Jos é Gabilondo College of Law, Florida International University

1. Legal Education At The Crossroads: A Values-Based Approach To Successfully Negotiating Sectoral Change José Gabilondo College of Law, Florida International University

2. Steps in Talk I. The State of Legal Education • Challenges facing higher education generally • Market-wide shifts in legal sector II. Discerning The Core Values of Legal Education • Analyze the different interests that a law school should serve • Consider trade-offs between competing values • Exploring the dean’s role [REDACTED]

3. I. The State of Legal Education

4. What is a University Anyway? The Traditional Answer Life of the Mind • Pursuit and transmission of understanding for its own sake. • Power to self-regulateacademic affairs as a professional community of teachers, students, and administrators. Social Function of University • Bastion of intellectual independence • Critical role in forming the individual, i.e., modern liberal subject with rights and duties • Countervailing force to other social institutions, e.g., state, market, media, industry, religion

5. Challenges to the Traditional View Are the Humanities the canary in the coal mine?

6. Changing Ideas About The State/Market Boundary • Move from Liberal Establishment (1933-1981) to Conservative Establishment (1982-2008?) • State legislatures renegotiate their social contract with universities; funding implications Academic capitalism • Maps university on to private sector business model • Responsibility Centered Budgeting: cost control/revenue growth • Students become customers; faculty become revenue/cost centers • Cf. Michael Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy Bringing Down the Ivory Tower: Intervention From External Constituencies • Content: Vocationalism; American Council of Trustees and Alumni • Process: Accountability movement: more explicit identification and measurement of learning outcomes; changing role of faculty

7. Interrogating Legal Education Prosecutors And Inquisitors • Media, e.g., David Segal’s NYT articles (2011), Above the Law • Students. e.g., Third Tier Reality, consumer class action suits • Faculty, e.g., Brian Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools • Lawyers, e.g., Stephen Harper, The Lawyer Bubble • Judges, e.g., John Robert’s jab at scholarship • ABA, e.g., report on legal education, standards review The Sins of The Legal Academy • Content: Outdated, rigid, and stagnant curriculum; too long; not linked to professional realities; assessment gap of outcomes • Leadership: sharp-elbowed practices; lack of candor with students • Cost: Too expensive; regressive/cannibalistic financial aid policies • Irrational/suspicious career choice: Shrinking number of legal jobs • Faculty: Idle hands; decadent sinecurists; too independent; squandered investment in esoteric scholarship; too academic

8. What’s Going On In The Profession? • Changes in the pricing and delivery of legal services • Changes in the Cravath model for law firms • Privatization of legal education

9. Changes in Pricing and Delivery of Legal Services • Morescrutiny about costs from corporate clients • Shift from relationship model to matter-based efficiency • Disaggregation of legal services: Legal Zoom; Nolo (Press); impact of technology • Globalization: new markets and competitors • Reliance on legal para-professionals

10. Changes in Cravath Model • AmLaw’s impact on partners’profit expectations • More leveraging of junior lawyers, less job security, less on-the-job training • New forms of associating with law firms

11. Privatization of Legal Education • Rise of for-profit law schools • Reduction of state support for public law schools • Awareness of tuition-dependence heightened by declining applicant pool; increased awareness of costs at all law schools • Increased hiring of non-academics – including members of private bar – as deans • Challenges to the ABA as accreditor, e.g., institutional pluralism • Attempted changes to ABA standards to weaken tenure

12. II. Discerning The Core Values of Legal Education

13. What Interests Should the Law School Serve? • Long-Run Professional Interests of Students • Corporate and Program Interests of the Law School • The Institutional Interests of the University • The Claims of External Constituencies

14. Long-Run Interests of Students High quality education • Mastery of substantive law and legal skills • Success in bar passage • Preparation for ethical and socialization challenges of the profession • Tools that allows the law graduate to reinvent herself in the face of uncertain future and changing job market Cost: As affordable as possible Personal meaning: Potential for personal transformation in the service of finding one’s way in life

15. Program Interests of the Law School To survive over the long-term To remain accredited by the ABA and a member of the AALS To maintain and improve the school’s academic reputation To ensure solvency and financial stability To act strategically in an increasingly competitive market To provide for its faculty, staff, administrators, and other in-house constituencies

16. Institutional Interests of the University To enhance its academic reputation through the law school To share in the law school’s tuition revenues To produce future lawyers identified with the University brand, e.g., state legislators on appropriations committees To enhance its interdisciplinary activities by drawing on relevant legal specialties, e.g., forensic studies, political science To benefit from an extended “in-house” legal department, i.e., University as a pro bono client

17. External Constituencies ABA 2014 Report on Legal Education • Correctly identifies the central tension in legal education: public value versus private value • But: does not pay enough attention to the public value issues External Beneficiaries and Stakeholders • Duties to the legal system, as a public good • Duties to local, national, and international bar • Duties to promote lawreform in the interests of justice and progress • Duties to future clients of graduates • Duties to the community generally

18. Potential Trade-Off #1 Student Interests v. Law School’s Corporate Interests Theater for Trade-Off • Costs and fees • School disclosure of potentially sensitive information • Employment outcomes • Section 509 data, e.g., financial aid and transfer rates • Governance, e.g., should students attend faculty meetings or participate on committees? • Related to part-time programs, e.g., staffing, access

19. Potential Trade-Off #2 University Interests v. Law School’s Corporate Interests Theater for Trade-Off • Financial - Tuition revenue - Overhead - Competition for donors • Administrative • Separate operations, e.g., Registrar • Academic calendar • Governance • Tenure and promotion procedures • Law school culture of insularity

20. Dean’s Internal Roles Nexus of Functions and Roles • Sees big picture; manages trade-offs and difficult decisions • Transcends binaries, e.g., academic v. professional school, faculty v. administrative, law school v. university, internal v. external, tradition v. innovation • Budget manager Quality Control Officer • Catalyst for strategic planning • Student learning and employment outcomes • Faculty quality and governance • Program structure Moral Compass/Moral Entrepreneur • Ethics and human relations norms • Internal focus - who we are to each other

21. Dean’s External Roles Communicator-in-Chief • Outward focus - what others think • Framing difficult issues, e.g., student debt, market downturns Strategic Outcomes • Accreditation • U.S. News rank Resource Mobilizer • Legislative or university appropriation • Revenue • Advancement Defender of the faith • Advocating for the law school • Affirming traditional faculty roles

22. Thank you.