The Urban Law Program of the University of Detroit School of Law

Abstract

T HERE HAS RECENTLY BEEN a muttering of dissatisfaction on the part of many lawyers and legal educators which has steadily grown into a decidedly discomfiting rumble. In some cases it is the result of an awareness of the rigidity and pedantic, if not atrophic, qualities which exemplify the majority of curricula in the nation's law schools, both large and small; in other cases it has arisen because law schools seem to be preparing their students only for roles as desk lawyers, and closing their eyes to the urgency of new social and economic patterns which have begun to exert such insistent pressures that they can no longer be ignored.' More often than not, the two expressions are actually two different ways of looking at the same problem, namely, when will law schools recognize and reflect in changed curricula the changing needs of changing times? In September 1965 the University of Detroit School of Law received a grant of 242,000 dollars from the Office of Economic Opportunity. The grant provides funds for a demonstration, research, and training program under Title II-A of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.2 Prior to receipt of this grant the law school reexamined its course of study, similar to that of practically all other U.S. law schools, and found it inconsistent with the realities of modern society, but, more particularly, based on a limited perspective of the role of the attorney in society. It was safely traditional, saleable, and consistent with the image that far too many lawyers have of the profession. It was also uncomfortably unsuited to our times and to the demands to be made on future lawyers.