It is possible that traditional law schools will reinvent themselves structurally from the ground up and become exemplars of innovative 21st-century lawyer formation. It is also possible that I will play Polonius, the irritating giver of unwanted advice, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s next production of Hamlet. Both these scenarios would be welcome (especially Act III, scene iv, when the advice-giver behind the curtain finally gets what’s coming to him).

More likely, however, the reinvention of lawyer formation will begin outside of our legacy law campuses. Ryerson University’s new law school is a very promising entrant in this burgeoning race.

But frankly, I don’t see that the initial stage of lawyer formation needs to be affiliated with a university or academic institution at all. If a law society is satisfied that an entity has properly grounded its graduates in the foundational knowledge of the law and the essential features of the legal profession, then it should certify those graduates, regardless of whether the entity also has a nice coat of arms and a football team.

In that spirit, then, here are three very different visions for law school s— new ways of conceiving what “legal education” could and should now be expected to accomplish. READ THE ARTICLE.