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Event Recap

On Wednesday, February 19th, the Boisi Center had the honor of hosting Vincent Rougeau, dean of Boston College Law School, for a lunch colloquium entitled 鈥淓volution and Innovation in Legal Education.鈥澛�

In the past decade, the conversations surrounding legal education have addressed the successes and failures of the merits of going to Law school. Rougeau begins his presentation by providing the audience with a historical overview of legal education in the United States since World War II. After the Second World War, higher education was perceived as the 鈥済reat equalizer鈥�--pulling many Americans into the middle class. However, this rapidly changed with the advent of the 2008 global financial crisis. From 2010-2015 there was a precipitous decline in law school enrollment. Since then, enrollment has leveled off but has not reached its previous highs. 聽

Why did law school enrollment drop so suddenly? A change in attitudes towards legal education. For decades, legal education did not change--it stayed relatively the same. This was because the original purpose of law school is to introduce students to a particular way of thinking. As a consequence of this method of teaching, many law schools did not teach technical skills or basic training for the legal professions. At the time, it was law firms--or more accurately, their clients--that incurred the costs of training the new graduates. After 2008, clients refused to absorb the costs of training lawyers which resulted in firms hiring fewer graduates and increased job insecurity. Moreover, firms began to expect graduates to enter the job market with more skills and requiring little-to-no on the job training. Ultimately, with less job security and increased student loan debt, many began to question the benefits of going to law school.聽

Although law schools have faced plenty of criticism in the past decades for the aforementioned reasons, many law schools have remained true to their mission while also making some important changes. At Boston College Law School, the main purpose of law school--to learn to think like a lawyer--has not been diminished or changed. However, administrators have responded to many student criticisms. One such example is focusing on thinking like a lawyer for the first year and the second and third focusing on practical skills and how the legal profession fits into today鈥檚 economy. Lastly, BC Law offers support for navigating the job process.聽

The Q&A session that followed included questions that ranged from the impact of globalization on the legal profession to the tensions in the relationships between law schools and firms, to the merits of working in public or private law. The luncheon concluded with a discussion on responses to mental health and addiction concerns that plague law schools and the legal profession.