“We need to immerse students in a practical learning environment that helps prepare them for the world of law practice.” – M. Schizer, Dean Columbia Law School.
Forbes magazine sat down with Columbia Law School Dean David M. Schizer to discuss the school’s response to changes in the legal environment over the last ten years. Mr Schizer will step down next month and return to fulltime law teaching at Columbia Law School. What stroke me in this interview is the absence of what should be the defining activity of a Law School: facilitating learning processes.
Instead of showing off on learning, Mr Schizer touches mostly on the challenges provided by the financial crises and its aftermath: student’s job placement and reduced school endowments and low number of applicant students. Ok, he does mention an expansion of topics taught in response to market demands. But the word “learning”. as the ultimate goal activity, is only mentioned once as quoted above.
Did nothing happen during Mr Shizer’s tenure in progressing learning processes. On the contrary, huge advancements were made:
On a practice level:
- Improvements over Langdell’s case methodology
- advances in collaborative/social learning
- integration learning and information management
- innovations in ICT- based learning technologies
- MOOC’s.
But also on a conceptual level learning and teaching developed:
- shift of the responsibility for learning from teacher to learners
- development of customized and individualized learning
- integration of transfer technologies ensuring learning in the learning space is practiced in the workplace.
These are just a few of the (r)evolutionary changes in learning of topics with complexity levels like found in law. But that is exactly where it hurts. Many of these teaching innovations have been picked up in sectors teachwise similar to the legal sector, for example the medical sector. But the legal sector itself lags woefully behind in adopting innovative teaching processes. In law school it is still content knowhow that trumps other teaching requirements.
In my view improved teaching processes would significantly reduce the law schools’ philanthropic worries, plummeting enrollment and the job placement challenges. Institutions, people and future employers would be beating a path to the law schools door again. Because a school that provides great schooling is worth investing in. Such law schools provide the highest rate of return in financial terms and professional satisfaction.
Schooling is not only about legal content but also about teaching processes. These are both indispensable ingredients to a law school’s success. Let’s hope Mr Schizer’s successor Ms. Gillian Lester (currently dean at Berkeley Law School) acknowledges the relevance of the contribution of teaching processe to Columbia Law School’s success.