A 2-2-2 Plan for College-Law Education

L EGAL education is at low ebb in these hazardous days of national emergency.In a war for self-preservation, it is natural that every effort be strained to attain the vitally needed objectives.If the war were the sole cause for the lapse in prestige, legal educators could mark time, patiently awaiting the return of their students and the resumption of their tasks as in former times.But there is more than mere suspicion that the present condition is only the most aggravated symptom of the inadequacy of legal education that has been keenly felt for more than a quarter of a century.If the reader agrees as to the existence of the more serious defects in legal education described below, he should consider the problems and the adoption of the proposed reforms here and now; for there is every indication that in the post-war world these problems and reforms will be even more urgent than they have been at any time in the past. PRELIMINARY QUESTIONSBefore one can fairly consider any important proposed change in legal education, it is necessary that certain preliminary issues be confronted squarely, and determined definitely.Most fundamental of these is the claim that legal education is seriously inadequate.This involves a consideration of the objectives of legal education and of the work being done by law school graduates.It involves, secondly, examination of what is perhaps the chief argument in support of recommendations for sharp revision of legal education, namely, that economic change has been so accelerated in recent years that lawyers are presented with basically new problems which they are ill-prepared to solve.Intertwined with the above are questions of more ultimate objectives and ideals.If these are envisioned in terms of service rather than in terms of personal emolument or other terms that refer solely to the practitioner, thenthough these may not be mutually exclusive since remuneration should bear a rational relationship to service-the [Vol.56