Images of slick suits and notions of cutthroat competition
encompass the corporate world and are often more indicative of
business schools than law schools.
But such impressions may soon be associated with law schools
““ including the UCLA School of Law ““ as some top
schools around the country adapt their curricula to a changing
profession.
Specifically, certain law schools are mimicking business school
curricula and creating team-based, case-study courses that prepare
students for lawyer-client relationships and business
situations.
The UCLA School of Law is among law schools in the country
offering courses that can provide valuable real-world
experience.
“Creating Value Through Renegotiating Business
Agreements,” taught by Professor Kenneth Klee, is one such
transactional course that diverges from the average lecture-style
course.
“A lot of law school is looking backwards. Who shot John?
But this course really focuses on the transactional lawyer, and not
the litigator,” Klee said.
The course is concerned mainly with issues of renegotiating
basic business contracts and loan agreements and expects students
to work in teams and negotiate, according to the online course
description.
In an attempt to evoke the situations and dilemmas law students
could face in the corporate world, Klee invites people to simulate
client representatives and expects students to consider ethical
conflicts.
“In a way it’s sort of like lawyer boot camp, but
many student’s say it’s the best class they’ve
taken,” Klee said.
Klee’s class is part of the law school’s clinical
program, which is another way in which the curriculum attempts to
provide students with real-world experience.
Some of the program’s courses include “Criminal
Trial Advocacy,” “Discovery and Depositions” and
“Doing Business in China.”
These courses offer students practical and relevant skills which
they can use once they graduate and become professional lawyers,
said Susan Gillig, associate dean of the clinical program.
“The courses allow students to feel comfortable as a young
lawyers, doing what real lawyers do,” Gillig said.
The verdict is undecided on whether more business-like
curriculum is the best way to prepare law students, but many law
schools say they feel the experience is invaluable and
essential.
Many law schools are adapting their curricula as the way law is
practiced throughout the country is currently following a changing
trend.
“In the old days law firms tended to be consortiums and
combinations of little hierarchies run by senior partners … firm
policy would be made in the hallways, over lunch, or while having
coffee,” said John Heinz, a professor at Northwestern
University School of Law and author of a recent book on the
profession’s new face.
The tight-knit and familial nature of law firms that
characterized the profession in the 1970s has changed, and today
firms are often be viewed as miniature ““ and increasingly
complex ““ bureaucracies, Heinz said.
A trend in the last quarter of the 20th century shows the number
of law firms has decreased while the size of these firms has
increased, according to a survey Heinz conducted.
This change results in the formal organization of firms, the
creation of codified procedures for how firms would be managed and
in some cases, the hiring of professional businessmen to manage
them.
“When this happens it changes the way law is practiced,
the relationships among lawyers and the nature of the
workplace.” Heinz said.
In response to law’s changing face, some schools have
found it beneficial to alter their curricula to emphasize and cater
to the needs of a more marginalized and bureaucratic workplace.
Harvard Law instituted a program in March that integrates the
school with Harvard’s business school in attempt to study the
types of education needed to prepare students for the legal
profession, according to a report published in the New York Law
Journal which documented the growing trend of law schools becoming
more like business schools.