As the accrediting authority for law schools nationwide, the American Bar Association has long implemented high standards for reviewing schools' teaching methods, testing techniques and ability to produce attorneys fit for the legal workforce.

Since late 2009, the ABA has been working to create "student learning outcomes" to its accreditation standards - another tool for testing students' lawyering skills and ensuring educational adequacy for young attorneys entering the legal arena. The ABA conducts a standards review every five years, with each review being nearly a three-year process.

Nancy Slonim, deputy director for policy communications for the ABA, said the new standards were deemed necessary by the Special Committee on Outcome Measures, which issued a report in July 2008 recommending a shift in ABA law school approval standards.

The report stated that the Accreditation Standards of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar should be reframed with a greater focus on "outcome measures," Slonim said.

Although the ABA's accreditation standards have historically focused on "input measures" - school spending per student, student-faculty ratios, minutes spent in the classroom by students - student learning outcomes would identify post-graduates' skills and competencies, according to the ABA's six-member Student Learning Outcomes Subcommittee.

Slonim said the student learning outcomes are works in progress. The ABA's Standards Review Committee has developed a draft and is continuing work on the new standards, she added. Since many schools already have programs for studying competency, the ABA is considering establishing ways to measure how schools have met their own goals and missions.

Some local law schools say they will likely be prepared for the new standards, since they've already implemented output measures into their policies.

Jack Guttenberg, dean and law professor at Capital University Law School, said the school has a long history and mission of preparing its graduates to practice law.

"Our first year curriculum focuses on the analytical and substantive skills required of young lawyers. Our first year legal writing program simulates many of the documents used in litigation at the trial level," Guttenberg explained, adding that many first-year classes include simulated exercises that are designed to expose students to issues a young associate might have to handle.

In the law school's upper-level curriculum, students are given several opportunities for seminars and simulation courses - ranging from seminars where students are required to prepare documents for clients as varied as city administrators, boards of directors, senior partners and individual clients, to courses where students work on a variety of problems that everyday lawyers face, Guttenberg said.

Additionally, Capital provides live client in-house clinics that enable students to represent individual clients under an experienced clinical faculty member's supervision.

"Many of our clinic students obtain courtroom experience and all are exposed to real clients with real legal problems," said Guttenberg.

Joe Bodine, professor of academic success and director of the Academic Success Protocol at Capital University, said the school has been proactive in collecting data to assess student preparedness. Capital recently developed a data and assessment program, and is in the midst of collecting information from its first-semester students from the 2009-2010 school year.

"We are trying to get ahead of the curve so that when and if (student learning outcomes) become an accreditation standard, we'll be ready for it," Bodine said.

Alan Michaels, dean of The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, said the OSU Moritz curriculum also already includes several outcome measures. Although the law school will be watchful of the ABA's decisions regarding new standards, it is not scurrying to make any specific changes.

"We have some new programs that are helping prepare our students to practice law. ...And these are in response to our mission to train great lawyers for the legal profession," Michaels said. "We are devoting our energies toward folks being the next generation of lawyers in Ohio and beyond, as we have in the past."

Michaels added that the ABA will likely face challenges in testing attorney competency.

"There is not uniform agreement on what lawyers need. ...Seventy percent of lawyers are not going to be in courtrooms," he explained.

Additionally, law schools might have to endure costs to add faculty or programs to satisfy the new standards, Michaels said.

Slonim said final decisions on the learning outcomes will likely not be reached until 2012 or 2013, since new standards would have to be approved by the Council of the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.