Is Pizza Enough? Preparing our Students for the New Normal of Technological Competence

Speaker(s):

Everyone is writing about how increasingly necessary it is for lawyers to have defined technology skills, and that even digital natives have few of the skills required for practice. Most of these discussions also insist that technology skills should introduced in law school rather than learned on the job. How do we help our students appreciate this knowledge gap? And, how to we begin to bridge it? Can we rely on the old standbys? (“Free pizza for 30 minutes of your time! (and some stealth learning)”). Lots of schools and individuals are exploring and experimenting with innovative programs to teach technology skills.
This session aims to allow everyone in attendance to share what is happening at their school. We will orchestrate a guided conversation on topics such as:

how to convince students there’s a need to learn technology skills
the best forum for this kind of education (full courses, guest lectures, lunch time sessions, bootcamps)
which skills it’s crucial that students learn before they leave law school
who should teach these skills (doctrinal faculty, librarians, IT specialists, practicing lawyers)

The session will be conducted in a "fishbowl" style: —for each question or topic an “inner circle”, recruited from the audience, will share their experiences and ideas. We will keep the discussion going with questions and observations, and moderate similar input from the rest of the audience. Then, when we move on to another topic, we’ll recruit a new “inner circle” and continue the discussion.