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:
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)