Improving Learning in the Law School Classroom by Encouraging Students to Form Communities of Practice

Legal educators have avoided core curriculum reform despite continual calls for change. This position is untenable for most law schools given current market conditions that have resulted in a severe decline in law school enrollment. This paper argues that legal educators should use learning theory when making reform decisions. Researchers who have studied how learning occurs in traditional apprenticeships recognize that informal learning occurs in industrialized society through groups called “communities of practice.” Law professors can stimulate student learning by implementing communities of practice in their classrooms. This paper begins by discussing the learning theories that support and define this pedagogical tool. It also explains how using communities of practice in the law school classroom is consistent with the recent calls for legal education reform from the Clinical Legal Education Association and the Carnegie Foundation. The paper then borrows ideas from the successful implementation of communities of practice in corporate and government organizations and makes suggestions for their use in different types of law school courses. It concludes by explaining how communities of practice can be used as a vehicle to increase learning and teach practice-based skills. This small scale reform can inform, and be part of, the larger contemporary law school reform movement.