Back to School: Practice-Ready Legal Curriculum
Over 340 Years of Private Practice Experience Among ASL's Faculty It frustrated me to no end when highly-ranked Washington and Lee University School of Law -- to much fanfare -- announced in 2008 their practice-ready curriculum for 3Ls students. The press release from the school's Dean said: [We] are embarking on a dramatic revision of [the] law school curriculum, entirely reinventing the third year to make it a year of professional development through simulated and actual practice experiences. This is one of the boldest reforms in American legal education since Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell pioneered the new curriculum at Harvard Law School in the late 19th century. What? WTF? Appalachian School of Law had created -- from its inception in the mid-1990s -- a practice-ready, experiential curriculum for all students (not just 3Ls) long before Washington and Lee announced its program! But for us, the pedagogical approach was so embedded in our instit