Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

Publication Date

2025

Publication Title

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Abstract

To help bridge the gap between legal education and legal practice, in 2014 the American Bar Association adopted a requirement that law students take at least six credits of “experiential” courses. Despite limited research on the effects of this reform, the ABA is currently considering a new re- form that would require law students to take twice as many experiential credits to graduate. We provide new evidence for this debate by studying the evolution of experiential legal education and the impacts of the 2014 reform. We compile data reported by law schools to the ABA to document a dramatic rise in the number of experiential opportunities available to students even before the reform, and we find no evidence that the re- form improved employment outcomes. However, we also find no evidence that the reform increased tuition or had a negative effect on bar passage. We then use transcript data from one law school to study how the 2014 reform impacted students’ course selections. We find evidence suggesting that the reform expanded access to clinics primarily to students least inclined to benefit from them but without displacing students most inclined to benefit from them.

Number

25-28

Download


Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS