Beginning in early 2014, Wolters Kluwer Legal Education launched a new focus on helping innovators in legal education share their perspectives on the future of law school teaching and curriculum with a broad audience drawn from across the community. The annual Leading Edge Conference brings together thought leaders – deans, professors, practitioners, government leaders and other stakeholders – to discuss key issues facing legal education and to brainstorm actionable strategies.
The program has 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 today seeking to evolve their teaching model to meet the challenges and opportunities in legal education today. The first edition (2015) is available for free download, or for purchase in a print edition.
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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 coutry 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.