What Should Lawyers Learn in Law School?

By Cynthia Di Pasquale

The University of Baltimore School of Law is asking Maryland lawyers just what they do at work.

No, Web surfing is not an option on the “bench and bar” survey, but problem-solving, negotiating and discovery are.

The school plans to use the results of the online questionnaire to evaluate whether it is teaching students the skills they’ll need after graduation.

The survey “will be used in a comprehensive way to look at what we do,” said law school Dean Gilbert A. Holmes.

“We are always in the process of evaluating our curriculum,” Holmes said; “not only how we teach, but what we teach, and is it meaningful in terms of students’ goals and our goals and the profession’s goals?”

The survey, which is posted on school’s Web site and the Maryland State Bar Association Web site, asks lawyers, judges, court staff and public officials to rank the importance of certain professional skills, legal knowledge and professional values to the success of a new lawyer.

The results will be available in March. If the school does alter the curriculum based on the results, any changes probably wouldn’t happen until the 2008-2009 school year, Holmes said.

“I’m sure we’re doing most things that the survey will reveal to us…,” he said. “It’s more important to know what you don’t know than know what you do know, or know some of the things that we aren’t focusing on.”

Career-oriented education is a driving principle in most University of Baltimore programs, and certainly is at the law school, Holmes said. This survey is another way to help identify how to best teach theory with practice but is not the only tool the school is using to improve the skills of its students.

It is developing “outcome assessment plans” to identify individual student learning goals, Holmes said. The school is also reviewing legal concentrations to determine if they are the right kind and the right number, and is overhauling its legal writing program.

Phoenix study

The University of Baltimore School of Law’s bench and bar survey will be online through the end of February.

It is closely modeled on one used by the Phoenix School of Law in Phoenix, Ariz. That school, which was founded in January 2005, mailed a questionnaire to every member of the Arizona bar two months later. Its purpose was to use the results to craft a “practice- ready” curriculum, according to information provided by the school’s communication office.

The Phoenix school incorporated into its required courses almost all legal knowledge and professional skills deemed “essential” or “very important” by at least half the 174 respondents.

According to those respondents, legal analysis and reasoning were the most important professional skills, civil procedure was the most important element of legal knowledge, and honesty and integrity were the most important professional values.

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