Criticism
Law school normally consists of only a classroom setting, unlike training in other professions. (For example, medical school in the United States is traditionally two years of class environment and two years of "rotations", or an apprenticeship-type hands-on experience.) Although some countries, e.g. Germany and France, require apprenticeship with a practicing attorney, this is not required in any United States jurisdiction. Because of this, many law students graduate with a grasp of the legal doctrines necessary to pass the bar exam, but with no actual hands-on experience or knowledge of the day-to-day practice of law. The American Bar Association called for American law schools to move towards a practice-based approach in the MacCrate Report.
Many law schools have started to supplement classroom education with practical experience. Externship programs allow students to receive academic credit for unpaid work with a judge, government agency, or community legal services office. Several law schools also have law clinic programs in which students counsel actual clients under the supervision of a professor. City University of New York School of Law and Florida Coastal School of Law are some of the few law schools that require student participation in law clinic courses. Similarly, Northeastern University School of Law utilizes cooperative education to give its students law office work experience prior to graduation from law school. Washington and Lee University School of Law has recently completely re-vamped their curriculum to require students to take practicum courses, externships, and clinics in their final year of law school in order to provide practical experience in preparation for practice.
Read more about this topic: Legal Education In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)