Copyright 2007 Law Bulletin Publishing Company

January 5, 2007 Friday

SECTION: Pg. 10003
LENGTH: 890 words
HEADLINE:Harvard curriculum changes nothing new
BYLINE: JERRY CRIMMINS
BODY:
The reformed first-year curriculum at HarvardLawSchool is in some ways a catch-up to changes other law schools have been introducing for years, according to several leaders of Illinois law schools.
Yet those reforms are significant as a recognition that American law and a lawyer's work have changed since Harvard pioneered the traditional law curriculum in the 19th Century.
Interviewed at the start of the new year about new themes in what law schools teach were:
Dean David N. Yellen of Loyola University Chicago School of Law; Dean Harold J. Krent of Chicago-Kent College of Law; Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Ralph Brubaker at the University of Illinois College of Law; and Dean David E. Van Zandt of Northwestern University School of Law.
Last fall, Harvard announced "the most dramatic changes in the first-year subjects" -- in the words of the Harvard Crimson -- since Christopher Columbus Langdell introduced the modern legal curriculum as dean of Harvard Law from 1870 to 1895.
Harvard says it will add for first-year students a required course on legislation and regulation; another required course on international law (students can pick one of three versions); and four required hours from January through May on problem-solving and legal theory.
To create time for the new, Harvard will trim each of the traditional first-year courses: contracts, torts, civil procedure, criminal law and property from five hours to four hours.
The reforms' chief architect, Harvard Professor Martha L. Minow, said "regulations and statutes play an equal or more important role in the creation and elaboration of law as do court decisions."
Moreover, transactions are increasingly global, she said, and changes in the economy, technology and culture force lawyers to become problem solvers.
As background, Yellen of Loyola explained that the traditional curriculum has been "largely, if not exclusively ... appellate case law."
"It was Harvard that started it," Yellen said, and the idea was that "the best way to learn to analyze law and `think like a lawyer' was to read and Socratically discuss appellate decisions."
While each of Harvard's reforms is something a number of other law schools have done, Yellen said, the Harvard move is important because of its leadership in the traditional curriculum and because the Harvard Law faculty approved the reforms unanimously.
Krent of Chicago-Kent observed that "for years, our graduates have dealt with the statutory world more than they deal with the world of common law, torts and contracts and to some extent property."
"They need to interpret bankruptcy statutes, tax statutes, and understand the role of administrative agencies and the regulatory world."
So Krent said Chicago-Kent introduced a mandatory course on legislation for first-year students a year ago, "much like the one Harvard did after us."
The flip side of the Harvard reforms, i.e. cutting the time devoted to contracts, torts, civil procedure, criminal law and property, "might seem like a very drastic change," noted the U of I's Brubaker, but really, Brubaker added, that Harvard still devoted five hours to each of those subjects was "somewhat unusual."
For at least 15 years, "there's been a general trend to decrease the number of hours devoted in first year to the core, common-law courses," he said.
"The boldest aspect of the Harvard reforms," Brubaker said, is to require the study of international law in the first year.
He said most law schools, including U of I Law, offer a wide array of international-law courses in the second and third years. These are often offered as electives.
Van Zandt of Northwestern agreed that trimming the hours devoted to the common-law courses matches what N.U. and others have done.
Van Zandt added that Northwestern already introduced a required seminar called "Lawyer as Problem Solver" for first-year students, which is probably similar to Harvard's new Problems and Theories. But N.U. introduced this five years ago.
Regarding Harvard's new required, first-year course in international law, Van Zandt said, "I think globalization is very important, but I'm not sure that taking something called `international law' does it."
The Northwestern approach to globalization, he said, is to give students international experience partly by course work and partly by having students travel abroad to do research on specific, foreign legal systems and cultures.
"I think the bigger challenge facing all of us," said Yellen of Loyola, "is to improve the second and third year of legal education, and that's a lot harder to do."
StanfordLawSchool in late November announced a plan to reform second- and third-year curricula.
"If we were really serious," Yellen said, "we would completely remake the second and third years of law school" to be more like what business and medical schools do.
That, he said, would mean "multiple clinical experiences" and problem-solving work for every student.
This would be very difficult in part because it would be very expensive, Yellen added.
"Curriculum change is one of the most difficult things to accomplish in law school," said Krent of Chicago-Kent, because professors "have vested interests in the courses they've taught over time."
Even with widespread reforms, Krent said "the curricula in law schools today is remarkably similar to the way it was 75 years ago."
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