Law Schools Innovate to Prepare Students for Practical Tasks of Legal Profession

Law schools recognize the need to better prepare students for the practical tasks they will face as attorneys, such as client counseling, business development, and project management. To address this gap, some law schools are adopting programs that allow students to practice these skills. Bloomberg Law's Law School Innovation Program aims to identify and promote law schools rethinking the traditional law school curriculum through creative coursework and hands-on learning. The program recognizes schools that excel in six categories: business, experience, justice, pedagogy, student development, and technology. The following law schools received the top scores for their experiential learning offerings, and their programs are described below in alphabetical order.


Albany Law School's Innovation Intensive program partners with the Research Foundation for the State University of New York and the SUNY Polytechnic Institute to help law students work with inventors to turn their ideas into viable products and services. Students in the program are exposed to every aspect of the technology transfer process and learn to assess the economic and commercial viability of inventions, engage in patent prosecution, and decide which corporate form a technology startup should take. The program helps prepare students to work with tomorrow's technologies and entrepreneurs seeking to bring them to market, regardless of their science background. The program also provides valuable contacts for students to further their careers and professional development.

Cardozo School of Law has an interdisciplinary clinic called the Filmmakers Legal Clinic. It pairs students with social justice-minded visual content creators to help them advocate for their causes, particularly for underrepresented communities. Law students provide pro bono legal services addressing the challenges of creating and distributing visual media, including intellectual property and First Amendment law, while also learning practical skills such as negotiation, contract drafting, and client counseling. The program teaches students to represent the whole client and step outside of traditional doctrinal silos. FLC students learn to navigate complex legal hurdles with skills essential for being excellent deal-makers and wise counselors. Students also represent organizations like film festivals or nonprofits, gaining experience similar to outside general counsel.

Additionally, they teach a legal empowerment workshop to filmmakers. The program is a rare combination of complex IP and transactional legal issues that present students with a breadth of experience, particularly for clients without a lot of money or the possibility of a lot of money and a high chance of impact on the social justice needle. FLC students emerge from the clinic with a greater understanding of advocating for all parties and approaching interdisciplinary law.

NuLawLab, an interdisciplinary innovation laboratory founded in 2012 at Northeastern University School of Law, is focused on creativity and experiential design. It offers a variety of pedagogical pathways, including courses, external projects, and a graduate certificate in legal format, aiming to encourage law students, lawyers, and others to lean into their creativity to help reshape the legal profession and support social change. Its flagship seminar in legal design pairs law students with art students to use problem-solving methodologies to solve specific legal design questions.

The Center for Practice Engagement and Innovation (CPEI) at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law uses the expertise and perspectives of diverse advisers in the legal services marketplace to develop new courses addressing areas of opportunity and growth within the industry. The advisory board identifies areas of change and opportunity in the legal sector, as well as specific practice needs for the site. It ultimately develops proposals for new innovative education experiences to present to the law school curriculum. CPEI integrates critical skill sets such as financial literacy, business communications, and client services, bridging the disconnect between the profession and legal education.

The Innovation Lab at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law collaborates with the Computer Science Department in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern to bring together teams of law and computer science students to develop technology solutions to real-world legal issues. Practicing providers of legal services identify the challenge that the student groups’ technology solution must solve and pair them with a subject-matter expert and project manager. Students learn project management using agile scrum techniques and learn to leverage “Improvement Kata,” a form of design thinking or lean thinking, to guide their path from brainstorming to iteration and development.

The Innovation Law Center (ILC) at Syracuse University College of Law has offered experiential learning to law students since 1990. It works with New York state by designation as the New York State Science and Technology Law Center. Students who enroll in the ILC’s two-semester clinic help real clients bring new technologies to market by combining the legal, business, and technology fields. Students engage in extensive research, including market analysis, competitive analysis, and intellectual property analysis, to evaluate and commercialize their clients’ technology. Students learn the fundamental principles of intellectual property, technology, and entrepreneurship, which prepares them well for future careers.

The University of California College of Law in San Francisco aims to keep lawyers competent in relevant technology, as required by California Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1. The heart of its mission lies in integrating technological literacy with the study of law through innovative curricula, hosting public events discussing technology and the law, and offering its signature legal technology accelerator program. The accelerator program invites entrepreneurs to work with students during weekly office hours while students take the course "How to Build a Legal Tech Startup." The program culminates in "Demo Day," where students pitch their business ideas and exhibit their products to a panel of investors and future customers. Students learn skills that prepare them for the growing legal landscape of careers spanning multiple disciplines, better understanding their clients as they enter their legal careers.

At the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, the Law + Innovation Lab teaches students how to use technology to address access-to-justice issues through a six-credit intensive course culminating in a 10-week final project. Students apply their skills to solve real-world problems presented by non-profit community partners, such as developing tools to help self-represented parties prepare and file divorce papers and identify signs that someone is being trafficked. Students learn practical skills such as project management, human-centered design, and go-to-market strategy to address barriers to adoption. Students who participated in the Law + Innovation Lab found it inspiring to pursue public interest careers or to distinguish themselves in the job market.

The University of Minnesota Law School offers the Law in Practice (LiP) program, exposing students to the dynamics of legal practice through traditional teaching and small group simulations led by local practicing attorneys. The course is required for all 1L students in their second semester, building their foundational skills like client counseling, deposition taking, and deal negotiating. The litigation case file concludes with a chamber conference with a sitting judge and a mediation with an experienced mediator, while the transactional case ends with a simulated negotiation. Professor Randall Ryder, the director of LiP and the school's moot court program, stated that the program addresses the criticism of not cultivating practical skills in the traditional law school curriculum by laying the foundation for what practicing attorneys do daily. It allows students to practice these skills in a safe space, building the skills and confidence needed to hit the ground running as a new practicing attorney.

The Tech Policy Lab (TPL) at the University of Washington is a collaborative research unit co-directed by the university's School of Law, Information School, and Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. The TPL brings students from these schools together to consider the legal and policy implications, allowing law students to gain a nuanced understanding of complicated technologies and their effect on policy. The TPL regularly hosts talks focusing on current events in technology that implicate a broad range of legal and policy issues, often featuring preeminent scholars and government leaders. TPL alums have pursued careers that intersect with technology, working as attorneys at tech-focused firms or as in-house attorneys for entertainment companies.