For sessions and speaker details, please see the listing under daylong programs for the AALS Symposium.
This Symposium is aimed at enlisting the entire AALS
Community in a candid discussion of the current challenges confronting legal
education, why they matter and what directions might be charted in light of an
enhanced collective understanding. We will encourage audience participation and
attempt to track comments so as to produce a meaningful record of the
proceedings.
During the
last decade law and legal institutions have confronted a loss of power and
status vis a vis other social coordination mechanisms – in particular markets and
technology. During this same period law
schools have faced a perfect storm of underemployment for graduates, reduced
tuition revenue, and declining subsidies from state governments. Has the legal academy’s focus on threats to
law schools left us slow to react to the even greater challenges to the rule of
law? What is being lost? Why
did it happen? What can law schools do about it?