MCLE tracking tool has potential to save
time, money
Allowing members to track
their MCLE hours on the State Bar website is a great
idea. The State Bar should also permit members to scan and upload copies
of their certificates. This would simplify the auditing process. Members could
gather the proof certificates, scan them, and supply them to the auditor via an
auditing portal which would look nearly identical to the webpage we will use
for tracking in real time. That would save our already burdened and
overworked State Bar staff ensuring that all members comply with MCLE
requirements. I also hope that the new tracking system will allow members
to receive email notification after each entry to show us what has been
accomplished to date, what needs to be done, and the deadline. I believe
that these suggestions would be easy to implement into the software and would
reduce costs incurred at our State Bar to help members comply.
Timothy Lee Davis
San Diego
Heed Witkin’s advice on practical skills training
I read Amy Yarbrough’s
article on urging law schools to require practical skills training.
I recall when Bernie Witkin came to UC Davis School of Law to talk
about the legal education. His view was precisely the opposite of the
proposed focus on practical skills training. He believed attorneys could
get trained to pass the bar in less than three years and I seem to recall that
he was involved in early bar review courses. He wanted the remainder of
the time in law school, a year or year and a half, to be dedicated to
developing the law, to improving the law, to understanding the law.
Instead, the practical skills training approach is in the business
direction, rather than the direction of a deeper understanding of the
law. The latter approach is what law schools do best. The other
approaches being considered, such as early MCLE, could meet the need for
practical and business skills. Other approaches would also accomplish this
perceived need without downgrading the law schools: (1) law schools could
recruit and admit more students with business and economics backgrounds, or (2)
private law firms could recruit and pay for students to become JD/MBA graduates
with the MBA programs taking on the business aspects of the law profession.
Witkin was a brilliant advocate for the legal profession and his
advice needs to be part of the conversation.
Charlie A. Klinge
Bellevue, Wash.
Practitioners, not law schools, should bear burden
of practical training
As a long-time practitioner and relatively new dean, I
strongly question the wisdom and viability of the new and misnamed “practical
skill training proposal.”
I do so primarily on two grounds. First, any such
requirement will likely add to the costs and time spent on legal training prior
to bar admission, which are already too expensive and too long. Second, mentoring (which appears to be the real issue of concern) is far better done by
actual practitioners in the real world of practice, rather than in law schools,
even with our extensive clinical programs, where students certainly do learn
valuable practice skills.
The appropriate response to a situation described, where
“clients are no longer willing to pay for young lawyers to get on-the-job
training at their law firms,” is not to impose those training costs on law
schools but on the law firms themselves, where such training was
once (and should again be) effectively done at partners’ time and
expense.
In my 20-year experience as a business lawyer, I found that
associates got their most valuable training by being part of a deal or client
team. As a partner, what I expected law schools to produce were dedicated
professionals with a strong foundation in the law and legal reasoning and
excellent research and writing skills, not practice-ready M&A or corporate
finance and securities experts. The investment I made in mentoring those
lawyers was worth every hour of time that I did not record or that I wrote off
and did not bill to my clients.
I urge Dean Marshall and other academic members of the Task
Force to consider the ever-increasing profits of law firms in contrast to
the current financial situation of law schools, and even more in relation to
the increasing debt burdens being imposed on our students, in considering where
to allocate the responsibility for such mentoring. I also urge the
practitioners on the Task Force to consider their own obligations for, as well
as the benefits of, taking on the responsibility of mentoring their new lawyers
after they have been hired.
Stephen C. Ferruolo
Dean and Professor of Law
University of San Diego School of Law
Don’t burden young attorneys with post-exam requirements
Concerning Amy Yarbrough's article about pre-admission
skill training, I agree with a caveat that new attorneys should not be
penalized in earning money after passing the bar exam. Who will pay their
bills? The State Bar won't. No pro-bono requirement pre-admittance either.
If these aspirants are "unqualified" to begin
their practice immediately what makes anyone think they can accomplish
successful pro bono activities without committing malpractice? Or, will the bar
immunize these candidates so further economic damage does not befall them? The
suggestions in the article are not well thought out by those ivory
tower "academics” that make these pie-in-the sky suggestions. They should
simply be ignored.
However, the suggestion that such courses be taught in
law school has great merit. It will not prolong course study and will not
hamper anyone economically. That makes excellent sense. Also, why not a mentor
program for brand new sole practitioners? Local bar associations and volunteer
attorneys would work well in this endeavor.
Robert Daumiller
Crossville, Tenn.
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