Daniel Thies ’10 will have an article published in a forthcoming edition of the Journal of Legal Education. Though students regularly publish “notes” in law reviews and journals, it is more unusual for them to have articles published.
Entitled “Rethinking Legal Education in Hard Times: The Recession, Practical Legal Education and the New Job Market,” the article describes how the economic recession that began in December of 2007 has affected legal education in the United States. In his article, Thies traces how the recession is influencing the market for legal services and examines the difficulties that law schools have had in developing a curriculum with more emphasis on the practical skills that graduates will need in the newly-altered job market.
“The recession’s effects—rising tuition, scarce student loans, and a poor job market—are pushing legal education to the breaking point,” Thies writes. He suggests that, “[a]lthough law schools have long aimed to become a respected part of the university by producing academic scholarship, they now need to remember their initial place as professional schools whose chief goal is to produce graduates who can provide legal services.”
Thies’ article was written for Professor Dan Coquillette’s course, American Legal Education, offered last spring. Thies is also student member to the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Council, which is the section responsible for accrediting law schools. He submitted his article as background reading material for a bar council retreat last June on the effect of the recession on legal education. Thies is also deputy editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.