Guest blogger:
Nancy Sandoval, Class of 2014

 

As a law student, one of my greatest concerns is tailoring my education to be a valuable new associate. Employers are increasingly looking for recent graduates to be able to hit the ground running. This is why I am personally looking forward to the Chapman Law Review Symposium on February 1.

My 1L courses were predetermined, leaving only four semesters to make meaningful choices about which classes to take. Designing my schedule this year became a balancing act between “substantive” courses grounded in legal theory that would teach me the concepts I would need to know to practice law and pass the bar, and “practical” courses, that would give me the skills necessary to effectively convey the material I learned in my substantive courses.

Through a last-minute opportunity, I was spared this grueling decision-making process by enrolling in a full-time judicial externship my fall semester. A few times at the beginning of my externship, I often worried that I was somehow missing out because my learning was not taking place in an organized classroom setting. When I listened to my classmates’ debates over a particular rule of evidence, I would worry that there would not be enough time to learn all there was to know when I returned to campus. But then I realized that listening to motions in limine on a regular basis was a great primer for evidence and routinely checking subject matter jurisdiction for parties that filed with the court was a daily civil procedure review. Through my judicial externship, I was exposed to more areas of law than any class I could have enrolled in. Because of my judicial externship, organizing my thoughts in a “legal writing” format became second nature.

My experience last semester has made me question whether traditional classroom methods are the most effective for producing capable attorneys—and I am not the only one who is questioning this.

There is an on-going debate about the role of law schools in preparing students for the practice of law. In today’s economic climate, learning legal theory is not enough. Employers expect new associates to come with the practical skills necessary to assist the firm immediately. As a result of these market demands, law schools across the country—including Chapman—have begun adapting their curriculum and their approach to the teaching of law to meet these needs. Externships, clinics, and competition teams allow students to receive academic credit for invaluable real-world experience or practice.

The 2013 Chapman Law Review’s Symposium will assemble several panels of experts to weigh in on this debate. The Symposium will give Chapman Law students insight into employers’ needs and a guideline for structuring our education to meet those needs. You can get tickets here. Not only will this give students an edge this hiring season, but this event will provide ample networking opportunities.

The Symposium will be on Friday, February 1, 2013. The Symposium is entitled “The Future of Law, Business, and Legal Education: How to Prepare Students to Meet Corporate Needs.” It will discuss legal education reform, and how law schools can prepare students to be practice-ready to meet the specific needs of the business community and in-house counsel. Regardless of what career path you plan on taking, legal education reform is a topic that affects all of us. I am most looking forward to the third panel of the day, bearing the same title as the Symposium, in order to best plan my own legal education before registration comes around again.

The views expressed in the student blogs are those of the author and not the law school.