Law schools can do a better job of fulfilling their missions by more fully preparing their graduates for actual practice. I propose that all law schools offer a state practice elective. At the outset, it need not be either a clinical or skills course. Even if it were a doctrinal course in state practice, one could not completely eliminate it from the "how to practice" category. As this presentation will observe, there are a number of ways to add skills components to a doctrinal course. The proposed course should be taught, ultimately, by incorporating active learning modules to enhance the skills arsenal our students will need for practice.

       This proposal draws upon the skills orientation of the clinical model, but does not disavow the normative value of the casebook tradition. Most schools could do more to facilitate a joint enterprise between classroom and courtroom. A doctrine-based course could serve as a substitute, or could augment, the practical but labor-intensive skills training offered by clinics.

       The various post-law school gap-fillers fall into the "half a loaf is better than none" category. One reason is that-especially where there are high starting salaries-law firms now require more productivity, more quickly, and from fewer associates. As graduates face the prospect of a declining job market for lawyers, they will need to hone their practice skills at an early stage in their development to be competitive.

       Law schools rely on the assumption that a case-based curriculum teaches students to think like a lawyer. This self-evident truth is the talismanic justification for legal education's yin and yang: "thinking like a lawyer" and "learning the substantive law." But these do not serve as adequate substitutes for a more tailored mission, which should be driven by evolving outcome assessments.

       We allow the bar exam tail to wag the curriculum dog. The Multistate Performance Test, for example, is now required by twenty-six states. Unlike traditional bar essays and multiple choice questions, a PT is designed to do something that law schools do not: "gauge the competence of bar applicants to perform the skills-oriented tasks that are required of practicing lawyers."

       We "doctrinal" faculty have not been particularly hospitable to skills "faculty." Beginning in the 1980s, clinicians were the champions of a brave new world: one where teaching practice skills would become a prevalent part of the law school curriculum.

       It will likely surprise a number of readers that preparation for practice, as an accreditation standard, was adopted a decade ago. We legal educators have not yet collectively focused on this requirement.

       No part of this presentation advocates the wholesale substitution of skills courses for the sound doctrinal core of the curriculum. Instead, my recommendation-that more law schools offer a state practice elective-envisions a doctrinal engine into which teachers can pour skills propellants as they see fit.