The School of Law, along with law schools across the country, is facing changes on multiple fronts. Not only is it dealing with the shifting nature of legal education, but at least three law faculty members will make the move to another institution after this year.
Robert Tsai is one: He’s leaving Eugene next year for American University in Washington, D.C.. He declined to go into details, but the associate professor did say his new salary is “significantly better.” The tenure track at the University of Oregon is more complex and longer than almost all comparable universities, Tsai said, which contributes to faculty recruitment and retention issues.
As with every public university in the state of Oregon, salaries are less than ideal, partially as a result of falling investment by the state legislature in higher education.
“In academia, as in probably any kind of employee situation, there are people who retire or leave for a variety of reasons and there are new people who come in, and that’s just part of the natural cycle,” said Susan Gary, associate dean for academic affairs at the law school.
Faculty turnover is only part of the overall transition that many law schools are facing.
The question of what to teach aspiring lawyers is one law schools have been wrestling with for years. According to “Educating Lawyers,” a report published this month by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, professors at all universities should spend less time teaching “lawyering” – law lingo for viewing every situation from a strictly legal perspective – and more time on professionalism and legal analysis. In other words, faculty should help students not only to understand the law, but also the concepts and how to put them into practice.
The University law school, along with many others, has been aware of the need to innovate for quite awhile, Gary said, and began the process long ago. Practical experience – such as negotiations, counseling and legal writing – is emphasized. Law education used to be more about law development and less about how to put that knowledge to use.
“It’s an ongoing practice of thinking about how we can help them to be ready after law school,” said Gary. “If we teach the law as it is today, that’s not very helpful because the law will change. So we teach concept and policy.”
Tsai was quick to praise the law school, but said it still has some work to do.
“My years here have been wonderfully generative,” Tsai said. “I’ve had terrific students. I’ve had great colleagues.” But it is a transitional time for the institution, Tsai said, and the law school’s administration has to decide what it wants to be and how it will get there.
Law schools have obligations to both their respective universities and the bar, a balance Tsai believes the law school still needs to find. There has been progress, but “it’s clear that there will have to be more done, particularly on the research front,” Tsai said. “In the last couple decades or so, law schools have become stronger in being knowledge-creators like other departments on campus. That’s just the trend.”
Enter the “Educating Lawyers” report, which recommends new ways to prepare law students based on research conducted at 16 geographically and academically diverse law schools.
Gary said one reason the University law school is ahead of others is because the faculty have always devoted a lot of energy to thinking about ways to improve their teaching as long as she’s been in Eugene.
“The difference between when I was in law school and now are definitely remarkable,” she said. “What’s different is teaching the skills that lawyers use in daily practice.”
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