ABA's plan to double hands-on credits for law students is rife with flaws, deans say

By Karen Sloan

July 2 (Reuters) - An American Bar Association proposal to double the hands-on coursework credits for law students is facing sharp criticism from some legal educators as being too costly, too constraining, and an overreach in controlling curriculum.

Under the proposed change to the ABA’s law school accreditation standards, the number of credits for hands-on classes, known as experiential learning, that students must take would increase to 12 from the current six. Students would need to earn at least three of those credits in a clinic or a field placement.

In public comments to the ABA, opponents called the proposal "poorly timed," "burdensome," and said it would "stifle curricular innovation." Some commenters asked the ABA to reconsider excluding first-year courses from counting toward the 12-credit minimum. Others asked for a longer implementation than 2030, as the current plan calls for.

Supporters, including the Clinical Legal Education Association and the Society of American Law Teachers, wrote in public comments that the change is needed to better prepare students for practicing law and to align the curriculum more closely with other professions that require some element of supervised practice. They also disputed claims that the proposal would raise costs significantly.

But supporters were outnumbered by opponents who warned that the proposal would have unintended negative consequences. Of the 37 public comments the ABA received, 21 opposed the plan or requested a delay, while 12 were in support. Several other commenters took issue with one or more aspects of the proposal but did not oppose it outright.

ABA Managing Director Jennifer Rosato Perea declined to comment on the negative public feedback. The proposal could come up for a vote as early as August.

Deans at more than a quarter of all ABA-accredited law schools — 52 — submitted a comment asking the ABA to delay the proposal and take a more incremental approach to increasing experiential credit requirements, citing upheaval in higher education due to federal funding cuts, uncertainty over international student visas brought on by the Trump administration, and other financial constraints.

“Imposing these changes at a moment of unprecedented change for both higher education and the legal profession, however, is counterproductive at best and may be self-destructive to our shared goal of delivering high quality education and expanding experiential opportunities,” read their letter, whose signatories include the law deans at Yale, Stanford, and New York University.

Reductions in the federal workforce have cut down on externship opportunities for law students, the deans wrote, while federal funding cuts to nonprofits have also reduced their capacity to host externs. The deans also requested further study on the benefits of experiential coursework.

In a separate letter, former Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor wrote that his school would need to add eight new clinics over the next three years or offer 17 new externship seminars to meet the proposal’s requirements, even though nearly two-thirds of its recent graduates already met the proposal’s 12-credit minimum.

Commenters also noted that doubling the required hands-on learning credits would be especially onerous for part-time students, who often work during the day and take their law school classes in the evenings.

Read more:

ABA plan to boost law students' hands-on experience spurs criticism about accreditor overreach

ABA eyes increasing hands-on learning requirement for law schools