Chemerinsky. The name conjures thoughts of both fear and admiration. You have to admire a guy who can teach a barbri course off the top of his head. (Conspiracy theorists believe Erwin to be half alien) The fear is mainly provoked by brief flashbacks of studying con law for 12 hours a day, only to realize that you will never be as smart as the man who makes it seem so easy. Often, I wanted to punch the guy (or at least kick the projector) for being so damn smart.

As most in the legal clique are already aware, Chemy is out on a mission: To bring the yet-to-exist UC Irvine Law School into existence and come out on top his first time at bat. That’s brass balls right there. Kudos to you Chemy for wanting to do something different. Breaking the mold is never easy. I say let it ride! The idea here is to create a new type of law school, one that teaches practical lawyering skills. TLL admires the goal, but wonders if the world is ready for  a school such as UCI Law.

First off, UCI is doing away with the traditional first year courses. For this, TLL gives the man props. This novel approach may just be the shot in the arm that the legal education community needs to see. Many first year courses are taught by tenured or tenure-track instructors. From my experience, they often result in laziness and bad teaching. I would have enjoyed learning about the nuts and bolts of what lawyers do rather than some generic and potentially obsolete law that may or may not change by the time I take the bar. Just my thoughts.

But I wonder if such a radically different take on legal education is capable of jumping from non-existence into top-tier balleration. If Chemy succeeds, he cements his status as quite possibly the most G (what’s G?) Dean of all time. If he fails, other top tiers will probably talk a lot of shit about how the West can’t compete with Ivy League. (Just try it, we all know the West Coast would ride on y’all) I think that it doesn’t really matter if UCI Law fails to jump into the top 20-25 law schools. The real test will be the lawyers the school produces. And based on what I hear of the proposed curriculum, I’d drop serious coin on a bet that those first UCI grads will be well prepared to make the jump from education to practice. What sounds more impressive to you? A greenhorn attorney who has no practical skills and whose highlighted ability involves document review, or someone who has studied the intricacies of the art of negotiation and understands how the legal profession works.