Wolters Kluwer’s Annual Leading Edge Conference is a gathering of legal education thought leaders to discuss key issues facing legal education and to brainstorm actionable strategies. Launched in 2014 as an experiment in attendee-driven “unconferences,” Leading Edge has become a highly regarded gathering for the legal education community, with more than half of all law schools in the United States having participated.
View conference topics from the past six years ›
View the topics covered at the Leading Edge conferences over the past several years. The conference agenda is set by the attendees upon their arrival at the conference.
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The 7th Annual Leading Edge Conference, while wholly online due to COVID-19, brought together participants from the first six Leading Edge conferences to reconnect and compare notes during a period of unprecedented change within the academy. This “reunion” was an ideal opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues from across the country to discuss best practices for online teaching, integrating DE&I in the classroom, enrollment trends, the job outlook, and more.
The 6th Annual Leading Edge Conference once again brought together legal education thought leaders from across the country to participate in another thought provoking and inspiring “unconference” where the agenda was entirely created by the attendees upon their arrival. From July 8–10, 2019, in Riverwoods, Illinois, the attendees engaged in collective idea-sharing, informal networking, and high-energy brainstorming surrounding core questions about the present and future of legal education.
The 5th Annual Leading Edge Conference once again brought together legal education thought leaders from across the country to participate in another tremendously successful “unconference” where the agenda was entirely created by the attendees upon their arrival. From July 9–11, 2018, in Riverwoods, Illinois, the attendees engaged in collective idea-sharing, informal networking, and high-energy brainstorming surrounding core questions about the present and future of legal education.
Building on the prior success of the first three Leading Edge Conferences, the 4th Annual Leading Edge Conference brought together legal education thought leaders from across the country to discuss challenges and opportunities for law schools, faculty, and students. Held on July 10-12, 2017 in our Riverwoods, Illinois, complex, this “unconference” where the agenda is entirely driven by the attendees, covered these topics:
Building on the prior success of the first two Leading Edge Conferences, the 3rd Annual Leading Edge Conference brought together 32 legal education thought leaders nationwide to discuss challenging issues facing legal education today and to brainstorm ways to address and overcome these challenges. Held on July 11-13, 2016 in our Riverwoods, Illinois, complex, this “unconference” where the agenda is entirely driven by the attendees, addressed these challenges:
Twenty-five leading innovators in legal education came together at the cabin in our Riverwoods complex to discuss challenges in legal education and collaborate to develop solutions. Building on the success of the first annual Leading Edge conference (see below), this second edition added innovators and entrepreneurs from the business side of legal education to the law school professors and deans that constitute the conference’s core attendees.
The first Leading Edge Student Conference brought together 20 remarkable law students for two and a half days of idea-sharing, informal networking, and high-energy brainstorming surrounding the core question of what legal education should look like in the 21st century. Topics ranged from legal education reform, to workplace preparation, to coping with the stresses of being a law student. Each attendee was able to share his or her own experiences and collaborate with students from other law schools on ideas to take back to their own context.
Wolters Kluwer Legal Education invited 25 of the most well respected thought-leaders and innovators in legal education to attend the first annual WK Leading Edge conference and participate in three days of collaborative discussion and debate around the state of legal education.
As an “unconference,” the event did not have an agenda until participants collaboratively designed one the first evening. This format was intended to facilitate open conversation and ensure that session time was focused around issues of genuine import for attendees. Attendees created 21 high-impact sessions all revolving around how law schools should turn today’s students into successful legal thinkers and practitioners.
In 2015, the Leading Edge program expanded to include the Legal Education Leading Edge Report. Based on extensive interviews and surveys with deans, professors, and other stakeholders in the community, the Leading Edge Report is intended to succinctly summarize many of the key areas of focus for law schools seeking to evolve their teaching model to meet the challenges and opportunities in legal education today. The report is available for free download, or for purchase in a print edition.
Download Report