INTRODUCTION

Legal practice requires credentialed expertise, hands-on skill in working with clients, and appreciation of the special responsibilities society grants to professionals. For the better part of the twentieth century, there has been an informal division of labor between law schools, which are in the business of credentialing knowledge, and first employers responsible for passing on the skills of day-to-day practice. Along the way, through both formal and informal channels, professionals are socialized to take seriously their special responsibilities to society.

Beginning in the 1960s, this informal division of labor between the tasks of credentialing, apprenticing, and developing professional identity began to shift as law schools played a more prominent role in passing on the skills of practice and teaching legal ethics. The demands for reform often came from stakeholders outside the legal academy, including elite leaders of the bar and, during the 1960s, students themselves. But, we argue, the basic assumptions of this informal architecture have remained in place; we have seen tinkering around the edges of legal education but relatively little fundamental change.

With the recent publication by the Carnegie Foundation of Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, there is yet again a call for reform. In many respects, the Carnegie Report draws similar conclusions to earlier reports that resulted in very little meaningful change in legal education.