Elon Law hosts design-thinking workshop on legal education

Leading educators and innovators from North Carolina and beyond visited downtown Greensboro on May 12, 2017, for a program focused on improving American legal education.

Elon Law hosted a dozen educators, lawyers, and entrepreneurs this month for a daylong workshop aimed at generating new research ideas for evaluating innovations in legal education.

Led by Steve Friedland, Elon Law’s associate dean for innovation in engaged learning in law, and Dawan Stanford, Elon University’s director of design thinking, the May 12 program was organized by the law school’s Center for Engaged Learning in Law.

“Our workshop brought together a nationally known group of law professors, deans, entrepreneurs, and other professionals to explore how best to adapt legal education to promote better practitioners and well-rounded citizens,” Friedland said.

Invited participants in “Designing an Ideal Legal Education” were:

  • Sophie Sparrow, professor, University of New Hampshire, and coauthor of the book “What the Best Law Teachers Do”
  • Olympia Duhart, professor, Nova Southeastern University, former president of the Society of American Law Teachers
  • Dustin Benham, professor, Texas Tech University
  • Susan Kuo, professor, University of South Carolina, profiled in “What the Best Law Teachers Do”
  • Kami Chavis, professor, Wake Forest University
  • Keith Sipe, CEO, Carolina Academic Press
  • Alan Boyette, senior vice provost, UNC-Greensboro
  • Dr. David Gutterman, president, LeBauer Health
  • Jed Simmons, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill entrepreneur in residence
  • Ellen Gregg, partner, Womble Carlyle, member of the Elon Law Board of Advisors 
  • Dawan Stanford, director of design thinking, Elon University
  • Enrique Armijo, associate dean, Elon Law

The workshop is the latest Elon Law initiative aimed at measuring the impact of experiential learning in American legal education. Last fall the law school received a grant from The Access Group Center for Research & Policy Analysis to evalute its new curriculum, the results of which will be shared broadly with legal educators across the nation.

About Elon Law:

Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina, is the preeminent school for engaged and experiential education in law. It integrates traditional classroom instruction with highly experiential full-time residencies-in-practice in a logically sequenced program of transformational professional preparation. Elon Law’s groundbreaking approach is accomplished in 2.5 years, which provides distinctive value by lowering tuition and permitting graduates early entry into their professional careers.

For more information, visit law.elon.edu.