The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System on March 15 announced it partnered with the Law School Admission Council on Foundations 2.0, a project designed to provide data and insights on the skills and competencies new lawyers need to succeed in the rapidly evolving legal profession.
The project is a major update of IAALS’ original Foundations for Practice project, which launched in 2014. “That original data was collected in 2014. So it’s pretty dated at this point. And certainly, they’re still really valuable insights,” said Logan Cornett, director of research, legal education and licensure at IAALS. “We still rely on that data, but there are just certain things that are different about the world now. And the data just can’t reflect that.”
Cornett noted the old survey didn’t ask any questions about AI, which is a newer development and has already started impacting the legal profession. Other technological advances have been made in the past decade and Cornett said the old survey also didn’t ask any questions about Zoom or remote work.
Zack DeMeola, senior director of strategic initiatives at LSAC, noted this is the first time LSAC has been involved in Foundations. DeMeola, who was formerly IAALS’ director of legal education, said he carried the passion for the project with him to his new role. Both Cornett and DeMeola noted the data was due for an update post-COVID.
“Particularly in the last couple of years, certainly post-COVID. But in terms of meeting the moment — now being the time to meet the moment in history, there are major shifts going on in legal education,” DeMeola said. “There are I think, maybe even paradigm shifts, to put it a little more dramatically, among regulators.”
Foundations 2.0 has been in discussion since DeMeola was with IAALS. Once the timing was right for both organizations, Cornett noted the team pulled together a project plan that encompasses an initial step of a content review. Subsequent reviews include looking at diversity, equity and inclusion. Cornett said the initial survey was lacking more information in that area. In each step, the Foundations 2.0 team engages with various experts in the field.
The Foundations 2.0 team will collect data throughout 2024 and will publish a final report and framework in 2025. A white paper is expected to come out this summer.
“There are major shifts going on in legal education. There are I think, maybe even paradigm shifts, to put it a little more dramatically, among regulators.” – Zack DeMeola, senior director of strategic initiatives at LSAC
DeMeola explained the goal of the project is to inform and engage the legal community and the broader public. “The whole purpose of the report is for everyone to see and be able to use it,” he noted, explaining the project’s intensive research needs to be translated in a way that’s accessible for as many people as possible to be able to use the findings. “We want to think about real intent around creating this, taking this data and making it actionable for employers, for educators and for students,” DeMeola added.
Part of that accessibility is being able to view the data in different ways, Cornett said. The initial project had a data visualization element, and Foundations 2.0 hopes to incorporate a revamped data visualization tool. Cornett explained the hope is people can explore the data and understand their own questions without having to sift through the vast amount of information the project team will and is currently piecing together based on a long survey and other research methodologies.
Questions current legal educators may have will likely be multifaceted.
Law Week Colorado previously reported on the state’s adoption of the NextGen bar examination starting with the July 2028 exam, moving away from the Uniform Bar Exam which has been in use since 2012. Roughly 14 other states have announced plans to adopt the NextGen exam too. The new test is designed to test a broader range of foundational skills. The Foundations 2.0 team found after the state adopted the current UBE test that it wasn’t testing the skills lawyers need to be considered minimally competent.
“What we asserted based on the evidence was that the bar exam was not testing what it purports to test — what you need to be minimally competent and that I would say, and I don’t think it’s overly dramatic to say that that was a massive shock to the legal system,” DeMeola said.
“Foundations is something a little more than that, more than that minimum competency, but … building a better bar comes after Foundations,” DeMeola clarified. “Foundations set an infrastructure for us to do that work in an important way. So they’re not the same but they are related.”
Cornett added the findings of the project are incredibly complementary to future possible updates to the bar exam, or establishing what things educators may be able to focus more heavily on to set future attorneys up for the greatest success in the profession.
“What we asserted based on the evidence was that the bar exam was not testing what it purports to test — what you need to be minimally competent and that I would say, and I don’t think it’s overly dramatic to say that that was a massive shock to the legal system.” – Zack DeMeola, senior director of strategic initiatives at LSAC
“We are so used to one model of licensure, that the idea that we’re going to test for more skills is challenging because the academy and the profession hasn’t done a great job with assessment of skills traditionally, and and I think we’re all trying to — and certainly Logan and I are interested in — moving the profession in that direction,” DeMeola said.
More locally, Colorado is shifting toward the use of licensed legal paraprofessionals and is adopting regulatory framework and licensure requirements to support the future use of these professionals in more standard legal matters. Earlier this year, professionals applied for the state’s new LLP bar exam, which is set for April 30.
“I think, in some ways, there’s been this assumption that an allied legal professional is a lawyer light, so they just take what they require from lawyers and trim it down. But that’s an imperfect way to do it,” DeMeola noted, explaining the approach doesn’t speak directly to what specific skills are needed to deliver those legal services in that way. “Logan and I have talked about the prospect of Foundations filling that gap, and it’s certainly something we’re actively considering. But I don’t think we’ve concluded whether or not we’re going to make that part of Foundations 2.0 just yet.”
One thing the project is tackling in the more immediate sense is how law schools can move forward with equity and inclusion in the profession and on an academic level.
“After the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, things became much murkier in terms of what schools and law firms could and should do with respect to equity and inclusion,” Cornett said. She explained one of the main goals of the Foundation project is to promote equity. “It makes it so that we’re looking at more than just things that privileged students can do, or privileged graduates can do. And I think that’s a really, really important and valuable aspect of the project.”
DeMeola explained the profession is largely behind on equity and diversity. “And that’s particularly problematic when our profession is supposed to be serving our society, our democratic society and the rule of law,” he continued. “Our profession needs to look like the people that it’s serving, it needs to represent people. And I firmly believe that Foundations is a big part of moving the profession to that promise of justice.”