Wednesday April 04, 2007

Here's a good example of crummy planning. I wrote in my
previous blog about extra-curricular activities such as
Moot Court. I guess that blog was premature, because
shortly after posting it, I got the great news that our
University of Detroit Mercy School of Law team entered into
the Niagara International Law Moot Court Competition WON
the championship.

From my perspective as Dean, that means that over the past
few months, we have sent teams to eight different external
competitions around the country. We won one, our team won
the Best Brief award in a second, and individual
competitors from our teams were named Best Oralist in a
third and fourth. In almost all the others, our team
finished in the top half, and often well above that.

That's all good news, but what struck me the most when
speaking with the students who have participated in these
competitions is how much they have learned through the
process. They have met interesting people from other
schools; they have met leading attorneys and judges in
particular fields of law; and they have gotten very
intensive practice in thinking through difficult legal
issues. They have also gained a level of confidence and
poise that only comes through practice and experience.

Speaking of experience, I will be hosting in a few weeks
the next semi-annual meeting of my Dean's Advisory Board.
The Board is comprised of general counsels from major
corporations and partners from law firms around the nation.
They provide me and the entire school with insight into
changes in the marketplace and ways that we can better
prepare our students for those changes.

At this next meeting we will be reviewing the
implementation of recent changes in our curriculum,
including the introduction of the Law Firm Program and the
development of our exciting new Core Concepts course during
the first year. We will be exploring ways to improve our
second, year curriculum and we will also be talking about
the interplay between legal scholarship and the practice of
law. It is a topic that has gotten some attention recently
(especially since a group of judges told law faculty
members in New York recently that they no longer read law
review articles since they do not find them relevant
anymore!). I want to explore with the advisory board ways
that we can make the writing that our students do even more
relevant for training and for giving our students an advantage
in the competition for jobs.

Of course, rarely does a meeting go exactly as it was
originally planned, so I am also eager to see what other
topics come up as we get this great group of experts
sitting around the table with each other. Stay tuned!