N.Y.U. Law Plans Overhaul of Students\' Third Year

There is an old saying that in the first year of law school they scare you to death; in the second year, they work you to death; and in the third year, they bore you to death.

The usefulness of the third and final year of study ranks high among the growing chorus of complaints - which includes soaring tuition and a glutted job market - about law schools.

New York University School of Law is now trying to address those questions about the utility of the third year. On Wednesday, the school is expected to announce an overhaul of its curriculum, with an emphasis on changes in the final, third year of school.

The move comes as law schools are being criticized for failing to keep up with transformations in the legal profession, and their graduates face dimming employment prospects and mounting student loans.

N.Y.U. Law's curriculum changes are built around several themes, including a focus on foreign study and specialized concentrations. Some students c ould spend their final semester studying in Shanghai or Buenos Aires. Others might work at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, or the Federal Trade Commission. Another group, perhaps, will complete a rigorous one-year concentration in patent law, or focused course work in tax.

“There are perennial complaints about the third year of law school being a waste of time,” said Brian Z. Tamanaha, a law professor at Washington University and the author of the recently published book “Failing Law Schools” (University of Chicago Press). “It is important that an elite law school like N.Y.U. is making these changes because the top schools set the model for the rest of legal academia.”

N.Y.U. Law is the latest law school to alter its academic program significantly. Stanford Law School recently completed comprehensive changes to its third-year curriculum, with a focus on allowing students to pursue joint degrees. Washington and Lee University School of Law scrapped its traditional third-year curriculum in 2009, replacing it with a mix of clinics and outside internships.

“There is a growing disconnect between what law schools are offering and what the marketplace is demanding in the 21st century,” said Evan R. Chesler, the presiding partner of the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore and a trustee of N.Y.U. Law. “The changes we're rolling out seek to address that.”

There has been much debate in the legal academy over the necessity of a third year. Many students take advantage of clinical course work, but the traditional third year of study is largely filled by elective courses. While classes like “Nietzsche and the Law” and “Voting, Game Theory and the Law” might be intellectually broadening, law schools and their students are beginning to question whether, at $51,150 a year, a hodgepodge of electives provides sufficient value.

“One of the well-known facts about law school is it never took three years to do what we are doing; it took maybe two years at most, maybe a year-and-a-half,” Larry Kramer, the former dean of Stanford Law School, said in a 2010 speech.

Yet no one expects law schools to become two-year programs any time soon. For one thing, law schools are huge profit centers for universities, which are reluctant to give up precious tuition dollars. What is more, American Bar Association rules require three years of full-time study to obtain a law degree. Several law schools, including Northwestern University School of Law, offer two-year programs, but they cram three years of course work - and tuition - into two.

The overhaul at N.Y.U. Law is built around several themes. While the school has dabbled in foreign study, it is now redoubling its focus on international and cross-border legal practice. N.Y.U. Law is preparing to send as many as 75 students to partner law schools in Buenos Aires, Shanghai and Paris, where the students will study the legal systems and the languages of those regions. With the ever-increasing influence of government and the regulatory state in private legal matters, N.Y.U. Law will also offer students a full semester of study, combined with an internship, in Washington.

Another key initiative gives students the chance to build a specialty. Called “professional pathways,” the program will offer eight focused areas of instruction, including criminal law and academia.

None of these programs will be mandatory, as students can still choose a conventional course load. But Richard L. Revesz, the dean of N.Y.U. Law, said that he hoped the students would take advantage of the new offerings.

“The third year of law school has never had a clear mission, and these steps now give us that,” Mr. Revesz said. “Students will not maximize their final year here if they just take a random set of courses.”

N.Y.U. Law's curriculum changes illustrate the continuing evoluti on of the legal education model. Until the late 19th century, most lawyers - like Abraham Lincoln - were trained through the old-fashioned apprenticeship method. But for the last hundred years, law school classrooms have been dominated by the case method of instruction, which trains law students by having them read court cases and questioning them via the Socratic method.

Now, in an era of globalization and specialization, law schools are acknowledging the inadequacy of the traditional approach.

“Training lawyers to think like lawyers was once law schools' entire mission,” said Mr. Chesler, the N.Y.U trustee and Cravath presiding partner. “That doesn't work anymore.”

The reworking of N.Y.U.'s curriculum is the result of recommendations made by a strategy committee of alumni formed in May 2011 by Mr. Revesz. Mr. Chesler was chairman of the 12-person committee, which included Randal S. Milch, the general counsel of Verizon Communications; Eric M. Roth , a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and Sara E. Moss, the top lawyer at Estée Lauder.

“The group that came up with these new measures is comprised of leading lawyers who are creating the market to hire our students,” Mr. Revesz said. “Perhaps more than any of the substantive changes, I'm most proud of who has recommended them.”

Behind the curriculum revamp is a recognition that the job market has become markedly worse since the financial crisis, even for students at well-regarded law schools like N.Y.U. The country's largest law firms are hiring 40 percent fewer lawyers than they were five years ago, according to a new study from the National Association for Law Placement. Reflecting the shrinking job market, the number of people taking the law school admission test has fallen by nearly 25 percent in the last two years.

“The social compact that you attend an elite law school and get a high-paying job has started to erode,” said Willi am D. Henderson, a law professor at Indiana University who studies the legal industry. “Law schools must change, and while it's great to hear about this news about N.Y.U., they have lots of resources and money. The greater sense of urgency lies with the lower-tier schools.”