Why Lawyers Need a 21st Century Legal Education
For over 120 years, every lawyer in the United States received the same, basic legal education. Foundational classes in Contracts, Real Property, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Civil Procedure are the underpinning of the first-year curriculum. Law students then spend the rest of their law school days learning any number of legal subjects, all taught by Socratic method.
Most of these classes are impractical studies of appellate court opinions that leave students trying to discern what the law is but never teaching them how to practice law. The stated goal of the type of legal education is to teach the students how to think like a lawyer.
What is missing from this curriculum? Law schools don’t offer classes in how to be a lawyer. Classes covering subjects like practice management, the business of the law firm, legal technology, and many other practical subjects that teach lawyers how to practice law aren’t widely available in the regular law school curriculum.
Traditionally, lawyers learn how to practice law from other lawyers. Like the traditional law school curriculum, the traditional business model for the modern law firm is also 120 years old. This business model has been passed down and copied through the decades and is now the de facto way to practice law.
Unfortunately, the traditional business model is reaching the end of its useful life and lawyers don’t even know they need to adapt it for work in the 21st century. Lawyers are traditionally slow to change. They are victims of their own success. Past success is the only proof lawyers need to continue working the same way they’ve always worked.
Unfortunately, the market forces that are changing other industries have not left law alone. They are infiltrating law and the current law firm business model is starting to show signs of stress under the pressure. What are these market forces?
- The More-for-Less Challenge
- Increased competition from outside the legal industry
- Increased use of technological solutions over lawyer solutions
- Reregulation of the US legal profession
- The Access-to-Justice Crisis
Law firms aren’t adapting fast enough to keep up with these challenges. If law firms want to be a successful today and into the future, it’s time to redefine how the firm does business and learn new skills to be successful practitioners in 2022.
In short, if lawyers are going to meet 21st century legal challenges, they need to become 21st century lawyers. Who are 21st Century Lawyers?
First and foremost, 21st century lawyers think differently. They understand that just because lawyers practice law a particular way doesn’t mean it is the only way to practice law. They are open to alternatives. They embrace change as a natural part of life. They don’t let the fear of failure stop them from trying something new. Rather than retreat to the familiar safety of the past, they embrace an everchanging future.
21st century lawyers are businesspeople who run real businesses rather than “law practices”. By adapting long standing business systems and processes to law practice, 21st century lawyers attack business challenges head on in unique ways allowing them to better compete in the new 21st century legal marketplace.
Because they embrace their inner businessperson, 21st century lawyers don’t practice law like their 20th century counterparts. They work differently to meet their clients’ legal needs in ways that are beneficial to both the law firm and the client.
21st century lawyers use technology. They see technology as a tool to improve their practice and their clients’ lives. They understand that the pace of technological change is fast and they need to keep up. The next generation of lawyers are “digital-natives”. They don’t know a life before technology. Because technology is ever-present in their lives, they will look to it for solutions to the legal industry’s current problems.
21st Century lawyers know they can learn how to build better law firms.
That’s why Suffolk University Law School created the 21st Century Legal Services Online Course, as part of their Legal Innovation and Technology Certificate Program. This program is designed to challenge the entrenched beliefs that influence how lawyers practice law today and introduces the ideas and trends that are shaping the way lawyers will practice law well into the 21st century.
The semester begins with a deep look at how lawyers practiced law for much of the 20th century leading to an exploration into the current state of the business of law today. We take a deep dive into the law firm business model exploring how the prevailing law firm partnership model prevents the very changes lawyers need to make to be successful in the 21st century.
We then discuss the internal and external forces that are contributing to an industry-wide shift from a “professional” model to a “business” law firm model. These forces include regulation, technology, alternative legal services providers, and the access to justice gap.
Lastly, the class delves into the many potential future realities facing the legal industry, and the various pressures, challenges, and opportunities leading to innovation across the legal profession.