MacCrate's Missed Opportunity: The MacCrate Report's Failure to Advance Professional Values Symposium

Authors

Russell G. Pearce, Fordham University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Pace Law Review

Volume

23

Publication Date

2002

Keywords

legal values, professional values, law school curriculum, legal field, values

Abstract

The 1992 Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap (the "Task Force"), Legal Education Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, popularly known as the MacCrate Report (the "Report"), was the most ambitious effort to reform legal education in the past generation. Some commentators have described the Report as "the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case method in the late 19th century.” Although the Report sought to promote education in both lawyering skills and values, its major influence has been in the area of lawyering skills. The Report has contributed little to promoting professional values.5 This result is not surprising. The Report's treatment of values suffers from two basic flaws. First, the text makes values a low priority and then does not explain them coherently. Second, the Task Force fails to consider that the dominant values of the Bar and the Academy oppose those of the Report.

Recommended Citation

Russell G. Pearce, MacCrate's Missed Opportunity: The MacCrate Report's Failure to Advance Professional Values Symposium, 23 Pace L. Rev. 575 (2002-2003)
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/355