Judge Gail Prudenti, Dean of Hofstra Law
The demands of the legal industry are changing, and law schools must adapt to provide students with the skill set legal employers are looking for in new hires.
ATL recently spoke with Judge Gail Prudenti, Dean of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University and former Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts of New York State, to discuss Hofstra Law’s approach to preparing students for this new legal marketplace.
For a law school dean, your judicial background is atypical. How has it informed your views on educating the next generation of attorneys?
I think my broad-based legal experience has helped me tremendously here at Hofstra Law. In my previous life as a judge, I was dealing with the legislature, other judges, law schools, law firms, and the legal community at large, of which I’ve been a member, I hate to admit, for approximately 40 years. These experiences have given me perspective on where the legal industry is headed and what employers are looking for in new hires.
The industry is going through great change. What do you believe are the most important skills a graduating law student must possess?
The successful lawyers of the future will need to be tech-fluent, business-savvy, and highly skilled in specialty areas. The legal industry is changing rapidly, and there’s an overriding need to be a good businessperson and a good advocate. Attorneys will need to have an area of expertise and develop that area — and in many instances, it has to be interdisciplinary.
Our vision for training our students is an interdisciplinary one. Hofstra Law is fortunate to be part of a vibrant University that offers Schools of Business, Engineering and Medicine, among others. This has allowed us to create unique programs and experiences for our law students in areas that have complex legal issues and a high demand for lawyers.
Hofstra Law has been a longtime leader in teaching technology. How have you expanded your offerings in this area?
Hofstra Law was one of the first law schools to establish a legal technology institute with our Law, Logic, and Technology Lab. Last year we hosted our first Legal Tech Boot Camp and launched new tech-centered courses, including Introduction to Cybersecurity and Law, Evidence With Trial Technology, Introduction to E-Discovery, Artificial Intelligence and Law, and Introduction to Blockchain and Law.
Our first Legal Tech Boot Camp was offered for our students, and the interest from them was strong. We are now working on a Boot Camp for the wider legal community and practitioners who want to develop either a bit of basic knowledge or more of an expertise in legal technology.
We have also expanded our partnership with the Engineering School, which provides access to its “war room,” so law students can view simulations of potential cybersecurity attacks. We plan to host a cybersecurity summit with the Engineering School in the spring as well.
Can you share with us any other examples of your interdisciplinary approach to practice?
When I got to Hofstra Law, the Gitenstein Institute for Health Law and Policy was already established. And that is run by the brilliant Professor Janet Dolgin, a bioethics expert who teaches at both the Law School and the Medical School.
Healthcare is another area that is great for interdisciplinary practice. At Hofstra Law, we not only have the Medical School, but we have the Graduate School of Nursing, and we’re in a community surrounded by some of the best healthcare providers in the nation.
In June 2018, Hofstra Law and the Gitenstein Institute formed our first medical-legal partnership with Northwell Health. The program includes a crucial element of cross-training so that medical and legal providers better understand each other’s discipline, attorneys understand how they fit into the continuum-of-care paradigm, and clinicians are able to identify potential legal remedies that may be beneficial to the long-term health of their clients and patients.
Aligned with this emphasis on specialization, earlier this year the law school took over the Wilbur F. Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies — tell us about your vision for that program.
The Breslin Center is a response to the need for more attorneys with the skills and training to navigate the challenging and changing real estate market. We’ve partnered with the Long Island Real Estate Group in offering an intensive, interdisciplinary seminar that exposes law and business students to every aspect of a real estate development project, from concept to construction. The course focuses on land use, finances, and working with municipalities and quasi-governmental agencies, among other issues. The participating law and business students also gain exposure to the myriad employment opportunities within real estate.
For the past few years Hofstra Law has been ranked as a top 50 law school for “gold standard” employment figures — do you attribute your successes to these programs?
I believe that these programs are a part of our placement successes. We want our students to be prepared for job and internship opportunities that arise, whether it be after their 1L, 2L, or 3L year. So having a dedicated Office of Career Services that works one-on-one with every student at each stage of their law school career is critical. This approach, combined with actively engaging employers and having students with standout résumés, has contributed to our placement numbers rising.
Looking ahead, what new projects is Hofstra Law working on?
Last year we hired a full-time clinician to head our Robert W. Entenmann Veterans Law Clinic and expand its services to our community. We want to be able to do more to help veterans obtain healthcare benefits, including cases to obtain Veterans Administration benefits, appeal denials of disability-compensation claims, and request increased compensation.
We are also expanding our trial techniques offerings to include an intensive three-day introductory advocacy experience for our 1Ls that will run alongside our Trial Techniques course in January. Each of the practice areas that I have discussed has an advocacy component. So we combine our unique interdisciplinary offerings with our doctrinal courses and advocacy skills, which I believe is the formula for graduating successful practice-ready lawyers.