About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1979 Newsl. 1 (1979)

handle is hein.aals/aalsnews1979 and id is 1 raw text is: WS TT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS 0 ONE DUPONT CIRCLE 0 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 NO. 79-1 FEB. 1979 President's Message This is my first letter to you as President of the Association of American Law Schools. Not many of you heard my presidential address, since it was delivered at 5:00 P.M. on the last day of the 1979 meeting and most of you had wisely decided to flee Chicago while that remained a viable option. (The address will be distributed later to the law schools but I suspect it will gather dust in some decanal file') I attempted to outline an agenda for the coming decade, stressing four areas relating to quality legal education that are within the ambit of AALS re- sponsibility. They are: admissions (the quality of the students), educational directions (the quality of the program), availability of financial resources (which affects the quality of all we do), and accreditation (the standards by which we measure, and attempt to achieve, quality). During the course of 1979, I and your'Executive Committee will be addressing all of these crit- ical areas. My periodic essays in the Newsletter will be devoted to various aspects of these problems. I turn first to educational directions because it lies at the heart of our programs and be- cause Judge Carl McGowan delivered a brilliant luncheon address at the annual meeting which ob- viously touched a deep chord in the academic psyche. The essence of Judge McGowan's thesis was succinctly stated: Periodically thoughout the history of legal education in this country, the University spirit is affected, not to say imperilled, by an upsurge of demands for a greater measure of what is viriously termed more 'useful' or more 'practical' instruction. We appear to be in such a cycle at the moment. Just so' We all know something of the upsurge of de- mands to which this wise statesman of the law referred. I have written elsewhere that the Taw school faces in two directions: inward toward the university, with its interest in the intellectual life and its concern for the transmission and development of knowledge through research and teaching, and outward toward the law in action as opposed to the law in books. There are, inevitably, tensions that flow from this dichotomy. Both directions are important so it is the sense of delicate balance that is cru- cial for what will soon be the decade of the 'eighties. There are numerous interest groups which could upset the delicate balance - the bar, the judiciary, even the students themselves. The law faculties have a special obligation, there- fore, to maintain the university-centered nature of the law school. We must not become obsessed with the so-called practical. What is practical today may be obsolete tomorrow but the funda- mentals of a quality legal education will endure. We are a part of the university world and we bear a threefold responsibility for teaching, research and writing, and public service. That is challenge enough for any generation of law teachers and we should resist the urge to become social agencies attempting to cure the ills of our respective communities. I am not opposed to limited clinical programs, summer jobs in practice, some controlled practice experience while in law school, simulated trial and appellate advocacy, negotiation courses, etc., but I do believe these programs are an important side show - the main action is in another tent. The key to all of these programs is supervised, educational experience. We should not yield to internal (student) and external (bar, judicial) clamor for immediate gratification of an understandable thirst for involvement in the real world at the expense of what we know to be our principal mission. I believe, with former AALS President Francis Allen, that the preservation and extension of an intellectually-based and humanistically-motivated legal education is the greatest chal- lenge facing American law schools. r sident h hnE. Cibbe EDITOR: MARIANN-E R. FIORENTINO, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:, MILLARD H. RUUD Printing and Distribution Courtesy of Foundation Press, Inc.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most