Law profs applaud, and pan, ABA's delay of hands-on learning requirement

By Karen Sloan

Aug 25 (Reuters) - Some U.S. law professors said they were discouraged on Monday after a nationwide plan to require more hands-on training for law students stalled before the American Bar Association, while others said the ABA was right to delay a vote on the requirement amid widespread opposition.

The plan would double the number of required hands-on learning credits for law students in the United States. The proposal was withdrawn shortly before a meeting of the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar on Friday, when it was slated to discuss the proposal.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said Gautam Hans, a clinical professor at Cornell Law School and a proponent of doubling the experiential requirements. “The level of opposition was so vocal — and in some cases, extreme — that I suspect the ABA, beleaguered in this moment, felt it had to take a pause.”

Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller, who has opposed the plan in public comments to the ABA and on his blog Excess of Democracy, welcomed its pause.

“Anything that delays this costly proposal is a positive development,” Muller said.

The proposal, which would increase the so-called experiential requirement at ABA accredited law schools from 6 to 12 credits of clinics, externships or simulation courses that aim to recreate real legal work, has proven divisive since it was introduced in May.

Clinical legal professors and externship supervisors have largely backed the change, as have some attorneys and members of the public, saying it’s necessary to produce practice-ready new attorneys.

Opponents — including many deans of ABA accredited law schools — have said the higher experiential credit requirement would be too costly and claimed the ABA failed to establish that it would benefit students.

Last week researchers including University of Chicago law dean Adam Chilton published a study of experiential legal education before and after the ABA adopted the current six-credit requirement in 2014. They concluded that bar passage and employment outcomes for students did not improve, but also that the requirements did not drive tuition increases.

Surveys of newly-licensed lawyers consistently show that more hands-on learning is needed, said Robert Kuehn, a clinical professor at University of Washington in St. Louis.

“Hopefully, the council will promptly regroup and focus again on what's best for preparing students for the practice of law,” he said.

University of Oklahoma law professor Carla Pratt, who chairs the ABA committee that developed the proposal to boost experiential requirements, said it will continue to work on the plan.

“We will be back to the council with a recommendation at some point,” Pratt said at Friday's meeting.

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