The dean of New York University Law School, Richard Revesz, created a committee made of NYU Law alumni to evaluate the school’s curriculum. The committee discovered five areas that need improvement and the school announced on Wednesday new initiatives to better train lawyers, according to Inside Higher ED.
The improvements to the curriculum include third-year students having the chance to study abroad, the ability to spend a semester in D.C., third-year students entering into a ‘pathways’ program for law specialization, a larger focus on business and finance and a leadership development program.
The majority of the new initiatives are optional aside from a financial literacy course for first-year law students. Revesz said that the programs will be evaluated for effectiveness and then the school will determine if they should be required further down the line. The new programs were created to improve the third year of law school for the students at NYU.
“Our feeling was what we should do is make the third year as meaningful as possible,” Revesz said.
Most law schools have been receiving criticism for not reducing their prices but instead improving education offered. The interim consultant for legal education for the ABA, Barry Currier, said that even those most schools have frozen their tuition prices, not many have tried to lower costs.
“Most schools are focusing on trying to improve education,” he said. “They’re mindful of cost, but not really trying to reduce cost. It’s perfectly in line with where NYU sees itself in the market, but not too many schools are going to be able to do this.”
The executive director for Law School Transparency, Kyle McEntee, said, “For the NYUs, Chicagos, Harvards, and Yales of the world, this might be the direction they need to take their schools, but the problem happens when the schools below them start to emulate them. That’s part of the reason the price of education has gone up.”
