That's a powerful argument against requiring 3Ls to take that sixth semester of law school. (And against the fifth semester, for that matter.)

I agree with this post, including the part about not holding my breath. Nonetheless, here's an idea for a "real world" clinic that would immensely help law students prepare for practice. Set up a clinic that assists clients in Mandatory Fee Arbitration matters. (Lawyers are required to offer non-binding MFAA arbitrations to clients before suing for fees. The large majority of the clients are unrepresented in the arbitrations and they are going toe-to-toe with their own former lawyers (who, needless to say, are often better prepared than the clients). The MFAA matters run the gamut from family law to criminal law, to trust & estates, to litigaiton. Admittedly, those cases might not be appealing to law schools because they are so mundane. But they reflect the real world of practice.) With some help from a clinician and some law students, the clients' performance at the arbitrations could be much improved. And I guarantee that the students would learn a lot about the standard of care, the fiduciary duties lawyers owe clients, the way that lawyers should (and the way they actually do) communicate with clients, fee agreements, the law governing legal fees, the vagaries of litigation, etc. Students would learn about problem clients and problem lawyers and how it sometimes happens that despite the best efforts of lawyers and clients the matter doesn't go well. And each case would be quite similar to the bar exam performance tests, because the students would need to read a fairly short file and figure out what the issues are, etc.

The logistics would be easy, but the politics would be difficult (impossible?). You’d need info from students and profs. You could start with the profs suggesting what they’d like to teach over the next two years. That document would get published to students, as Berkeley now does (unfortunately, I can’t like to it) at the time that students select courses for the following semester. No doubt, the profs could offer the students good reasons that students should take those particular courses. Students would also seek that kind of input from practicing lawyers, judges, alums, 3Ls, through course evals, etc. When the students select their courses for the semester, they’d also select their probable courses for the following two semesters. Then, someone in administration looks at the gap between student demand and professors’ supply. (At Berkeley, the students analyzed the gap by looking at waitlist data and then debating it online. See link 1 below.) Then the administration closes the gap on the supply side. You might also think up some incentive structure that would drive profs to close the gap themselves, with less administrative strong-arming. For example, if the prof fails to attract a sufficient teaching load—students multiplied by credit hours—the prof must teach legal ethics. (Just kidding about that.) Perhaps the administration declares that profs have four “free choice” teaching credits per year but only if their load hits a certain number. But either way, by administrative fiat or by professorial self-interest, it is student choice that drives the offerings. I suppose that the politics of this suggestion render it a mere thought experiment. It would be a massive transfer of power from profs to students. Students are likely to select courses that vary too far from what profs want to teach. (Again, we could offer profs some protected credits per year to soften the blow.) And I expect that there would be heavy selection for skills courses that the profs might be unable to teach—the kind of courses the new Carnegie Report discusses. But I’d strongly disagree with any suggestion that the students lack sufficient intelligence to choose their courses wisely. Given the ability to choose, information about the utility of the courses, and the motivation of their heavy debt loads, students would make terrific choices. Some of them would still opt for courses like Icelandic Feud Law (a course I wish I could have taken myself). Some of them would continue to take courses in critical jurisprudence, social justice, etc. Link 1: http://boaltalk.blogspot.com/2009/01/who-sets-our-priorities.html#comments

it's tough to beat an informed market for making choices that involve trade-offs. so why not let the students decide these issues? they have plenty of motivation -- given their debt loads. and if you feel that they lack sufficient information to make informed choices (i don't feel that way, fwiw), then we can rely on professors and law firms to pitch their suggestions to the students.