1. Interim President, Charleston School of Law
From the Report of the Outcome Measures Committee to the Current ABA Standards
Joseph D. Harbaugh
Interim President, Charleston School of Law
Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus, Nova Southeaster University Law Center

2. Creation of Outcome Measures Committee and Its Charge
“This [Special] Committee will determine whether and how we can use output measures, other than bar passage and job placement, in the accreditation process. The Committee may consider approaches taken by other accrediting agencies, evaluate criticism of existing measures, and analyze relevant information and studies. The Committee also should consider methods to measure whether a program is accomplishing its stated mission and goals. The Committee should define appropriate output measures and make specific recommendations as to whether the Section should adopt those measures as part of the Standards.”
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3. The Committee’s Research Agenda A Broad Examination of Outcome Measures
Insights Gleaned from:
MacCrate, Wahl Commission, Carnegie, and “Best Practices”
Legal educators in other countries
Legal Practice
Outcome Measures in Other Education Mechanisms
Accreditation standards in other fields of professional education
Five traditional health care disciplines (medicine (MD/DOM/dental/ veterinary) and pharmacy).
Five other professional disciplines (accounting, architecture, engineering, psychology, and teaching)
Regional Accrediting Commissions
Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA)

4. The Committee Discovered U. S
The Committee Discovered U.S. Legal Education Trailed in the Adoption of Outcome Measures
ABA Standards dominated by an Input Philosophy:
Despite encouragement from MacCrate, Wahl Commission, Carnegie, and “Best Practices” to move toward output measures
Legal educators in other countries (UK, Australia, and Japan) transformed legal education from an input to an output model
Studies and surveys of the profession revealed the need to balance knowledge, skills, and ethics/values and the efforts of practitioners to assess all three
Accreditation standards in other fields of professional education were, on average, ten years ahead of legal education in adopting output measures
All ten of the reviewed professional accrediting bodies apply standards based on outcome measures
In the standards of every profession, the outcome criteria, including performance-based assessment measures, are often linked directly to the school's mission

5. The Committee’s Recommendations In General
“The Committee recommends that the Section of Legal Education… re- examine the current ABA Accreditation Standards and reframe them, as needed, to reduce their reliance on input measures and instead adopt a greater and more overt reliance on outcome measures.”
“The Committee recommends that the resulting system…affords considerable flexibility to individual law schools to determine the outcomes the school seeks to effect…and the mechanisms by which to measure those outcomes…[to] best fulfill the institutional interest in assuring opportunities for innovation on the part of individual law schools.”
The Committee’s recommendations should not be “implemented all at once. Large-scale change is often incremental….[A] new outcome-based approach [should be] phased in [because] the use of outcome measures during the initial stages will produce data that can inform the Standards Review Committee of the ways in which outcome-based measures may be framed and implemented in later stages.”
The Committee cautioned that outcomes Standards should not impose unnecessary costs on law schools and should not require burdensome assessment regimes of individual student achievement for each learning outcome.

6. The Committee’s Recommendations Specific Standards
Among other specific recommendations, the Committee urged the Standards Review Committee to consider reframing several ABA Standards
Standards 202 ("Self Study") and 203 ("Strategic Planning and Assessment") to ensure that, in addition to what is contemplated currently in these Standards, law schools engage in planning that focuses appropriately on outcome measures.
Standards 301 and 302 to incorporate explicitly the responsibility of law schools to "ensure that graduates" possess an adequate understanding of substantive law, professional skills, and professional values
Standard 303(b) ("A law school shall monitor students' academic progress and achievement from the beginning of and periodically throughout their studies") to “focus on mechanisms that are well- suited to measuring outcomes,…set[ting] very general parameters regarding outcome measures and then flesh[ing] those out with commentary, setting forth models that have proven successful and that a school could chose to use if it wishes.”

7. The Response of the Section to the Committee’s Recommendations
In response to the Committee’s report, the Section Council directed the Standards Review Committee (SRC) to study an outcome measures approach and make recommendations to the Council. The SRC appointed a Student Learning Outcomes Subcommittee.
“Applying the lessons learned and practiced in other disciplines’ accreditation review process, legal education programs and instruction should be measured both by essential program quality indicators (e.g. sufficiency of faculty and adequacy of facilities in light of mission and student body) and by the learning achieved by their students Accreditation review in law, like other disciplines, must move law school toward articulation and assessment of student learning goals and achievement levels.” Statement of Principles of Accreditation and Fundamental Goals of a Sound Program of Legal Education (SRC Report)

8. The Response of the Section: Examples of Specific Standards (1)
Standard 301.OBJECTIVES OF PROGRAM OF LEGAL EDUCATION
(a) A law school shall maintain a rigorous program of legal education that prepares its students, upon graduation, for admission to the bar and for effective, ethical, and responsible participation as members of the legal profession.
(b) A law school shall establish and publish learning outcomes designed to achieve these objectives.
Standard 302. LEARNING OUTCOMES: A law school shall establish learning outcomes that shall, at a minimum, include competency in the following:
(a) Knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law;
(b) Legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem-solving, and written and oral communication in the legal context;
(c) Exercise of proper professional and ethical responsibilities to clients and the legal system; and
(d) Other professional skills needed for competent and ethical participation as a member of the legal profession

9. The Response of the Section: Examples of Specific Standards (2)
Standard ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING
A law school shall utilize both formative and summative assessment methods in its curriculum to measure and improve student learning and provide meaningful feedback to students.
Standard 315. EVALUATION OF PROGRAM OF LEGAL EDUCATION, LEARNING OUTCOMES, AND ASSESSMENT METHODS
The dean and the faculty of a law school shall conduct ongoing evaluation of the law school's program of legal education, learning outcomes, and assessment methods; and shall use the results of this evaluation to determine the degree of student attainment of competency in the learning outcomes and to make appropriate changes to improve the curriculum.

10. The Response of the Section: Implementing Change
The Student Learning Outcomes Subcommittee suggested that certain assumptions should guide the implementation of the changes in the Standards that would result from its recommendations. These include: 
The process of identifying, assessing and improving outcomes is more important than ensuring that every student achieve each outcome.
Different types of faculty - doctrinal, clinical, legal writing and others - play important roles in identifying and assessing learning.
Faculty should have the central role in identifying, assessing and improving learning outcomes.
Outcomes will differ based upon law school missions.
Although the traditional legal curriculum, which purports to teach students to "think like a lawyer," will remain at the center of law schools' J.D. programs, schools should measure how successful their students are in mastering that skill and in bridging the gap between it and other lawyering skills.
Focusing on outcomes should serve as a catalyst for law schools to be intentional in curriculum development.
The focus on outcomes should shift the emphasis from what is being taught to what is being learned by the students
Managing Director's Guidance Memo Standards 301, 302, 314 and 315 (June 2015)