ANALYSIS: Seven Innovative Law Schools That Go Beyond the Law

Many legal educators and practitioners acknowledge that legal education should go beyond the confines of traditional legal doctrine. Data also indicate that there’s a practical skill gap between what students are being taught and what employers want them to know. Teaching these skills effectively may mean looking outside the box and tapping into non-legal expertise.

Some law schools have met the challenges presented by rapidly evolving legal technology and the NextGen bar exam by thinking outside the box: They’re turning to other professions to help future lawyers develop well-rounded skills that will hopefully allow them to flourish as they enter legal practice.

The goal of Bloomberg Law’s second annual Law School Innovation Program was to recognize law schools that are focusing on foundational skill development in innovative ways. We’ve organized the top-scoring programs and honorable mentions into four categories: changing pedagogy, beyond the law, immersive experience, and career pathing.

The programs featured in the beyond the law category give law students the opportunity to work with professionals outside of the confines of the law school grounds and beyond traditional legal methodology to develop foundational skills such as investigation, client counseling, and legal research.

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School launched its Legal Innovation Through Design Thinking program in 2013, and it’s a teamwork-focused experiential learning course that allows students to learn from design thinking professionals such as a former Rhode Island School of Design professor and project presentation coaches.

Law students work in teams to creatively design client solutions to faculty-provided prompts like how to address the gender gap in law firm partnerships. Students have the opportunity to work with actual clients like the Department of Justice’s Access to Justice Office.

Whereas traditional legal education focuses on individual knowledge, this program incorporates teamwork and encourages students to wait to solve a problem. This allows the students to better understand the issue, thereby allowing them to become stronger investigators, evaluators, and advisers. Students are asked to generate a wide range of ideas, share them, and build upon them before applying their critical thinking to craft feasible and viable solutions.

Lawyers “often struggle with brainstorming because they are trained, especially in 1L [year], to gun down an idea critically as soon as it is proposed,” said Professor of Practice and Director of Executive Education at Harvard Law School, Scott Westfahl. While that type of thinking is important, the law school’s program prepares students to be “more curious, empathetic, collaborative and creative so they can meet the challenges of our changing profession,” Westfahl said.

Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law

The AI and Legal Reasoning course at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law introduces students to the fundamentals of artificial intelligence (AI) and goes beyond teaching theoretical concepts by having students complete projects that require the creation of AI-related applications that address legal needs.

These projects fall into one of three categories:

• projects that aid with transactional law;
• projects that aid with litigation; and
• projects that help bridge the access to justice gap.

Examples of student projects include a tool that helps tenants in Chicago to identify legal issues with their apartments and to notify their landlords of problems that must be fixed under relevant laws; a tool that helps to keep lawyers on track with civil procedure deadlines; and a tool that helps new founders select the appropriate business entity for their companies.

AI and Legal Reasoning is taught by Daniel W. Linna, Jr., who is jointly appointed by Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law and McCormick School of Engineering as a senior lecturer and the Director of Law and Technology Initiatives. The course also includes outside speakers who are leaders in the space, including chief innovation officers, engineers, and data scientists.

“This firsthand interaction with industry experts enhances students’ understanding of the evolving landscape of the law, as they hear from people who can explain how their organizations are using AI, and the skills that they hope to see from new law graduates,” said Linna. By equipping students with practical skills, Linna hopes that this course will “empower them as graduates to make immediate contributions in a variety of legal roles.”

Western New England University School of Law

Western New England University School of Law uses a novel approach to teach legal research to its law students by having them teach high school students how to do legal research. This model not only allows law students to sharpen their research skills, but it also benefits the larger community by cultivating relationships with community high schools.

Led by Western New England University’s law library, this program breaks from traditional legal research classes in several ways:

• First, rather than having a set research question with a specific answer given to them by a professor, law students in this program get their questions from their high school partners. This requires law students to produce good research results quickly and in real time, allowing law students to develop think-on-your-feet investigation and analysis skills.
• Second, the assignments must be conveyed to high schoolers in simple, nonlegal terms. This helps law students learn to communicate with future clients who may not have legal backgrounds.
• Third, the program cultivates law student research skills in subtle, less anxiety-producing ways as law students see the program as designed to help high school students—not to teach the law students themselves.

The “teach-the-teacher” program style “removes the anxiety associated with grades and classroom discussions,” said Associate Dean for Library and Information Resources for Western New England University School of Law Nicole Belbin.

Additionally, this program benefits the legal industry overall by promoting diversity in the legal profession. “Interacting with law librarians, law students, and law faculty in a welcoming environment helps our diverse local high school students feel they can belong in our law school and in the legal community,” said Belbin.

University of Wisconsin Law School

In 2022, the University of Wisconsin Law School, through its law library, began offering two new innovative courses in advanced legal research and legal technology. The classes allow students to hone their investigation, analysis, and research skills while working with technology experts outside of the law school.

The coursework prepares students for real-world problems by certifying students in 12 different technologies that they can use to solve legal problems. These experiential courses utilize the knowledge of both law librarians and the expertise of technology vendors to train law students to apply rapidly evolving legal technology to research.

Last year, thanks to guest lectures from vendors and other experts, students were exposed to new generative AI resources as soon as they were released.

“The legal industry advances when lawyers become better consumers of technology and more efficient legal researchers,” explained Kris Turner, associate director of public services for UW Law School. “The UW Law School’s coursework emphasizes practical skills that may otherwise go untaught or ignored, or even worse, assumed to have been gleaned elsewhere.”

As one student evaluation remarked, “I can’t believe how many things I did not know before coming into this class (you don’t know what you don’t know!).” This coursework aims to fill this knowledge gap.

Honorable Mentions

In addition to the finalists, the following three programs went beyond the law to teach foundational legal skills in innovative ways.

Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law

The W. Bruce Lunsford Academy for Law, Business + Technology at Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law consists of an honors curriculum with an emphasis on business and technology.

The program extends beyond traditional legal teaching by encouraging law students to think as entrepreneurs and apply their skills to real-life client issues. Further, as part of the Lunsford Academy, law students attend conferences and industry events and meet with business leaders, startup founders, and legal technology developers.

This “eye-opening” exposure to industry leaders allows students “to witness the myriad ways that technology does and will continue to impact their practice,” said Assistant Professor and Director of the Lunsford Academy for Business Law and Technology Michelle Browning Coughlin. It also allows students to “develop key skills and connections they will use throughout their careers,” Browning Coughlin said.

Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law

In addition to the AI and Legal Reasoning program recognized above as a finalist, Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law has developed the Innovation Lab through an interdisciplinary partnership between Pritzker School of Law and the Computer Science Department in McCormick School of Engineering.

In the Innovation Lab, teams of four to six law and computer science students work closely with external partners to develop prototype technology solutions for real-world legal services delivery problems. Project partners include law firms, corporate legal departments, legal-technology companies, units of government, courts, and legal-aid organizations.

The Innovation Lab is taught by Daniel W. Linna, Jr. (who also reaches the AI and Legal Reasoning Program), as well Kristian J. Hammond, who is the Bill and Cathy Osborn professor of computer science in McCormick School of Engineering.

“While some law schools create apps in courses, few bring together computer science and law students to work together on teams, led by law and computer science faculty,” Linna said.

Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law

The Legal Research & Writing (LRW) Student Outreach Program, begun by the LRW faculty at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law, offers a holistic approach to legal education and law student development.

Through a series of events offered over the course of the year, law students learn the values of professionalism and well-being from professionals ranging from judges to experts in nutrition, yoga, and fitness. One example is the “Writing and Well-Being Event,” where law students improve their legal writing while also learning the importance of self-care during the demanding years of law school.

“This holistic approach underscores our commitment to nurturing not just legal skills but also the well-being of our students,” said Heather Baxter, professor of law and director of legal research and writing for Shepard Broad College of Law.

Look for the next piece in the series on Feb. 1st, when Bloomberg Law Legal Analyst Talia Thomas will examine “Immersive Experiences.” In previous articles in this series: Susan Swihart’s Jan. 25th article announced the Law School Innovation Program’s top 12 overall innovations and Stephanie Pacheco’s Jan. 26th article looked at those schools restructuring their pedagogy.

Related content is available for free on our Law School Innovation Program page.

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