I recently read a very interesting article on legal education, The MIT School of Law? A Perspective on Legal Education in the 21st Century, by Daniel Martin Katz, scheduled to appear in the 2014 U. Ill. L. Rev. 

Katz, an associate professor at Michigan State, considers the impact of the information revolution and changes in the market for legal services on legal education. He considers how a hypothetical law school might market itself and its students. The key, according to Katz, “is to stop trying to be the ‘50th or 100th best Harvard and Yale’ and instead to concentrate on outflanking these and other institutions by becoming leaders in law’s major emerging employment sectors.” Rather than consider how to incrementally change existing law schools, Katz tries to work backward from what he thinks the future market for lawyers will be like to how a law school should be structured to serve that market. Not surprisingly, Katz concludes that knowledge of technology, math, engineering and science will be important for future lawyers—thus, the MIT School of Law in the article’s title.

I’m a little late getting to this, but it’s a very interesting, provocative article—well worth reading. Katz’s article is part of the Illinois Law Review's  tribute to Larry Ribstein. That entire issue is worth a close look when it is available.