Over the past few weeks, I have attended two separate, equally fabulous conferences focusing on legal education pedagogy and practice (the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning conference at New York Law School entitled “Engaging and Assessing our Students” and the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Conference in Seattle entitled “Learning for Transfer”).  I returned with countless ideas and tips for improving my own teaching both in doctrinal and lawyering skills classes. 

As an active member of the LEAPS task force dedicated to helping legal educators incorporate problem-solving approaches and exercises into their doctrinal classrooms, I am particularly excited by the progress I have observed in the legal academy on this front. Law professors seem more and more willing to adopt problem-solving approaches to their teaching, whether for just one class or for an entire semester. Many sessions during both of these conferences provided practical ideas and resources to make this happen. I am optimistic that the law school of the future will be graduating more and more problem-solving lawyers – to the betterment of the legal profession.