I had noted in an earlier posting that Northwestern Law School’s adoption of a business-school model had been controversial with some faculty. This article discusses the general issue of law schools emulating business schools, with extensive quotations from Dean Van Zandt at Northwestern, among many others. One interesting bit, a propos my earlier posting:

“Thomas Merrill, a Columbia Law School professor who taught at Northwestern until last year, said, while law schools could learn much from business schools, his former school’s approach was ‘a little mechanical and a little overboard in trying to superimpose the business school model.’

“Many business school classes are relatively superficial, said Mr. Merrill, while law school students have to absorb a larger amount of substantive knowledge.

“Moving law schools too far in the direction of business schools would short-change aspiring lawyers by giving them a program of study that was ‘neither fish nor fowl,’ most likely taught by adjuncts and assistants rather than full-time professors, he said.

“Messrs. [Jonathan] Macey [Cornell, about to move to Yale] and Merrill said nothing developing in the profession warrants radical change to law schools. The top practitioners in the profession, both men said, are among the most academically oriented, continually publishing articles on innovations in the law.”