Introduction: The MacCrate Report—Heuristic or Prescriptive?

There is a freight train gathering speed on the tracks of legal education, and it is called SSV—Statement of Skills and Values. This SSV stands as the centerpiece of the Report of the ABA Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap, better known as the MacCrate Report, named after its chair, Robert MacCrate. The MacCrate Report has ignited a rational debate on curricular reform that is becoming increasingly intense. Viewed broadly, SSV may represent the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case method in the late 19th century.