CALI Spotlight

Ronald W. Staudt and Andrew P. Medeiros argue that law schools should add Access to Justice and Technology Clinics to their curricula. With “Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: A 4% solution,” Staudt and Medeiros detail Chicago-Kent’s Justice and Technology Practicum, and explain how such clinical courses teach students traditional legal competencies, emerging technical skills, as well as other essential lessons in 21st-century lawyering, while simultaneously building A2J Guided Interviews for use by self-represented litigants.

Ronald W. Staudt is Professor of Law at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and Director of the Center for Access to Justice & Technology. Staudt is a fellow, board member and president of the College of Law Practice Management. He has written numerous articles on incorporating law and technology, including “Access to Justice: Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants.” Andrew Medeiros is the Access to Justice Fellow at the Center for Access to Justice & Technology. He is also the vice-chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Law Practice Management & Technology committee.

Law practice is an increasingly technological profession, and it is incumbent upon law schools to provide practical guidance on how to serve modern clients. Moreover, despite the efficiency of modern information technology and an oversupply of new JDs, our legal system fails to meet the legal needs of ordinary people, particularly those of low or modest incomes. By teaching students to use and deploy technology to assist in law practice, law schools can better prepare their students for practice in the modern age, as well as assist in expanding access to the legal system. In this article, the authors present the theory behind using technology to increase access to justice, as well as a practical guide on how law schools can implement technology-centric clinical courses.

Abstract
“This article argues that law schools should add Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: a new type of clinical course that teaches law students how to use and deploy technology to assist law practice. If widely adopted, these clinics will help law students learn core competencies needed in an increasingly technological profession while simultaneously building tools and content to help low income, self-represented litigants overcome serious barriers in their pursuit of justice. In our prototype course at Chicago-Kent, Justice and Technology Practicum, students use A2J Author to build A2J Guided Interviews and in the process students learn legal research, writing and analysis, while also developing important skills such as project management and planning, collaboration, and empathy. In addition to teaching students how to use specific document assembly and automation tools, the course exposes students to an array of technology tools and skills, providing a better understanding of the transformative effect information technology has on the legal practice. Now through CALI’s Access to Justice Clinical Course Project, faculty at six other law schools are designing courses that will build on this experience to be shared with all CALI law schools.”

Staudt and Medeiros will expand on this article while presenting during the live, in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. For more information.

Throughout the next two weeks, as the live symposium approaches, the CALI Spotlight Blog will preview another symposium presentation each day:

• June 5, 2013: Marc Lauritsen, “Liberty, Justice, and Legal Automata”
• June 6, 2013: William E. Hornsby, Jr., “Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games”
• June 7, 2013: Conrad Johnson and Brian Donnelly, “If Only We Knew What We Know”
• June 8, 2013: Richard S. Granat and Stephanie Kimbro, “The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm”
• June 10, 2013: Oliver R. Goodenough, “Developing an e-Curriculum: Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise”
• June 11, 2013: Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck and Kevin Mulcahy, “Thinking Like a Lawyer, Designing Like an Architect: PReparing Students for the 21st Century Practice”
• June 12, 2013: Ronald W. Staudt and Andrew P. Medeiros, “Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: A 4% Solution”
• June 13, 2013: Hybrid Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Tanina Rostain & Roger Skalbeck, Technology, Innovation and Law Practice: An Experiential Seminar at Georgetown University Law Center
  • Judith Wegner, Becoming a Professional at UNC School of Law
  • Sunrise Ayers, A2J Clinic at Concordia University School of law

• June 14, 2013: Traditional Clinical Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Conrad Johnson, Mary Zulack & Brian Donnelly, Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at Columbia Law School
  • Joe Rosenberg, Main Street Legal Services, Elder Law Clinic at CUNY School of Law
  • JoNel Newman & Melissa Swain, Medical Legal Clinic at University of Miami School of Law

• June 15, 2013: Kevin D. Ashley, “Teaching Law and Digital Age Legal Practice with an AI and Law Seminar;” and Vern R. Walker et al, “Law Schools as Knowledge Centers in the Digital Age”

Professor Ashley and Professor Walker are unable to attend the in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, but their valuable contributions will be published with the printed edition of the Chicago-Kent Law Review that accompanies the live symposium.

Thinking like a lawyer, designing like an architect: preparing students for the 21st century practice

Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck, and Kevin G. Mulcahy suggest that building legal expert system apps furthers pedagogic goals associated with traditional law school curriculum and clinical teaching. In “Thinking Like a Lawyer, Designing Like an Architect: Preparing Students for the 21st Century Practice,” 88 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 743 (2013) (forthcoming) the authors present the rationale and design of courses in which students create such legal expert system apps. The authors argue that, by exposing students to principles of systems design, these courses prepare them for the emerging challenges of 21st century practice.

Tanina Rostain is Professor of Law and Research Director for the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center. Her scholarship focuses on legal ethics in the context of corporate and tax practice. Roger Skalbeck, Adjunct Professor and Associate Law Librarian at Georgetown University Law Center, specializes in technology management in law libraries. While Kevin G. Mulcahy is Director of Education for Neota Logic.

In designing legal expert systems apps, students engage in careful legal analysis and anticipate the problems and questions a typical user will have. Students also learn to communicate legal concepts in precise and plain language, which deepens students’ understanding of the concepts they communicate. The authors contend that the process of such app creation teaches essential skills of analysis and expression while generating technological skills that befit the modern lawyer.

Abstract
“Various law schools—Chicago-Kent Law School, New York Law School, Vermont Law School, and Georgetown Law Center among them—are beginning to offer innovative classes in which students learn to build legal expert systems intended to enhance access to the legal system. Working in platforms that do not require technical expertise, students are able to build apps that incorporate rules-based logic, factor balancing, and mathematical operations to implement the reasoning of a regulatory regime. In this essay, we suggest that teaching students to design apps furthers pedagogic goals associated with the traditional law school curriculum and clinical teaching. In designing legal expert systems, students are required to engage in careful legal analysis and anticipate the problems and questions a typical user will have. Students also need to learn to communicate legal concepts and categories in precise and plain language. Contrary to the traditional law school curriculum, however, which emphasizes case-by-case analysis, in clinics that focus on building legal expert systems, students learn to develop systemic solutions to legal problems. By exposing students to principle of systems design, these classes prepare them for the emerging challenges of 21st century practice.”

The authors will expand on this article while presenting during the live, in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. For more information.

Throughout the next two weeks, as the live symposium approaches, the CALI Spotlight Blog will preview another symposium presentation each day:

• June 5, 2013: Marc Lauritsen, “Liberty, Justice, and Legal Automata”
• June 6, 2013: William E. Hornsby, Jr., “Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games”
• June 7, 2013: Conrad Johnson and Brian Donnelly, “If Only We Knew What We Know”
• June 8, 2013: Richard S. Granat and Stephanie Kimbro, “The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm”
• June 10, 2013: Oliver R. Goodenough, “Developing an e-Curriculum: Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise”
• June 11, 2013: Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck and Kevin Mulcahy, “Thinking Like a Lawyer, Designing Like an Architect: PReparing Students for the 21st Century Practice”
• June 12, 2013: Ronald W. Staudt and Andrew P. Medeiros, “Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: A 4% Solution”
• June 13, 2013: Hybrid Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Tanina Rostain & Roger Skalbeck, Technology, Innovation and Law Practice: An Experiential Seminar at Georgetown University Law Center
  • Judith Wegner, Becoming a Professional at UNC School of Law
  • Sunrise Ayers, A2J Clinic at Concordia University School of law

• June 14, 2013: Traditional Clinical Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Conrad Johnson, Mary Zulack & Brian Donnelly, Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at Columbia Law School
  • Joe Rosenberg, Main Street Legal Services, Elder Law Clinic at CUNY School of Law
  • JoNel Newman & Melissa Swain, Medical Legal Clinic at University of Miami School of Law

• June 15, 2013: Kevin D. Ashley, “Teaching Law and Digital Age Legal Practice with an AI and Law Seminar;” and Vern R. Walker et al, “Law Schools as Knowledge Centers in the Digital Age”

Professor Ashley and Professor Walker are unable to attend the in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, but their valuable contributions will be published with the printed edition of the Chicago-Kent Law Review that accompanies the live symposium.

Oliver R. Goodenough recognizes that law schools can attract more students by adding to the value of traditional legal education. Simply put, as the market for legal services contracts, modern students desire to learn not only a set of policy, argumentation and analytic approaches to law, but also the knowledge and skills that a lawyer should have for an effective and rewarding career. In “Developing an E-Curriculum: Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise,” 88 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 845 (2013) (forthcoming), Goodenough proposes that legal educators get over the idea that law school is not a trade school and teach graduates the skills necessary to become effective lawyers. “If teaching our graduates how to be effective within the law’s critical work is teaching them a trade, then we should embrace the label, not shun it,” Goodenough explains.

Oliver R. Goodenough, Professor of Law at Vermont Law School and a Faculty Fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, is an expert in the impact of digital technology on law. He has focused on using the Internet to create digital business organizations and to provide improved legal support for innovation and entrepreneurship. In a recent visit to LegalTech New York with a group of students, Goodenough realized that the development of legal technology is not simply supporting legal work, but that this activity “is legal work.”

Law practice technology is now an established and massive industry. New lawyers can both look to e-Lawyering as an expanding job market, and expect modern information technology to be an important aspect of positions in all fields of law. While teaching students to “think like a lawyer” continues to be valuable, law schools in the 21st century should add to the value of the educations they offer if they hope to attract the best and brightest students. Goodenough explains that this can be done through a combination of substantive law courses that discuss relevant technology principles such as e-discovery or document assembly as well as specialty courses that develop specific legal technology skills.

Abstract
“Legal education is in the midst of significant change, where much of how and what we have taught is under scrutiny. As we reform our curriculums in this moment of change, we should be guided by considerations of value added, values added, economic sustainability. It is no longer enough for our programs to target bar passage, doctrinal coverage, a shared language of argument, and skills and perspectives, important as these may be. Practice in the foreseeable future requires us to add new knowledge and competencies. Law and technology is an area that is ripe for expansion, with the possibility of satisfying all of these criteria. It also provides ample room for scholarly examination. Creating opportunities for learning how technology is shaping legal practice should be a priority for any school looking to provide a useful education for the lawyers of the present, let alone the future.”

Goodenough will expand on this article while presenting during the live, in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. For more information.

Throughout the next two weeks, as the live symposium approaches, the CALI Spotlight Blog will preview another symposium presentation each day:

• June 5, 2013: Marc Lauritsen, “Liberty, Justice, and Legal Automata”
• June 6, 2013: William E. Hornsby, Jr., “Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games”
• June 7, 2013: Conrad Johnson and Brian Donnelly, “If Only We Knew What We Know”
• June 8, 2013: Richard S. Granat and Stephanie Kimbro, “The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm”
• June 10, 2013: Oliver R. Goodenough, “Developing an e-Curriculum: Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise”
• June 11, 2013: Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck and Kevin Mulcahy, “Thinking Like a Lawyer, Designing Like an Architect: PReparing Students for the 21st Century Practice”
• June 12, 2013: Ronald W. Staudt and Andrew P. Medeiros, “Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: A 4% Solution”
• June 13, 2013: Hybrid Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Tanina Rostain & Roger Skalbeck, Technology, Innovation and Law Practice: An Experiential Seminar at Georgetown University Law Center
  • Judith Wegner, Becoming a Professional at UNC School of Law
  • Sunrise Ayers, A2J Clinic at Concordia University School of law

• June 14, 2013: Traditional Clinical Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Conrad Johnson, Mary Zulack & Brian Donnelly, Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at Columbia Law School
  • Joe Rosenberg, Main Street Legal Services, Elder Law Clinic at CUNY School of Law
  • JoNel Newman & Melissa Swain, Medical Legal Clinic at University of Miami School of Law

• June 15, 2013: Kevin D. Ashley, “Teaching Law and Digital Age Legal Practice with an AI and Law Seminar;” and Vern R. Walker et al, “Law Schools as Knowledge Centers in the Digital Age”

Professor Ashley and Professor Walker are unable to attend the in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, but their valuable contributions will be published with the printed edition of the Chicago-Kent Law Review that accompanies the live symposium.

With “The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm” 88 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 757 (2013) (forthcoming), Richard S. Granat and Stephanie Kimbro analyze a deficiency in one area of traditional law school curricula and propose a solution to fix it. Because modern employers do not provide on-the-job training in law practice management, new lawyers enter the workforce without this critical knowledge. This article presents a survey of the law practice management skills required of the lawyers in the 21st Century and proposes new approaches to teaching this subject in law schools.

Richard S. Granat is Co-Chair of the eLawyering Task Force of the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association, the Founder and President of DirectLaw, Inc., a virtual law firm provider, and the Managing Partner of Granat Legal Services, P.L.L.C., a Maryland virtual law firm. Stephanie Kimbro is a member of Burton Law LLC and the recipient of the 2009 ABA Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering.

Staff management, financial management, office management, and marketing are all essential aspects of law practice. While law practitioners used to gain training in these critical fields from employment with traditional law firms, roles with such traditional firms are increasingly rare for new members of the bar. Additionally, the Internet and information technology are transforming the practice of law and the management of law firms. Granat and Kimbro propose that law schools can better prepare their students for the modern legal practice environment by providing training in law practice management and law practice technology.

Abstract
“The teaching of law practice management in law schools is becoming more critical for our profession. Employment with a traditional law firm used to provide the training and mentorship necessary to practice law. As a result of fewer employment prospects with traditional law firms, law students are now faced with the prospect of entering into law practice without this critical training and knowledge base soon after they become members of the bar.
Additionally, the Internet and information technology is transforming the practice of law and, as a result, the management of law firms is also being transformed. Lawyers must understand the benefits and risks of information technology in law practice in order to ethically and efficiently serve clients and to develop a productive legal career that allows them to compete in a changed legal marketplace. This article presents a survey of the practice management skills required of the 21st century lawyer and proposes new approaches to the teaching of this subject in law schools.”

Richard Granat will expand on this article during the live, in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. For more information.

Throughout the next two weeks, as the live symposium approaches, the CALI Spotlight Blog will preview another symposium presentation each day:

• June 5, 2013: Marc Lauritsen, “Liberty, Justice, and Legal Automata”
• June 6, 2013: William E. Hornsby, Jr., “Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games”
• June 7, 2013: Conrad Johnson and Brian Donnelly, “If Only We Knew What We Know”
• June 8, 2013: Richard S. Granat and Stephanie Kimbro, “The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm”
• June 10, 2013: Oliver R. Goodenough, “Developing an e-Curriculum: Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise”
• June 11, 2013: Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck and Kevin Mulcahy, “Thinking Like a Lawyer, Designing Like an Architect: PReparing Students for the 21st Century Practice”
• June 12, 2013: Ronald W. Staudt and Andrew P. Medeiros, “Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: A 4% Solution”
• June 13, 2013: Hybrid Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Tanina Rostain & Roger Skalbeck, Technology, Innovation and Law Practice: An Experiential Seminar at Georgetown University Law Center
  • Judith Wegner, Becoming a Professional at UNC School of Law
  • Sunrise Ayers, A2J Clinic at Concordia University School of law

• June 14, 2013: Traditional Clinical Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
  • Conrad Johnson, Mary Zulack & Brian Donnelly, Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at Columbia Law School
  • Joe Rosenberg, Main Street Legal Services, Elder Law Clinic at CUNY School of Law
  • JoNel Newman & Melissa Swain, Medical Legal Clinic at University of Miami School of Law

• June 15, 2013: Kevin D. Ashley, “Teaching Law and Digital Age Legal Practice with an AI and Law Seminar;” and Vern R. Walker et al, “Law Schools as Knowledge Centers in the Digital Age”

Professor Ashley and Professor Walker are unable to attend the in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, but their valuable contributions will be published with the printed edition of the Chicago-Kent Law Review that accompanies the live symposium.