Legal Education in World of AI Should Follow Medical Model

Bar exams moved online during the pandemic, fueling attention to issues under discussion, such as widely varying bar pass rates from state to state, and large costs to graduates of prep courses needed even after three years of law school.

Law school administrators and members of the profession wrung their hands: Are they really turning out so many graduates incompetent to practice law?

Some modest reforms are under way. There’s a next generation bar exam on the horizon that diverges a bit from the old style. But a lot of state bars are still just thinking about it, and bar exam modifications continue to be (rightfully) criticized.

And in the midst of this debate, along came ChatGPT—never a law student—and passed the bar exam. Academia is in turmoil over the significant potential for AI-assisted papers and exams.

Out of the chaos sown by these developments, might they possibly reap a whole new perspective on how to train lawyers? It is, after all, overdue to reform legal education, which has changed only marginally for many decades.

Of course law students still need to learn legal doctrine, and how to find and understand case law, statutes, and regulations. And clinical legal education, which is now often a graduation requirement, has been a valuable addition to legal education.

But should law school consume three mostly-classroom years and then be followed by a bar exam that requires lots of memorization and lightning-fast essay and multiple-choice responses that don’t reveal the kind of in-depth thinking attorneys are called on to do? Especially considering the great expense in time and money for law school and then bar prep?

What should they be teaching and then, if not testing, evaluating? A long and well-researched report from 2020, “Building a Better Bar: The Twelve Building Blocks of Minimum Competence,” suggests a helpful framework to answer that question.

Most critically it focuses much attention on what they in the legal academy have mostly failed to teach: the genuine practice of law. It’s about time they do so.

Consider medical education. It begins with two years immersed in the textual, classroom, and lab study of subjects necessary to the practice of medicine. Then students progress to two years learning the clinical—the actual—practice of medicine, even before years of post-graduate residency training. And some medical schools are even introducing clinical practice into those first two years.

What would “medical model” legal education look like?

Lawyers for America, invented at UC Hastings (now UC Law San Francisco), is a model that provides students with a different route to learning to be a lawyer while simultaneously helping to Boost their country’s massive access to justice problem.

Ponder: Two years of classroom learning and a third year devoted entirely to a well-supervised externship with a legal nonprofit or government legal office. Given the current bar exam, summer is then devoted to study and the test, and then after the bar exam the fellows return for a full year of fellowship-paid work.

The participating organizations pay LFA enough to support the fellowship stipends—less than their cost of hiring a new lawyer, enabling the stretching of their always tight budgets. Bonus: They’ve already trained their new fellow for all of their 3L year. Supervisors are very committed to their training because fellows will soon be their colleagues for a year.

Our fellows so far have engaged in great public service through the program and have moved very successfully to careers. Many of the fellows have stayed in public interest or public service careers, some clearly achieving positions that just on the basis of grades and pedigree could have been difficult to obtain. Their excellent experience—and thus meaningful recommendations—has propelled them forward.

Can they do more to make law school-affiliated hands-on experiences not only necessary but sufficient for licensure as a lawyer? Or at least sufficient along with passage of a much-simplified written exam, perhaps focusing on a limited number of subjects chosen by each examinee from a larger selection, and with dramatically reduced emphasis on speed and memorization?

Alas, change comes hard both to legal educators and to bar examiners. They started LFA after a dean told us they should ask for forgiveness rather than permission, or the idea might never have moved forward. Other law schools have considered joining us and hit various barriers.

For their part, bar examiners have put together committees to recommend change, but things move slowly—if at all. A California Blue Ribbon Commission spent about two years and still couldn’t reach consensus on a non-bar-exam route to licensure. A subgroup of that commission has just prepared a lengthy draft urging a “portfolio bar examination” in hopes of obtaining full commission approval.

For a good starting point to consider change, law school administrators should look to the medical school model and take to heart the feedback in the “Building a Better Bar” report about the value of experiential learning in the careers of many law graduates.

We need to train lawyers for the needs of today, under the conditions of today’s world. Yesterday’s ways shouldn’t be forever.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Marsha Cohen is a professor at UC Law SF. She taught podium classes and for many years supervised an extensive Judicial Externship Program which fueled her interest in “medical-model” legal education, on which Lawyers for America was built.

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How SLU student conquered to top the medical technologist exam

CAVITE, Philippines – Sam Jeffrey Tiongco, 22, dreamed of becoming a medical technologist and a doctor, but the journey towards this dream has been a challenge. 

He was having a typical day at Saint Louis University (SLU) when his friend showed him the August 2023 Medical Technologists Licensure exam results. 

“That time akala ko inedit niya, kasi ‘yun ‘yung trip ng mga kaibigan ko (At that time I thought it was edited by my friend to prank me),” he said.

“So when he showed me that it was actually the PRC (Professional Regulation Commission) board, I was really shocked, I dropped my pen and then I cried [out] of joy, ” Tiongco added in a mix of English and Filipino. 

Tiongco scored 93.30%, placing first among 3,982 passers out of 5,401 examinees. His alma mater Saint Louis University also ranked first among schools with students taking the exam nationwide.

While everyone saw Tiongco fulfill one of his dreams, only few knew how physically and emotionally draining his preparation was towards this result.

“I pressured myself into delivering the best results thinking I could ignore the physical hardship because I was used to sleepless nights anyway, but it wasn’t the case,” said Tiongco in his Facebook post.

Tiongco moved to Baguio City, where he studied senior high school at SLU Basic Education School. He later enrolled at SLU for his undergraduate degree in medical technology. 

“When I was in high school, I fell in love with blood bank, especially blood typing, so I intended to pursue medical technology,” Tiongco shared.

He was an active student leader in SLU. When asked how he managed his time, he said, “Very difficult siya. Actually nung high school hanggang 2nd year college, BS major in org (organizations) talaga ako, hindi ako BS major in medical technology.”

(It was very difficult. From high school until 2nd year college, I was actually a BS major in organizations, not a BS major in medical technology.)

He served as student council executive president when he was in Grade 12. In college, he served as a secretary, secretariat head, and academic committee head at SLU KASAMA. 

Despite this, Tiongco, just like every other student, struggled in school. “First year pa lang mahirap na talaga yung subjects, i-te-train ka na talaga nila. Ang hirap ng mga quizzes namin, super (The subjects are already difficult in my first year because the university is training us. The quizzes were super difficult.),” he said. 

He also admitted that he barely passed the university’s comprehensive exam. “Sobrang hirap niya to the point na meron din akong line of seven [na grade] (It was very hard, to the point that I received a grade with a line of seven)

Such events would have discouraged other students, but Tiongco did not let it get through him.

“Honestly hindi masama ‘yung feeling ko, at the very least pasado ako. Hindi ko na kailangan ulitin ‘yung process kasi grueling ‘yung process tapos uuliit ka nanaman (Honestly, I did not feel bad, at the very least I passed. I don’t need to repeat the process because the process is grueling for me to only do it once more),” he said. 

Studying for the board exam was not child’s play for Tiongco. He even had few people around him doubting him. 

“Very contradictory ‘to doon sa [Facebook] post ko, sinabi ko roon na walang nagdoubt sa akin pero meron at meron talaga (It’s very contradictory to my [Facebook] post, I said that no one doubted me but there actually were.), ” he said. 

Tiongco admitted experiencing several breakdowns before the board exam. “One month before the board naka-apat or limang breakdowns yata ako. Sinabi ko na hindi ko kaya [pumasa], baka bagsak ako. (A month before the board exam, I think I had four or five breakdowns. I said I can’t pass, I might fail.)”

Tiongco originally intended to take the board exam in March 2023. “Unfortunately, ‘yung TOR namin late na na-release (Unfortunately, my transcript of records was released late),” he said.

“Medyo masakit sa feeling, kasi I had plans for the entire year. Sabi ko nga after ng March magtuturo ako sa mga schools tapos magpapaopera pa ako ng mata ko kasi yung grado ko sobrang taas na,” he said. 

(It was a bit painful, because I had plans for the entire year. I planned to teach after March and then I planned to undergo surgery to fix my blurry eyesight.)

But these setbacks did not stop Tiongco from achieving his dream. He started reviewing again from April to August.

“During those times sila [family] ‘yung nagbubuhat sa akin, pagkain [and] everything para makapag-focus ako sa review ko (During those times they supported me, they gave me everything so that I can focus on my review.),” he said. 

“Na-postpone ‘yung plan ko pero kailangan tanggapin kasi ‘yun talaga eh, pero at least nagpayoff ‘yung mga desisyon ko,” Tiongco said.

(My plan was postponed but I have to accept it because that’s how it is. At least my decisions paid off.)

Aside from his family, his motivation to make his alma mater proud kept him going throughout the review process.

“I really wanted to deliver for their institution. I wanted to supply the best results that I can,” he said.

And delivered he did. Tiongco is currently a first year medical student at SLU and is on his way to supply back to the people who believed in him. – Allysa Areglo/Rappler.com

Allysa Areglo is a Cavite State University student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She is a digital communications intern at Rappler.

VSSC exam fraud involves cheating kit sourced online