One reason for the mess in nonprofit organizations could be the overly intellectual approach and the lack of clinical training at law schools in the US and Canada.
A report by the Carnegie Foundation (for the Advancement of Teaching) (EIN 13-1623924 Form 990) lays out a purposeful critique of the dominant form of legal teaching in the US and Canada, the case method ("Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law", Summary PDF). Indeed, one of the key observations of the study (based on research team visits to sixteen schools in the US and Canada considered to be leaders in legal education) is that unlike other professional schools, law schools rely almost exclusively on a single pedagogic style.
The result of the case method, the report suggests, are lawyers overly focused on abstract intellectual contention and lacking in practical application, social skills, and professional ethical responsibility. While many schools have added clinical programs, they remain on the fringes, not integrated into the curriculum.
It's noteworthy that the Wall Street Journal ran a commentary from Cameron Stracher of the New York Law School (EIN 13-5645885 Form 990) concurring with the findings, provocatively calling attention to cases where paralegals have passed themselves off as corporate lawyers, doing better at actual practice skills as any law school grad.
These findings are relevant to the charity field, and not just because many law schools are nonprofit organizations. The intellectual approach of lawyers is at work in the proliferation of nonprofit organizations. It's reflected in the belief that "starting a nonprofit organization" involves nothing more than completing certain paperwork to charter a corporation and obtaining charitable tax status from the IRS. It leaves us with charities lacking practical board governance and internal controls.
Comments