Most Supreme Court employees sat in a lower court, often for a year with a highly selective federal judge (such as Justice Alex Kozinski, Michael Luttig, J. Harvie Wilkinson, David Tatel, Richard Posner) known as a „nurturing judge.” This is perhaps the most selective and prestigious position a recently graduated lawyer can have, and Supreme Court employees are often in high demand by law firms, government, and law schools. Law firms give Supreme Court employees a bonus of up to $400,000 for signing with their firm. The vast majority of Supreme Court employees become academics in elite law schools, enter private practice as appellate counsel, or hold highly selective government positions. Modern legal education is no longer based on teaching. Instead, it involves teaching law as a science and practical skill through clinical training, advocacy, and critical thinking. Law schools across the country have mandatory programs to ensure their graduates have a solid understanding of the legal system so that they can participate effectively in this area. Over the centuries, legal education has evolved and continues to change as people debate what should be taught, what is important, and how long law school should last. When did law schools become an integral part of the education of America`s elite? The predominance of the professional philosophy of law is due in large part to the formalization of legal education over the past two hundred years; the addition of rules and regulations for teaching and learning, the creation of admission requirements, examinations, grades, characteristics of graduates, university procedures, etc. The large number of these systems has entrenched existing educational methods and paralysed the reform of legal education. The more formal the program became, the more rigid it became, and the more immune it became to experimentation and innovation. The early experimental nature of early law schools and even earlier apprenticeship training were quickly lost over time due to the consolidation of accreditation methods, the creation of core units of study and mandatory disciplinary requirements, and finally the predominance of the case teaching method. In the 1990s, legal professional education and training was anchored in most law schools by a number of admission requirements.
The requirements included the specification of several subjects that were to be taught. Beginning in Ontario in 1957, the Law Society of Upper Canada prescribed „eleven compulsory subjects” for law students. [263] This number was reduced from „eleven to seven” in 1969 following a petition by several deans of justice. [264] In 1992, the Australian Law Admissions Consultative Committee (LACC) established a list of eleven compulsory subjects („The Priestley Eleven”). [265] In 1999, the Law Society of the United Kingdom and the General Council of the Bar established a list of seven compulsory subjects. [266] No compulsory subjects were created in the United States, but law schools were required to teach „substantive and procedural law.” [267] Jurists encountered resistance in colonial America because of their hierarchical role in English history. Hostility began to dissipate after the War of Independence and governments began to work more with English-educated lawyers. As a result, legal education was very different from English legal doctrine because it eliminated the stigma that only the elite could study law.
Other degrees awarded include the Master of Laws (LL.M.) and Doctor of Juridical Sciences (J.S.D. or S.J.D.) Degrees that can be more international. Most law schools are colleges, schools or other units within a larger post-secondary institution, such as a university. Legal education in the United States is very different from that in many other parts of the world. Some academically oriented lawyers sensed an opportunity and „converted their offices into law schools,” Flahive writes. The first of these was Tapping Reeve, a former Princeton lecturer who founded Litchfield Law School in his home office. Litchfield`s alumni founded rival schools, including the forerunners of Yale Law School, Cincinnati Law School, and George Washington University Law School. Litchfield also served as a model for Harvard Law School. In colonial America, as in Britain, there were no law schools until Litchfield Law School was founded in 1773 by future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, Tapping Reeve.
However, Reeve, who himself read for law, did not introduce an aptitude test for law students (LSAT). The new states began very early with the transition of imported members from inns from England. Law schools have been around for centuries and have become the colleges we know today. The first university, the University of Bologna, was founded in Europe in the 11th century and focused solely on teaching law. It is said that the first title of doctor was applied to those who completed their law degree. Thomas S. Swan, dean of Yale Law School during this turbulent period, took a slightly more conservative approach than many of his dissident faculties. [137] He argued that the case analysis method was essential as a basis for understanding the law, but he also agreed with Pound, Hohfeld and Corbin that law schools „. contribute to the improvement of the law through scientific and analytical studies”.
[138] According to Swan, students should be empowered to criticize the law in its current form and „propose improvements. by associating laws with other institutions of human society.” [139] This may have been a more scholarly way of adapting a legal education in the humanities. By studying the laws in their current form, and then comparing those laws to „other institutions,” Yale students could conclude whether the current laws „correspond” to the society for which they were intended. It was this broader vision of legal education that Swan embraced and expanded Yale Law School beyond mere professional training. California is also the first state to allow distance legal education graduates (online and correspondence) to take their bar exam. However, online and distance law schools are generally not accredited by the ABA or state bar examiners, and their graduates` eligibility to take the bar exam may vary from state to state.