors and that the effort to give law professors more time for scholarship means that law students are paying more for law professors who are teaching less. Numerous suggestions have been made for the reform of law schools. With respect to law schools' role in preparing students for law practice, suggestions include better preparing students for the types of skills that they will use as practicing lawyers and better preparing students for the professional and ethical responsibilities that they will assume as practicing lawyers. With respect to law schools' scholarly mission, suggestions include encouraging law professors to engage in scholarship that addresses legal issues faced by judges and practicing lawyers. Although these suggestions focus on different aspects of a law school's mission, these suggestions emphasize ways in which law schools can strengthen their connections to law practice (and be more relevant to law practice). However, at the very time when legal education is being challenged to better prepare students for law practice and is focusing on ways in which students can be better prepared for law practice," little attention is being given to whether law faculties could be better equipped to perform this important function. In the midst of the discussions about how law schools could better prepare students for practice, it is worth exploring whether one of the impediments to law schools becoming more relevant to law practice might be law faculties' lack of connection to law practice.

Should Law Professors Have a Continuing Practice Experience (CPE) Requirement?

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Should Law Professors Have a Continuing Practice Experience (CPE) Requirement?

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