The GAO issued a report last week finding that the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Standards for the Approval of Law Schools play only a “minor role” in increasing costs of J.D. programs and the lack of diversity in law schools - two important matters for legal education and the profession.

The report generated attention - from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, the ABA Journal, and in the blogs (see, for example, Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports and Above the Law). For those of us who work at law schools or follow legal education closely, these findings are not surprising. They are also somewhat beside the point. continue reading

Our experience at Concord Law School of Kaplan University supports yesterday’s commentary in Inside Higher Education by Walden University President Jonathan Kaplan that “The Medium is Not the Message”  and his conclusion that it is past time for all of us in higher education to “stop categorizing … by the medium of delivery and start focusing on its [higher education’s] impacts and outcomes.” continue reading

“Reverse engineering,” the process of taking something apart to see how it works with an eye toward building something similar or improved over the original, may help those of us who work in law schools rethink legal education and make it better. continue reading

Rethinking Higher Education is a provocative title for our blog. Intentionally so. American higher education does a lot right and a lot well. That said, there plenty of space for new ideas, many unmet needs, opportunities to improve what we do, and lots of good ideas to explore. continue reading