Bill Henderson: The Most Interesting Man in Legal Education

When we created The Legal Whiteboard for Bill Henderson (Indiana) as part of our Law Profesor Blogs Network, the idea was provide Bill a forum both to house his interesting work on legal education and the legal profession and to elicit comments from others on his work. From his most recent post, Betting on the Next Generation of Law School Graduates:

When I started writing the National Jurist columns, I never quite knew how they would end.  In an attempt to break down the distance between the student and the professor, I recounted some of my own (inglorious) law school experiences.  Unconstrained by form, I just wrote what was honestly on my mind to an audience I really cared about.  It was refreshing, that's for sure, but much to my surprise, these essays seemed to boil down my academic ideas into something useful and practical.  The emails I started receiving from students suggested that I was making progress.

Ironically, the National Jurist writings are now influencing my academic work, including several essays I am writing this summer on legal education and the legal industry.  Yet, the true virtue of those essays may be their brevity.  So, in case you are curious about the subversive ideas I am passing along to our youth, with Jack's permission, I am republishing several of these essays on the Legal Whiteboard.

• The Inferiority Complex of Law Schools (Mar 2012) [original PDF].  Suggests that we law professors are plagued by a century-old inferiority complex that obstructs our ability to be effective educators.
• Is a Great Lawyer Made or Born? (Jan 2012) [original PDF].  Provides some science-based clues for why some lawyers fail and others succeed. 
• Seduced by Legal Brands (Sept 2011) [original PDF].  Relates the very moment in my legal career when I became a skeptic of brand-name law schools and law firms.
• The Client-Focused Lawyer (Jan 2011) [original PDF]. Discusses the disconnect between law school classes and the skills needed to become a successful lawyer.

Update:  Tough Choices Ahead for Some High-Ranked Law Schools