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Schedule Registration Housing |
| Friday, January 7, 2000 4:00-5:45 p.m. |
Marriott Ballroom Salon I
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Lobby Level |
|
Joint Program of Sections on Graduate Programs for
Foreign Lawyers and Post-Graduate Legal Education |
|
| Charles Davis Cramton, Cornell Law School, and Chair, Section on Graduate Programs for Foreign Lawyers | |
| Nicholas A. Robinson, Pace University, and Chair and Program Chair, Section on Post-Graduate Legal Education |
| The Quest for Consensus on LL.M. Standards |
| Moderator: | |
| Nicholas A. Robinson, Pace University | |
| Speaker: | |
| Dr. Philip G. Altbach, J. Donald Monan S.J. Professor of Higher Education, and Director, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts | |
| Commentators: | |
| David S. Cohen, Pace University
Michael I. Jeffery, Q.C., Professor of Law and Head, Division of Law, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Mark A. Rothstein, University of Houston |
| The proliferation of new Masters of Laws degrees in recent years poses challenges for law schools. Over 217 post-J.D. degrees are now approved, with more coming (see the current inventory at www.abanet.org/legaled/postjd.html). Does the expansion of these degrees contribute to the expansion of specialized knowledge? How do these specialized endeavors in legal education relate to the social, political and economic challenges confronting the Academy as the new Millennium opens? Do they betoken a greater demand for special advanced training in the legal profession, or are many being promoted to take up the "slack" in the fewer numbers of individuals applying for the Juris Doctor programs? Why are there no agreed minimum standards for the content of the LL.M. degree? |
| To set the stage for a discussion of these issues, Dr. Altbach (author and editor of American Higher Education in the 21st Century, John Hopkins University Press, 1999), will survey patterns in higher education in North America and abroad. Commentary on this presentation will review the trends in higher legal education in Australia and in Canada, and pose questions that U.S. law schools may wish to address if these new endeavors in post-graduate legal education would come to agree upon a convention for what the post-J.D. degrees should represent. |
| Business Meeting of Section on Post-Graduate Legal Education at Program Conclusion |