U.S. Legal Education The Future of Legal Education Prof. Cunningham By: Diana Grant

1870 Modern legal education begins in Harvard, under Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell’s model emphasizing a more academic, less apprenticeship-based approach. Langdell believed that legal education should be based on scientific, testable principles,and invented the “case method” of legal instruction—where cases were assigned and the students were required to figure out the guiding principles. The students took part in Socratic exchanges with the professors, ideally until they understood the “true” rule of the case. This method was meant to sharpen analytical skills and advocacy skills. Langdell also started the movement of hiring men to teach the law who were not themselves lawyers, as well as requiring 3 full years of instruction and an undergraduate college degree.

1870 Continued Not incidentally, five years after the end of the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed, including the following: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Starting in the 1870’s, about 100 years after the American Revolution, bar associations began to be formed around the nation. The legal profession had come under much criticism, and the methods of preparing attorneys were disparate and the subject of much disagreement among scholars and practitioners.

New Hampshire Bar founded Iowa and District of Columbia Bars founded Connecticut Bar founded New York Bar founded Illinois Bar founded American Bar Association was founded, as well as the Alabama, Nebraska, New Jersey, Vermont and Wisconsin Bars Missouri and Ohio Bars founded--Only 552 of the more than 64,000 lawyers in America were members of the ABA

1881 The ABA passed a resolution recommending a 3 year law school curriculum and that states requiring apprenticeships give bar applicants credit toward the required apprenticeship hours. The bar leaders advocated uniformity in legal education for better quality control of bar entrants, thus creating an alliance between the bar associations and the law schools. The ABA even created a separate section to focus on legal education and bar admissions.

1887 Thomas Goode Jones created the Alabama Code of Ethics, building on earlier such codes by adding a Bar policing mechanism. Although Jones was not himself a lawyer, as an Alabama State Representative, he was dismayed with the unscrupulous behavior of some members of the Alabama Bar.

1890 About 4500 students are enrolled in 61 American law schools.