"Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers" Will Change How Law Students Are Trained

DENVER, Aug. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) at the University of Denver today launches a unique, national initiative to change the way law schools educate students. "Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers" provides a platform to encourage law schools in the U.S. to showcase innovative teaching to produce more practice-ready lawyers who can better meet the needs of an evolving profession.

Rebecca Love Kourlis is the Executive Director of IAALS and a former Colorado Supreme Court justice.

"Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers leverages the Carnegie Model of learning," Kourlis says. "Our project provides support for shared learning, innovation, ongoing measurement and collective implementation. We are very excited to launch this project to encourage new ways to train law students and to measure innovation in the years to come."

William M. Sullivan is the Director of "Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers." He also is the lead author of the 2007 Carnegie Foundation report, Educating Lawyers.

"Our goal is to encourage law schools that are already committed to innovation to share what they know in a structured, collaborative place so that other law professors may discuss and develop new teaching techniques," Sullivan says.

IAALS will manage this initiative, the first of its kind in the country. The initiative is partnering with a growing number of law schools in a consortium committed to innovative teaching (see attached). The initiative is fully funded by IAALS, the consortium, and the University of Denver.

Martin J. Katz, Dean of the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver serves with Kourlis and Sullivan on the initiative's Executive Committee.

"We want to help law schools integrate three sets of values or what the Carnegie Foundation calls 'apprenticeships,'" Katz says. "They are knowledge, practice, and professionalism. We believe this initiative can change how law professors and deans, students, and ultimately the legal profession respond to our changing world."

The website for Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers is: http://educatingtomorrowslawyers.du.edu.

ETL Consortium Members:

1. The City University of New York School of Law
2. Cornell University Law School
3. University of Dayton School of Law
4. University of Denver Sturm College of Law
5. Indiana University Maurer School of Law
6. University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
7. University of New Hampshire School of Law
8. University of New Mexico School of Law
9. Seattle University School of Law
10. University of Southern California Gould School of Law
11. Southwestern Law School
12. Stanford Law School
13. Suffolk University Law School
14. Vanderbilt University Law School
15. Washington and Lee University School of Law

SOURCE University of Denver