By Mary Kay Kane

(Editor?s Note: The following is the Presidential Address of Mary Kay Kane Before the House of Representatives at the 2001 Annual Meeting in January.)

It is both a thrilling and humbling experience to speak to you this evening and to begin my year as the AALS President. My excitement I am sure you can imagine. But as I reflect on some of the great Presidents in AALS history and, as I see the enormous talent and dedication of our many AALS faculty members who serve as leaders in the sections, on various AALS committees and task forces, and on the Executive Committee itself, I cannot help but wonder, ?Why me?? I am awed by the legacy of those before me as well as the task of making a meaningful contribution as your President in 2001. What I know, however, is that the success of the AALS rests on the collaborative efforts of the many extraordinary faculty volunteers and staff members who are the ones who really make things happen. Thus, one of the reasons why this year will be so rewarding for me is because of the opportunity it gives me to work with all of them?with all of you?and I am deeply grateful.

This year marks the first of the new century. It thus seems an appropriate time to stop and to take stock of just how far legal education and law schools have come in the past 100 years, as well as to reflect on the question of what legacy we want to leave for those in legal education when the 22nd Century unfolds. This opportunity for reflection is not an indulgence; it is a necessity. We live in a fast-paced world, with almost daily changes and challenges raised by technology and globalization. It is critical for us to take stock of where we are and where we want to be so that we can adapt to the changes around us in a way that preserves our core values, while enhancing and furthering our teaching, scholarship, and public service missions.

My three immediate predecessors as President of AALS, Deborah Rhode, Greg Williams, and Elliott Milstein, focused on the public service mission of law schools and law teachers during their terms. They have identified clearly for us the problems of achieving diversity in the profession, of sustaining a commitment to pro bono service as a necessary element of our profession, and of developing the means to assure access to the delivery of legal services and equal justice for all. Each has set in motion a program to begin a dialogue and to share ideas on these vital questions throughout the law-school world. Those challenges are clear; the work has already begun.

But the two other prongs of our professional responsibilities, teaching and scholarship, also require our disciplined attention. To take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the technological explosion and the globalization of the economy and the legal market we must reflect seriously on what we regard as essential to our teaching mission and what should be the key ingredients of good legal scholarship?what they have been in the past and what they should be in the future. Only with such considered review can we be in a position to decide how to respond to these changes.

The task of determining how to adapt or shape our teaching and scholarly missions in a changing world will not be an easy one. Inspiration for how much can be accomplished, however, can be taken from a brief look at the state of legal education at the turn of and in the early years of the 20th Century in contrast to where we are today. Consider the following.

(1) In 1901, law-school training as a prerequisite for entry to the profession was not required by any state; applicants for the bar could obtain their education either in school or in a law office.¹

(2) In 1900, there were 102 law schools dispersed across 33 of our then 46 states, with a total student population of 12,516, and with part-time law schools dominating by a three-to-one margin.² Indeed, from 1890-1910 there was an explosion of new law schools from 61 to 124, with the greatest growth found in night division schools, which expanded by 350%, from 10 to 45.³

(3) The law student population grew over 300% during the same period, from 4,518 in 1890 to an astonishing 19,567 in 1910, revealing a clear move away from the apprenticeship model to more formal training.⁴ Of interest is the fact that the move to law-school training was spurred in part by the development of the typewriter (the early twentieth century?s technological innovation), which allowed for the substitution of a stenographer for the longhand copyist in most law offices, destroying the demand for apprentices.⁵ Students generally could attend law school with only a high school education; no undergraduate degree was required. And, of course, there was no general entrance examination; an open admissions system typically prevailed.

(4) Although a 1907 Report notes that 93 of the then-existing law schools were affiliated with a University, the connection was described as only nominal.⁶ University law schools generally operated independently; indeed, they typically were required to be totally self-supporting.⁷

(5) As to the classroom, in the early 1900s there were ongoing debates about the content of legal education, with lectures and recitations vying with the case method as the preferred method of instruction.⁸ And there was no agreement on the place in the curriculum for courses focused on teaching skills, such as drafting pleadings and interviewing clients.⁹ Further, the then-growing prevalence of the Langdellian case-method of instruction¹⁰ allowed for large classes and large student/faculty ratios. As a point of interest, in 1895 Harvard had a student/faculty ratio of 40/1, which by 1925 had grown to 78/1, and in 1924 the AALS adopted standards providing that a school must have at least one full-time teacher per 100 students!¹¹

(6) Perhaps not unrelated to class size, at the turn of the last century, law faculty, even in Universities, typically were paid not by salary but by student fees. Indeed, it has been reported that the collections in law-school libraries of many schools often consisted of the books owned by the faculty members.¹²

(7) Finally, the law professoriate in those early years was drawn almost exclusively from the practicing bar and legal scholarship was not a job requirement for law professors.¹³ The predominant form of scholarship that did exist was found in treatises, often written by judges. Thus, it is safe to say that the target audiences for most legal scholars were the practicing bar and the courts.

In this connection, it is somewhat interesting to note that in a 1901 address, James Barr Ames, the Dean of the Harvard Law School, criticized the scholarship of the day, claiming that the rise in full-time law teachers would allow for the development of real scholars and a level of thoroughness and competence never before seen. As he noted, ? . . . as a class our treatises are distinctly poor. The explanation is to be found, I think, in the absence of a large professorial class. We now at last have such a class, and the opportunity for great achievements in legal authorship is most propitious.?¹⁴

It is against that background that the AALS was formed in 1900 with 30 charter member law schools, who came together with the object of improving legal education in America. And what improvements have occurred through the years! As one commentator described it, as higher standards for legal education were established in the early part of the 20th century, they hastened the development of professionalism in the bar itself.¹⁵

Although the preceding recitation is merely a snapshot of legal education a century ago, it underscores the incredible changes that have occurred, as well as the different set of challenges we face at the start of the 21st century.

As we all know, formal legal education and the graduate school model as a predicate for entry to the profession is the sine qua non of the modern American legal profession. Indeed, it is now being looked to by other countries, which are in the process of examining their own legal training systems. Further, although the law-school population has grown from the 19,567 students in 1910, to the more than 125,184 in 1999-2000, the number of law-school applicants still far exceeds the number of places available in law schools. Thus, law-school admissions remain very competitive, with high academic achievement in undergraduate schools, as well as performance on the LSAT, serving as important guideposts (or barriers) to law-school entry.

The professoriate and the relationship of law schools to the universities of which they are a part also have changed dramatically over the course of the last century. All law schools now benefit from the ongoing efforts of a full-time faculty, complemented by adjunct or part-time faculty offering various specialized or advanced classes. Many schools share joint-faculty appointments with other departments in their universities, reflecting a growth in the offerings in the law-school curriculum itself. Today?s full-time law faculty are expected to engage in scholarship and their credentials and training are such that interactions within their universities now are common. Indeed, faculty tenure is granted by the University, using standards generally applicable throughout the University.¹⁶

The curriculum and teaching in the 21st century law school also is dramatically different. Although the case-method still occupies a place of prominence, the development of clinical legal education in the past 30 years has added an entirely new and substantial dimension to the upper-class curriculum. Similarly, there has been a trend away from large lecture classes to small specialized courses. The result has been an explosion of seminar offerings, allowing the students to develop their writing skills and to explore topics in depth under the supervision of individual faculty members. Curricular expansion has extended to courses focusing on the intersection of law with the various social sciences and the distinct movement to apply the approaches of other disciplines, such as economics and anthropology and psychology, to the examination of legal problems. In numerous schools, concentrations in specialized fields are offered for those students who elect to follow them. In short, the curriculum of today is far richer in both content and style than that of the early 1900s.

So, having come so far what does the future hold? What do we want legal education of the 21st century to be remembered for?

Let me preface my remarks in that regard by first noting that in a provocative comment that appeared in 1982, Professors Konefsy & Schlegel criticized the then existing law-school histories for certain deficiencies. These included the failure to focus on any sense of the uniqueness of the development of the particular institution chronicled, of the social context in which the school operated over time, or of the internal faculty and student culture that would identify the school?s special character. In essence, they asked that historians provide more insight into the unique social dimensions of those educational institutions and they concluded by saying: ?Lawyers make up a large part of America?s elite, and we should know something about the training and shaping of that elite.?¹⁷

As we celebrated our entry into the new millennium this past year, the future of legal education was a topic addressed in several high profile events from circuit judicial conferences to the ABA?s meeting in London this past July. Leading members of the bench, bar, and academy offered interesting visions of what the next century might hold. Among the general observations made was that there will be increased diversification in the delivery of legal education by individual schools to better meet the demands of the marketplace?both the marketplace for students and the marketplace for lawyers. For example, it has been suggested that over the course of the next century we may see the development of some 2-year degree programs, and, moving to the opposite end of the spectrum, there also may be an increased focus on the development of more specialized training within existing three-year J.D. programs.¹⁸ Although participants necessarily offered different visions on the various aspects of legal training that may evolve, everyone ultimately seemed to agree that two things were driving much of the pressure for change: (1) the technological revolution we are witnessing, and (2) the increasing interconnectedness of the world flowing from globalization. Technological revolution and globalization are here to stay, and it is our obligation to carefully and analytically evaluate how these two forces can and should affect our teaching and our scholarship. In this way, we will be in a position to control how our legal education system ultimately evolves, rather than simply reacting to the forces about us.

To do this we need to engage in self-examination so that we can assess how we can bring the technological advances to bear most effectively in ways that enhance what we do in the classroom and in our research. It is not enough simply to say that we can use technology to perform our teaching and research tasks more efficiently or for wider audiences. Those possibilities certainly are real and exciting. The question, however, is how can these developments enhance what we do qualitatively? What elements of our instruction are such that personal or human interaction is an essential ingredient to the quality of the instruction given as contrasted with those elements that might benefit from being able to be delivered more remotely or through self-directed computer exercises? And once those elements are identified, what changes need to occur in the way in which we currently engage in our teaching to facilitate those technological opportunities. Similarly, we need to consider how scholarship may be produced more effectively and disseminated more broadly in a technological age. But we also need to consider how we are to evaluate the new forms of ?scholarship? that are certain to emerge.

Globalization trends require similar thoughtful analysis, both to determine how they may or should impact each of us internally in the way in which we develop our courses and train our students, as well as to consider how they may open up entirely new opportunities for scholarly exchange and shared knowledge. In short, we need to evaluate how the decision to look outward and take a more international approach to what we do both in our classrooms and our research may enhance our current efforts, as well as what we must do to accommodate those developments. The mini-workshop at the start of this meeting on ?Shifting Boundaries: Globalization and Its Discontents? is a great first step in that direction.

Please note, I am not suggesting that there should be an agreed-upon or single vision adopted with regard to either law- school teaching or legal scholarship. The gains of the last century on both fronts reflect a healthy broadening of what is entailed in obtaining a legal education and what it means to be a legal scholar. The fact that the legal academic profession is not monolithic is, to me, one of its greatest strengths. But the fact that we embrace in the classroom and in the legal literature so many styles and interests, with more competing for our attention in the future, suggests that now would be an opportune time to take stock and to evaluate what is at the core of those two functions and is likely to remain so and what may be susceptible to change or development as we adapt to the challenges ahead.

Thus, I believe that now is the time that conversations and thinking about these core values should begin in individual member schools. In that way, faculty members can help shape their school?s development and responses to these emerging technological and global opportunities and they can better mentor their junior faculty as to what is expected of them. More specifically, individual faculty members should engage in some personal reflection and exchanges to consider how we want to develop professionally in light of emerging opportunities. If we embark on such a serious and thoughtful review of our teaching and scholarly roles, we will be shaping our own history and, unlike Professors Konefsky and Schlegel, the historians who write of our times will have a rich resource to consider when they attempt to understand the forces and reflections of our generation in shaping the law schools of the 21st century.

To help start that process, I have entitled my AALS theme for this coming year ?Recommitting to Teaching and Scholarship? and I hope through the various activities of the AALS to spur thinking and exchanges on these matters both inside and outside the Association. Let me give you some idea of the kinds of activities that are being planned.

Specific plans in the teaching arena include an AALS Conference in June on New Ideas for Experienced Teachers. The Conference will build on the scholarship of teaching and learning that has emerged in recent years and participants will examine new theories, techniques, and structures that may help us to increase our ability to reach the students of today?s generation. Additionally, at next year?s Annual Meeting, the Professional Development Committee is sponsoring an all-day workshop entitled: ?Do You Know Where Your Students Are? Langdell Logs On to the 21st Century,? that will address the challenge of reaching the law student of today. Focusing on scholarship, instead of a single Plenary Session at the Annual Meeting, we will run concurrent sessions focused on various aspects or issues surrounding legal scholarship. These sessions will examine questions such as What Is Legal Scholarship Today and Why Is It; The Impact of Technology and Globalization on Scholarship; The Scholarship of Teaching?What Is Out There and Can It Be Effective?; and the Role of Scholarship and Scholars in Law Reform. These issues merely scratch the surface, but I also hope to encourage the various AALS Sections to use their meeting times and newsletters to begin their own dialogues about the teaching and research in their respective spheres. Finally, as part of the Self-Study which the AALS began this last summer, we are examining, among other things, how we can better help you succeed in achieving your teaching and scholarly objectives through our professional development activities. So we, too, are reflecting on these questions at the AALS institutional level and I hope to be able to report to you at year?s end that we have entered this new millennium with clear and carefully thought-through plans in hand.

As I said at the outset, the serious examination of our teaching and scholarly missions is a daunting task. But we all chose legal education as our professional path. We have the luxury of academic freedom and the joy of the classroom. We are blessed with the ability to pursue our ideas and research as we wish. The chance to spend some time thinking about what we do, why we do it, and how we can do it more effectively is an opportunity not to be missed. Thus, I hope that this year will spur a robust dialogue and encourage the kind of collegial debate and sharing of ideas among faculty that is the ideal of our learned profession.

Thank you.

* This article appeared in the February 2001 AALS Newsletter