Alternative Justifications for Academic Support II: How ‘Academic Support Across the Curriculum’ Helps Meet the Goals of the Carnegie Report and Best Practices

Abstract

In the wake of two momentous critiques of legal education, popularly known as the “Carnegie Report” and “Best Practices,” law schools are reconsidering certain basic assumptions about how we educate future lawyers. Even the most forward-thinking reformers, however, struggle with the details of how to implement many of the recommendations of those reports. Providing more formative assessment, for instance, is a laudable objective but one that has serious ramifications in terms of resource expenditures. This article seeks to provide a remedy for many of these struggles: “Academic Support Across the Curriculum.” This piece argues that the reconceptualization of an under-leveraged asset in many law schools, Academic Support Programs (ASPs), can help provide crucial improvements in legal education. By examining the reforms urged by the Carnegie Report and Best Practices, and by detailing the methods of certain exemplary ASPs throughout the country, this piece analyzes how ASPs just might be the answer to many tough questions