“We have to have a curriculum that's broad enough to satisfy the intellectual interest and the career aspirations of all of our students,” says Lawrence Ponoroff, dean of the MSU College of Law. “Most law schools teach mostly the same courses, however we have niche areas and specialties where we think we're particularly unique.
“Our student body is about 50 percent from Michigan. The other 50 percent come from eight countries, 30 states, and over 150 undergraduate institutions. We feel that we really are a part of a great land grant university and are serving a very important role in the state. We have a real national footprint, too. Keeping that balance is very important to us.”
Dean Ponoroff says today’s law students are “much more focused and serious about the tracks they're on because they're paying an enormous price for the education. So they are better consumers of legal education than was certainly true in the past. They're much more visual oriented in learning than certainly I was.”
Ponoroff says the legal profession isn’t going through a crisis.
“The legal profession is changing because it's always changing. 150 years ago, most lawyers made their living doing title examinations. No lawyers do title examinations today. The nature of the practice is changing. Part of that is the impact of technology in delivery of legal services. There are still great jobs out there for graduating JDs, but you have to be broad in your job search. There is real growth in what we call JD advantage jobs. These may be doing compliance or risk analysis or purchasing inside of a large corporation.”
Dean Ponoroff describes how the college has developed a new masters of legal studies program.
“It doesn't lead to a professional degree that would allow you to take a bar and practice law. But if you're a professional in the community or maybe a doctoral student at MSU and you're, let's say in environmental engineering, and you would think it really would be useful to you to understand a little bit more about the legal regime that surrounds, influences, and regulates your field, this is a program where you - in one year - can get both that education and a credential that reflects that.”
Ponoroff talks about how a key challenge moving forward is the cost of higher education. And he describes how that leads to a greater need for private philanthropic support.
MSU Today airs Sunday mornings at 9:00 on 105.1 FM and AM 870.