Law School Creates Smartphone Video Game To Track Student Progress

Basic legal skills... gotta catch 'em all!

Yo, I have a cheat code that can get you into Cravath...

Yo, I have a cheat code that can get you into Cravath…

If you see Nebraska Law students obsessively flicking at their smartphones, it’s because they have fallen into a game of exploration, constantly working to collect and upgrade their profile. Students at the University of Nebraska College of Law have a smartphone app to help them track their progress in mastering “27 core skills” to become a well-rounded, competent legal professional. Basic legal skills… gotta catch ’em all!

From Law.com:

Next month, the University of Nebraska College of Law will roll out an app designed to help students develop 27 distinct professional skills by tracking their activities and coursework. Administrators say that the app, built by students in the university’s computer science school over the past year with input from law faculty and students, is the first of its kind at a law school.

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Each class, activity and event on campus is coded for the associated learning outcomes. Participating in moot court, for example, develops communication, research and writing skills, Brummond said. Students log their activities in the app, which calculates the skills in which they are excelling and highlights those in need of more attention.

If this sounds hokey, that’s because it’s absolutely hokey. Not that this necessarily makes it a bad idea, but Nebraska’s got an uphill climb selling this one.

See, we used to have a system for tracking whether or not a student mastered core competencies. We called it “grading.” And perhaps this time-honored evaluation system failed to cover every skill — or even most of the skills — that a student needs to become a quality practicing attorney, but that evokes deeper questions about the structure of legal education than this app hopes to solve. Because no matter how fervently law schools want to believe in the “practice-ready” mantra and how loudly clients bellow that firms need to get out of the on-the-job training game, the cold numbers reveal time and again that law firms primarily care about grades in the traditional curriculum. Employers understand what it took to earn that Contracts grade. They’re a little fuzzier on what it means to ace the “Creativity” competency, and Nebraska doesn’t seem like the school that’s going to revolutionize how employers evaluate students.

And yes, “Creativity” is one of these core skills. The school’s website for its “Build Your Character” program — holy hell, they’re really going all-in on the role-playing game rhetoric — lists all of the skills:

Sponsored

* Analysis and reasoning
* Creativity-innovation
* Problem-solving
* Practical judgement
* Researching the law
* Fact finding
* Questioning and interviewing
* Negotiating skills
* Able to see the world through the eyes of a client
* Networking & Business Development
* Providing advice and counsel
* Building relationship with clients
* Influencing and advocating
* Writing
* Speaking
* Listening
* Developing relationships within the legal profession
* Evaluation, development, and mentoring
* Cultural competency
* Strategic planning
* Organizing and managing ones own work
* Organizing and managing others (staff & colleagues)
* Passion & engagement
* Diligence
* Integrity & honesty
* Stress management
* Community involvement
* Self-development

By my count that’s 28 skills, but maybe realizing that is the key to unlocking the legendary legal skill of “Counting.”

But let’s give this app a break because there’s one incredibly useful feature:

Sponsored

The tracking feature also enables students to easily review all their relevant law school experience ahead of job interviews. Should a student interview for a job at a mediation center, for example, the app can create a document listing every class, organization, speaker and event they attended that dealt with conflict resolution, said Molly Brummond, assistant dean for student and alumni relations. Hence, students have ready-made interview talking points, she said.

It’s the last line that’s important. A mediation center would rather see a student with straight As in wildly unrelated courses than a modest transcript heavy on relevant courses. But the app helps the student prepare for the interview. Even with that straight-A transcript, the student could get dinged if they can’t answer, “so why do you want to work here?” By cataloging every event that relates, the student can construct their spiel.

So it may have some uses in the interview context, but this program is trumpeted as if it’s a holistic educational system covering every curricular and extracurricular activity. It literally “builds your character.” That seems problematic.

I actually believe in integrating the video game “achievement/trophy” system into education. It’s a mechanism of effort-to-result that this generation of students can understand and, frankly, it more accurately reflects practice than the traditional law school model of putzing around for a year and then taking one test. But this runs the risk of being a grading pacifier.

There’s nothing stupider than the “millennials are the softest generation because they get participation trophies” myth. But there is something to the idea that businesses — such as law schools — have an interest in stringing people along, and this system could contribute to that. Because classes are curved and “signing up for a networking event” isn’t. Imagine a 3L saying “I know I never got higher than a C, but look, I did moot court and attended every talk that the school coded as a litigation credit so I’m completely on my way to success!”

Ultimately, if the school is committed to these competencies, then integrate them into the grading of every class. Put students in a position where they receive practical negotiating skills in Torts and they carry that experience with them without having to seek out some elective or other event to earn enough “Cornhusker Dust” to level up their negotiation to a level 3 or whatnot.

But I don’t think Nebraska is that bold. Maybe an extra-credit project here and there, but they just aren’t ready to grade traditional classes in non-traditional ways.

Law School App Law School App Tracks Students’ Professional Skills [Law.com]


Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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