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Law School Gets 2-Year Grant For Study of Legal Education
The KU School of Law, with the help of a two-year $20,000 grant from the National Council on Legal Clinics, will tackle one of the major problems facing legal education today—bridging the gap between law school and practice.
"Most schools in the nation and many bar associations," said Dean James K. Logan of the School of Law, "are searching for some way to give the new lawyer experience."
Three states—New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island—require an apprenticeship of six to 12 months before law school graduates can take the bar examination, Dean Logan explained.
SOME LAWYERS suggest the need for a fourth year of law school. Others think this will unnecessarily prolong legal education, already lengthened by the requirement of a bachelor's degree before entry into law school.
The results, however, have been unsatisfactory. Law firms usually look on apprentice lawyers as slave labor, using them as leg men, Dean Logan said. New Jersey had an internship requirement for several years but recently abandoned it.
The situation is further complicated by the recent Supreme Court decision that every person accused of a felony is entitled to legal counsel. The trend toward distributing court appointments as trial lawyers means that every lawyer may have to take his turn in court, and court work has become a diminishingly small part of legal practice, Dean Logan said.
"The effect of the ruling," he added, "is to make every member of the bar a criminal lawyer. Some legal authorities believe that the Supreme Court will rule next that legal counsel to the accused must be adequate."
THE STUDENT-CLERKS will attend all trials and hearings during the 8-week period and observe the operation of the court and the work of the attorneys.
The KU School of Law is planning an 8-week student clerkship with a Kansas or Missouri trial judge, working under his supervision, assisting him in research, the drafting of orders, and other duties similar to those performed by clerks for Federal District judges.
Most students will have had a course in Trial Practice, which will be moved from the third year of the KU program to the second year, and in Legal Ethics. After their return for their senior years, they will enroll in a seminar on the problems of judicial administration. Compressed "block" courses also will be
available for the remaining eight weeks of the fall semester.
Tuesday, April 28, 1964 University Daily Kansan
The experimental program will start this summer for a few students and get into full swing with the beginning of the fall semester. Each year 25 of the 45-50 seniors will participate in the program. Judges asked to help have responded with almost 100 per cent enthusiasm. Some have offered to take the student-clerks into their home for the period, rent-free.
The students also have been enthusiastic.
"Some of them have begged to be included," Dean Logan said, "and it was hard to select the half of the senior class which would be given this experience. Most young lawyers and lawyers-to-be have a queasy feeling about the courtroom. By the time they have had their courses in Trial Practice and Legal Ethics, have argued two cases in the moot court, and have enjoyed eight weeks in close association with a district court and its presiding judge, they will be better prepared for the full spectrum of legal practice than any law school graduates anywhere."
The Orchestra, made up of KU faculty members and students, assisted by members of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra, will
The Symposium Orchestra concert at 8 p.m. tonight in the University Theatre, will also perform compositions by American composers.
The University Chamber Choi performed Vladimir Ussachevsky's "Creation-Prologue," a composition for four choruses with electronic accompaniment last night in the University Theatre.
THE CHOIR, under the direction of Clayton Krehbiel, performed nine other compositions by American composers. Three of the compositions, "Psalm 148 (Praise the Lard)" by Maurice Weed, and "Love Spell" and "Spell of Sleep" by Juli Nunlist, received their premiere performance.
Ussachevsky, who came to the United States from Russia in 1830, is regarded as one of America's outstanding composers of electronic music. A principal participant in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, Ussachevsky is here as guest composer in the sixth annual Symposium of Contemporary American Music.
be conducted by Guy Fraser Harrison, guest conductor of the Symposium and conductor of the Oklahoma City Symphony.
Electronic Music Supports Choir