Making The Grade

November 10-16, 2014

The ‘MacGyver’ Law School

By Dean Michael H. Schwartz

Bowen School of Law

This week, William H. Bowen School of Law Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz continues from his previous introductory column: “One law school dean’s thoughts on the future of legal education and the profession.”

I am pretty certain I am the only person in the world who has considered the possibility that the UALR’s William H. Bowen School of Law is the law school equivalent of Agent MacGyver from the old, successful television series.

I bet at least some of you have never heard of “MacGyver,” a television series that aired between 1985 and 1992. So, here’s my recollection: Each week, the title character would save the world by inventing a device using materials he found at hand and his two staples, a Swiss army knife and duct tape. In one episode, for example, MacGyver used two candlestick holders, a floor mat, and an electrical powercord as a makeshift defibrillator and revived a fallen comrade.

Legal education is at a crossroads – not of the MacGyver-esque, life or death type – but certainly a critical moment in time, and we do not have a lot of resources on hand with which to recharge things.  

Our challenges come from several sources.

• Applications to law schools have declined for four straight years, and the decline seems likely to continue for a while. Both Arkansas law schools, in fact, have admitted smaller then normal classes over the last two years.

• The state’s two law schools also have had to confront a precipitous decline in state funding, and neither law school was ever among the best-funded law schools in the country. We are proud that, while lawyers and judges rank Bowen among the top 100 law schools in the country, the law school’s budget is ranked about 80 places lower.

• Meanwhile, public criticisms of legal education have been popping up like mushrooms after a heavy rain.

I wish we, at Bowen, really had MacGyver skills to throw at these challenges. I certainly am no MacGyver; I feel proud when I hit a nail with a hammer and it goes in straight. We nevertheless have been able to draw on the resources around us; as some of you already know, we are finding new ways to make the most of the extraordinary support of Little Rock’s bar and bench.  

New mentoring program. For example, beginning with the fall 2013 entering class, Bowen has matched each entering student with a judge or a Little Rock lawyer who practices in a field of particular interest to the student. The mentors and students work through a structured process that engages students in thinking about the professionals they hope to become. That process includes both identifying a personal mission and at least 13 hours of shadowing experiences. How many lawyers, during their first year of law school, attended a negotiation or a deposition? How many drafted a contract or a complaint and received feedback from a practicing lawyer? How many sat in on an oral argument and then debriefed the experience with a judge? Bowen students will be having all those experiences this year.  

Practitioners influencing curriculum. In spring 2013, we surveyed Arkansas legal employers to determine the critical skills needed by new lawyers, and, beginning in fall 2013, Bowen became one of the few law schools in the country to invite practitioners to provide input into curriculum development. This participation affords the curriculum committee critical insights that the law school otherwise would never have heard.

Practitioners in residence. This fall, Bowen launched a program we call Distinguished Practitioners in Residence. The program both honors successful lawyers and makes sure our students learn those things about law practice that no law school has found a way to integrate into its curriculum. The workshops focus on topics such as finding clients, making sure you get paid, being a lawyer/entrepreneur, and becoming a judge. Our inaugural distinguished practitioners, Dick Williams from Mitchell, Williams and Phil Kaplan from Williams and Anderson, for example, offered an informative and very practical workshop entitled, “How to Make a Living as a Lawyer.”

As I will share in future contributions, we have other initiatives completed or in progress, many of which focus on ensuring that Bowen graduates ethical, skilled, collegial lawyers. In other words, while other law schools may be retrenching, we at Bowen are finding innovative and inexpensive ways to make the changes we need to be making.

I do own duct tape that I probably should donate to the law school, and I am keeping my eyes open for other useful supplies. I speak from experience when I say, however, that it would be best for all if I stay as far away from power tools as possible.

Contact Dean Schwartz at mhschwartz@ualr.edu.