CELL Blog | Center for Engaged Learning in the Law

The course was 10 days long. On day one, 20-page packets – each page single-sided – were distributed to 107 students. On day two, 90-page spiral notebooks were distributed to the same 107 students. On day three, another 20-page, single-sided packet is distributed, along with a one-page schedule and a one-page description of group work. Additional distributions included 40-page packets (give or take 10 pages but also single-sided); one-page group exercise instructions; multi-page group exercise instructions; and, of course, a mountain of case law for the final paper, which, not surprisingly, was printed single-sided.

That tallies to approximately 19,000 sheets of paper used by a single law school in one 10-day course. That’s 1,900 sheets per day just for that class.
The point? Law school uses (and some might argue wastes) a LOT of paper, which, in turn, uses a lot of trees and a lot of money.

But it doesn’t have to… We live in a digital age where nearly anything that can be done on paper can also be done on computer, meaning there are fewer and fewer legitimate reasons to continue using paper in the current manner and at the current rates. Of course, the familiarity of having the document in front of us makes a total switch to computerized formats a bit jarring; however, this is the modern trend, and it is also the trend lightest on the budget and easiest on the planet. Therefore, implementing and encouraging widespread compliance with these policies benefits everyone in the end. The sooner we start, the better off everyone will be.

Realizing the following suggestions will be more or less relevant depending on the given school, here are a few simple ways to reduce the amount of paper (and money) consumed by law schools:

– Avoid printing altogether, opting for posting/emailing online whenever possible;
– Consider online submissions of information, or CD-ROM submissions of papers, etc…
– When online submissions are used, leave them online (i.e. don’t print them);
– Print double-sided;
– Implement one-page, comprehensive attendance sheets;
– Have groups share printed information rather than each member having his/her own;
– Assign cases on Westlaw/Lexis rather than in books or via printing where possible;
– Encourage students to download cases to Word, highlighting and note-taking on-screen rather than printing;
– Avoid duplicating online materials in the form of hand-outs

Those institutions feeling a bit more ambitious could release the inventory/budgetary information regarding paper usage and begin a school-wide movement to reduce those numbers. In other words, make a competition out of the practice of fiscal and environmental responsibility.
Nothing about this speaks to the more traditional aspects of leadership and legal education. However, if law school seeks to create more than just lawyers – if it seeks to create leaders, as mine does – and if fiscal and environmental responsibility are considered part of such leadership, then it is incumbent upon those law schools to implement policies aimed at reducing the footprint they leave on the budget and on the planet.