Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I'm taking a closer look at Harvard Law School's decision to remain remote for the fall semester and its implications for legal education. Next up, I chat with Association of American Law Schools Executive Director Judith Areen about the cancelation of October's Faculty Recruitment Conference and how law school hiring will play out this year. Plus, I've got some updates on legal employment and applications trends. Read on and stay safe!

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

 

Harvard Leads the Pack…in Staying Online

By now, you've likely seen that Harvard Law School will remain fully remote for the fall semester due to the coronavirus pandemic. The school announced that decision on June 3, making it the first law school to commit to online classes in the fall. Reaction, predictably, has run the gamut. The school has earned praise from those who believe that staying remote is the best way to protect the health of students, faculty, and staff, as well as the general public. But others have said eschewing campus altogether is an overreaction to the virus and will diminish the quality of the education students receive.

I want to share some thoughts on this, because I think Harvard being the first to commit to remote instruction is a game changer. Let's be honest, Harvard moves the legal education market in a way that no other school does (sorry Yale), and when Harvard makes a big play like this, people pay attention.

First off, I think Harvard was pretty brave to make this call early in the summer. And I think it was probably the right thing to do. It's quite possible that other law schools will be able to find ways to safely stagger in-person classes or offer a hybrid approach where larger classes are online and smaller ones meet on campus. But Harvard Law is huge. It graduates 600 J.D.s a year—only Georgetown is larger. And that number doesn't even count all the LL.M.s, faculty, and staff around the school. I think the logistics of socially distancing the entire operation were just too much. I've got to think that some of the other large law schools—Georgetown, George Washington and Columbia come to mind—must be grappling with the same decision. In some ways, Harvard being the first should make it easier for other law schools to follow suit. And I think it was really decent of the school to be definitive early in the summer out of fairness to incoming and current students. Most other law schools are hemming and hawing right now, leaving students in limbo. In some ways, it's better just to know, even if the decision wasn't what you'd hoped for.

At the same time, it's a risky move. Harvard competes fiercely with others in the so-called T-14 for top applicants and being online likely makes it less appealing to many incoming students. That said, I don't think a ton of accepted students will suddenly drop Harvard to enroll at competitor schools, if only because those competitor schools have largely filled up their incoming classes. (Plus, those competitor schools could also decide to go online.) I think the bigger danger is that admitted students will simply defer their admission for a year to wait and see if in-person classes resume. On the other hand, the economy and job market aren't exactly hopping right now so admitted students may not have other appealing options. Current students could also hit the pause button on their studies, particularly if they had a bad experience with online learning last semester. The school has said it's allowing both scenarios, and has extended the deadline for deferrals and leaves while incoming and current students evaluate their options. But I still don't think that means dire straits for Harvard: Even being fully online, the school should be able to fill out its incoming class off of its waitlist. (The real loser in this scenario could be elite schools slightly down the hierarchy who see their admitted students jump ship for newly open slots at Harvard.)

Here are my big unanswered questions about Harvard going online and my predictions:

➤➤ Will new students still come and will current students take leaves of absence? My guess on both is yes, for the majority.

➤➤ Will the faculty offer a more robust legal education and better learning experience than this spring, when the quick shift online mostly meant recreating traditional teaching formats on Zoom? I think this one largely depends on the individual professor. The nice thing about deciding to stay online early in the process is that the administration and faculty have the summer to brush up on distance education pedagogy and contemplate how to do more than simply lecture into a laptop.

➤➤ How will students build and maintain a sense of community and connection with each other in the absence of in-campus interaction and events? This, to my mind, will be the toughest nut for Harvard to crack. You just can't fully recreate casually chatting with your professor in the hallway between classes or eating that free pizza during a lunchtime guest speaker—not to mention the camaraderie built by holing up in the law library to study before finals. I've heard from people at different schools that they were able to maintain extracurricular groups and the like through social media, chat groups, and Zoom. But I really wonder how students—especially new ones who have never met before in person—will bond and network through a computer screen. I think the school will find new ways to establish and maintain these connections, but I don't think it can approximate the on-campus experience.

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The Law School Meat Market Is on Ice

It's official: The Association of America Law Schools will not hold is annual Faculty Recruitment Conference—better known as the "meat market"—this October. The move is hardly a surprise given that academic conferences and events have been canceled right and left amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But it marks the first time in 45 years that the hiring conference has been cancelled, executive director Judith Areen told me last week.

For the uninitiated, the Faculty Recruitment Conference is a three-day event in Washington D.C. where law schools meet with hundreds of aspiring law professors for first-round job interviews. It's where the vast majority of entry level law faculty hiring starts. Areen said the association polled law deans in early May on whether or not they would send hiring teams to Washington in October. Just 10% said they would, while 60% said they wouldn't. The remainder landed in the middle with many leaning towards no, she said. Thus, the decision to cancel was pretty clear.

"It wasn't just about the virus," Areen said. "Higher education in general and legal education are facing real economic challenges. Many universities aren't paying for faculty travel. So even if there weren't health issues, schools were saying they would not be able to send a team to interview people."

So how will hiring happen this year? (Whether or not law schools will do doing much hiring this fall is a question for another column.) In short, it will all happen remotely, Areen said. The AALS is still putting out its placement bulletins, where law schools can post open positions. And the association will still maintain the Faculty Appointments Register, where candidates can post their CVs and upload a paper, all off which is searchable by law schools. Thus schools will reach out directly to candidates to arrange phone or Skype interviews. Faculty hiring by competitive law schools could actually happen earlier in the year, Areen said, since the final FAR will be released in mid-August and schools won't feel compelled to wait until October to start interviewing.

The benefit of the hiring conference was that schools could see a large number of candidates in a short period of time. But its cancelation this year will save money for both schools and aspiring professors, Areen noted.

Extra Credit Reading

Law school applications could see a late surge due to coronavirus delays, but as of now the national applicant pool is down slightly.

Law deans across the country speak out about the obligation of their institutions to confront injustice and fight for equality.

New employment data from the American Bar Association show that the class of 2019 enjoyed a strong job market, but the coronavirus pandemic could set their careers back.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners will provide a shortened, remote bar exam in October to jurisdictions that cannot safely administer the test in person.

Thanks for reading Ahead of the Curve. Sign up for the newsletter and check out past issues here.

I'm off next week but will be back June 22 with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]