Scholarship@WashULaw

Document Type

Article

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2024

Publication Title

Journal of Legal Education

Abstract

Experiential legal education has become an essential component of the law school curriculum, emphasizing "learning by doing" through practical experiences in law clinics, externships, and simulation courses. This pedagogical approach offers law students the critical skills and professional values required for effective and ethical practice. Despite its recognized importance and parallels with other professional disciplines, legal education still requires minimal experiential education compared to other professions. This reluctance likely stems from lingering skepticism by some legal educators about its value, even though many stakeholders, including other educators, students, recent graduates, and other legal professionals, acknowledge its significance.

This Article is the first to comprehensively examine and synthesize the research into the impacts of experiential legal education by analyzing over sixty studies. By providing such a comprehensive review, it fills a crucial gap in the literature by focusing on the impacts of experiential legal education, not just arguments in favor or against. It begins with a brief overview of experiential education and its theoretical foundations and then analyzes studies on experiential legal education’s role in the development of professional skills and readiness for practice, enhanced professionalism and professional identity, employment outcomes, bar exam passage, and the financial impact of experiential education. The findings show widespread support among law students and recent graduates for more experiential training in law school and demonstrate the tangible benefits of experiential education in preparing students for the profession. This Article concludes by emphasizing that decisions about experiential legal education should be based on the extensive evidence of its positive impacts, rather than conjecture, anecdote, or unsubstantiated beliefs.

Keywords

Legal Education, Law School, Experiential Legal Education, Clinical Legal Education, Law Clinic, Externship, Field Placement, Simulation

Publication Citation

Robert R. Kuehn & Peter A. Joy, Measuring the Impacts of Experiential Legal Education, 73 J. Legal Educ. 598 (2025)

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