Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network! In this episode, we hear from Deborah Jones Merritt, Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita, at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
Join us as Deborah Jones Merritt, Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita, at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, discusses her unusual path to clerking with two historic and iconic justices, Judge (later Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, and select lessons learned from each. Professor Merritt discusses her nationwide empirical study with colleagues at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) that resulted in Building a Better Bar, funded by AccessLex. The study convened 50 focus groups of legal professionals, educators and students across the country in an attempt to identify the skills needed for practice, and what should be measured to determine entry to the Bar. Professor Merritt opines on the value of clinical education as a measure of readiness to be a member of the Bar, and recounts her own impactful experiences as a doctrinal faculty member supervising a criminal defense and prosecutorial clinic, respectively. Those experiences, the study, her scholarship, and work with the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Education make her an ideal guest to share predictions on the future of legal education, what it will be, and what it should be.