Disruptive Leadership in Legal Education

Legal education and the legal profession are ripe for disruption. The crisis in legal education reflects an increasing mismatch between the limited services that the law and lawyers provide and the vast and acute societal need for legal services. The structure of academia generally and legal academia in particular, however, serves as an obstacle to the disruptive leadership that can initiate necessary adaptation. Here, we discuss our own experience with disruptive leadership and the backlash we received, as well as the risks of failing to embrace disruptive leadership in legal education going forward.

“The act of leadership is not always comfortable.”