Page 7 - Law School of the Future

Group 1: A. Basili – S. Martinelli – S. Zaccaria

Re-thinking Law School through innovation: Three Fundamental Steps

Looking at the future has never appeared so frightful as at this moment. We are facing a new industrial

revolution, the crisis of State sovereignty and the inevitable technical evolution in every-day life, also
and particularly law sources and legal format. Re-organizing law school for enabling future young

lawyers to deal with what will come is a delicate but fundamental operation, for the future of scholars
and, consequently, for our society.

1. First, it is possible to analyze the current law school to find some preliminary suggestions.
Students are often involved in frontal and non-interactive classes. We need more courses which

can help students improving writing and debating skills, public speaking, research methods, in

order to let young students’ develop critical analysis.
Ø Fundamental Exams and Facultative Exams’ Organization.

Improvements of the overmentioned skills could not be achieved if not with a strong
consolidation of legal study and reasoning. In order to improve it, it is better to start with the

traditional method for the fundamental classes, organized in the first three years of courses, and
suggest Universities to open various specializations (with different optional classes) for the last

two years. These facultative classes should follow a different type of teaching and learning
methods.

Ø Interactive learning experiences.
First persons’ experiences like Moot Court Competitions and Law Clinics should be

implemented. These elements would help students to improve the abovementioned skills, to see

the law in practice and to think and work, autonomously but guided, starting from a given case.
This last point could be an important aspect of the law school of the future and should be
better explored and implemented, in order to help future lawyers with analyzing these new

problems. We cannot imagine what will come, but we can give some tools for managing the

new.
Ø Various (and different) typologies of exams.

In Italy, the exams are in the large part oral. Writing should be re-introduced: two forms of
exams can be helpful:

• The coursework/essay/final dissertation (as we want to call it) – The final dissertation is
an individual or group classwork (depending on the number of students attending classes)

in which scholars are engaged in drafting and public presenting a little final essay on a topic

of the course program. Using this kind of work (which could integrate part of the final