Curriculum developments in American law schools in the twenty-first century

The article begins with a brief history of legal education in the United States. Early legal education was a model that was theoretically based primarily on mentoring by practicing lawyers but was light in terms of substantive knowledge. Gradually the model evolved to the point where professional teachers, armed with casebooks, imparted knowledge in the way imagined by Christopher Columbus Langdell. Today, with many questioning the continued efficacy of the Langdell model, many law schools are experimenting with the model so as to adapt to a changing legal environment. There is some irony in these models in that many of them are heavily dependent on mentoring by lawyers in the guise of law professors. Still, the large point is that American legal education is not static. Rather, American legal education is changing and adapting to a different environment.