Touro Law Joins Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium

August 22, 2013
Media Contact

Patti Desrochers
Director of Communications
pattid@tourolaw.edu
(631) 761-7062

Central Islip, N.Y. – Dean Patricia Salkin is pleased to announce that Touro Law Center has joined the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers (ETL) Consortium. ETL partners with a consortium of law schools committed to innovation in the spirit of the Carnegie Report to encourage and facilitate innovation in legal education in order to train new lawyers to the highest standards of competence and professionalism. The group includes 29 ABA accredited law schools nationwide that have demonstrated significant institutional commitment to legal education reform, offers multiple courses that implement the Carnegie approach to legal education and focus on student-centered teaching.

Dean Patricia Salkin stated, "Touro Law has been providing innovative experiential opportunities for our students for many years. We have developed great working relationships with members of the bar and bench that benefit our students. Membership in the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Consortium solidifies publically our long-standing commitment to advancing experiential learning in legal education."

Touro Law is committed to preparing students for success in a changing legal marketplace through experiential learning programs that produce confident, skilled, and practice-ready lawyers.  This commitment is advanced with innovative and integrated course offerings including clinics and externships, a collaborative court program where doctrine and practice converge, and a Public Advocacy Center within the law school which houses legal educators and legal practitioners and provides students with multiple opportunities to serve the public and develop their professional identities under the close supervision of public interest attorneys.  All of these programs, separately and cumulatively, have been designed to bridge the gap between the formal, traditional methods and substance of classroom learning and the skills and values required for real world lawyering. 

Associate Dean for Experiential Learning & Director of the Collaborative Court Programs Myra Berman said, "Our unique and innovative experiential learning programs at Touro Law enable our students to benefit from a truly practice-oriented legal education. ETL makes us part of a larger group of like-minded educators who are working to make a difference in legal education and in the lives of students."

ETL leverages the Carnegie Model and the work of law schools and professors committed to legal education reform to align legal education with the needs of an evolving profession by providing a supported platform for shared learning, experimentation, ongoing measurement and collective implementation.

The effort focuses on integrating years of insights and knowledge, as well as sharing current educational models to achieve that purpose. By offering a structured and highly collaborative approach, ETL is creating a foundation for ongoing inquiry, exploration and measurement.

ETL is fully staffed and based at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, a national, independent research center at the University of Denver dedicated to continuous improvement of the process and culture of the civil justice system.