How Best To Build A (Sports) Lawyer?

There's an article in this month's edition of the ABA Journal written by G.M. Filisko, which entails a thought-provoking discussion about how best to prepare and train people to become lawyers ("How Best To Build A Lawyer?"). Filisko notes that, "[f]or years, ideas have been batted around to improve the way lawyers are educated, ranging from allowing apprenticeships to changing bar exam standards to wiping out law school altogether." A few states -- California, Maine, New York, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming -- allow students to skip law school in favor of some form of apprenticeship or “reading the law,” which combines self-study and practice under the supervision of an experienced, bar-admitted attorney. While skipping law school altogether probably sounds attractive to many prospective law students, the reality is that it would be difficult to get a job as an attorney because most hiring partners reject such drastic alternatives to obtaining a formal law school education.

But there may be a happy medium somewhere in-between. For example, some of the hiring partners interviewed for the article support the idea of combining a formal law school education with a legal residency (analogous to the medical profession). Here are some of their comments:

• “My general sense is that the first year to two years of law school is important because it really does teach people how to spot and analyze issues and how to construct arguments.” However, he added that he could see “losing the last year of law school and replacing it with practical work.”

• A residency program could help law firms in hiring. "If you bring students in for an extended apprenticeship, you get a better look at them.”

• A residency program could improve attorney retention. “It may result in less movement by people from one area of the law to another or from one firm to another.”

Internships are a great way to accomplish, on a more limited scale, many of the same goals and objectives of a formal legal residency program. While law schools across the country are establishing more concentrations with specialized curriculums in various fields of law, it is vital that students in these programs have the opportunity to not only apply what they are learning in the classroom, but to also begin making contacts within the particular industry while in law school. I think generally law schools could do better in this regard.

As a director of a sports law concentration, I make internship placement a priority because internships afford students a tremendous opportunity during law school (1) to gain practical experience in the sports industry, (2) to give sports industry employers a "look-see" which may lead to future employment for the student with that particular employer or with another employer, and (3) to help students determine early on which fields within the sports industry interest them most. Internships can also help to alleviate senioritis.

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