As the field of education continues to grow and evolve, so too does the language and concepts we use to describe the myriad of theories, practices, and strategies that make up our pedagogical landscape. One such set of concepts comes from the world of legal operations. These new ideas and insights are designed to create an efficient, effective law practice, which is a worthy goal, but we can adapt the insights to the larger academic discourse and research that we see within pedagogical practice. These new legal concepts and insights can cross the boundary between law and education. The CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) is an organization designed to provide professional development for those working in the legal world. What began as a group of 15 passionate general counsel and legal operations executives has turned into a member-driven community of 4,300 professionals in 50 countries. Their organization has created a wealth of pearls of wisdom which we can adapt and apply to the field of education. Although there are a number of insights which might be used, I will only focus on a few that relate to the fundamental practices of teaching and learning. Like legal operations, education is a dynamic, evolving field, and it is imperative that we adapt and grow our skills over practice so that we can provide the best educational experience possible. Show up, do your job, and go home is not enough anymore. Teaching, as well as the legal practice, has become an interdisciplinary exercise requiring collaboration, innovation, and creativity to prepare students for their future. And who were the first teachers? Lawyers. Further emphasis on legal operations and what this entails can be found in the article “CLOC Legal Operations: Strategies and Insights”. Why is this important? In many ways law and education are similar. Certainly there are specific disciplines within pedagogy, and pedagogical practices that may differ from discipline to discipline, but at their core, both law and education share a number of commonalities: Civilizations have always had a judiciary, and perhaps that is why law and education share so much in common – both helping to create strong civilized individuals and societies. Yet, despite these similarities, one of the areas where law and education diverge, and therefore where there is an excellent opportunity for research and analytical exploration, is in their strategies. Given that the emerging world of CLOC legal operations seeks to create a few core high-level initiatives designed to advance the profession of legal operations, perhaps the legal operations strategies can be adapted to the academic environment and pedagogical practices. Such an adaptation of legal operations strategies could enable us to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the classroom, innovation in pedagogy, and ultimately, higher quality outcomes. To that end, this paper aims to: More specifically, the primary objective of this study is to explore how CLOC legal operations strategies can fit within wider faculty governance and policy making structure, and how they can be expanded and adapted to the classroom. For example, if legal operations strategies are designed to increase high-quality and effective collaboration across institutional barriers, then how could a legal operations strategy help foster joint pedagogical research and curriculum development across disciplines on a campus? Exploring the fundamental question of how legal operations strategies can and should be adapted and applied to higher education faculty would provide a valuable academic insight on legal operations, and a unique exploration of pedagogical practices. Any insights gained from such research may also provide helpful recommendations for those involved in higher education faculty governance and policy making. Additionally, we would hope that any new pedagogical practice derived from such research would encourage better collaboration among faculty members and departments, and that faculty could spend more time doing what they love: teaching. It is already clear that legal operations can be adapted to practice, whereas pedagogical practices can be adapted to the field of legal operations.
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