Digital Commons Network^™

Gender And The Crisis In Legal Education: Remaking The Academy In Our Image, Paula A. Monopoli

Paula A Monopoli

American legal education is in the grip of what some have called an “existential crisis.” The New York Times proclaims the death of the current system of legal education. This is attributed, in part, to the incentivizing of faculty to produce increasingly abstract scholarship and the costs this imposes on pedagogy and the mentoring of students. At the same time, despite women graduating from law schools in significant numbers since the 1980s, they continue to lag behind in the most prestigious positions in academia—tenured, full professorships: From academic year 1998-99 to academic year 2007-08, the percentage of women full professors …

Chinese Women In Legal Education, Xiaonan Liu

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper examines the history and development of women entering legal education in China. Based on a survey, interviews, and archival research, this paper attempts to analyze Chinese women's current status in legal education and reaches the conclusion that although women have made significant gains in legal education, they are still facing gender discrimination and bias in the legal sector. The paper also looks into the reasons why women have in the past belonged to "the other" in the legal area, and whether there is any conflict between legal characteristics" and "feminine characteristics." It attempts to break the constraint caused …

Clark Kerr And Me: The Future Of The Public Law School, Rachel Morán

Indiana Law Journal

Jerome Hall Lecture, delivered on March 21, 2012, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana

The First Day Of Criminal Law: Forgetting Everything You Thought You Already Knew, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

Whether from the media or the seemingly endless rotation of Law and Order episodes, many students enter law school with a great deal of knowledge about important concepts that dominate Criminal Law, including murder, manslaughter, conspiracy, self-defense, or insanity. This familiarity with criminal law presents a dual challenge for students and professors alike. First, as future lawyers, they must force themselves to think critically about these familiar topics, and despite their basic knowledge of the criminal justice system, students quickly learn that there is much more to criminal law than meets the eye. Second, part of this critical analysis requires …

Legal Education: Rethinking The Problem, Reimagining The Reforms, Deborah L. Rhode

Pepperdine Law Review

Whether or not law schools are in a crisis, it is certainly true that legal education currently faces a number of significant challenges. The fundamental problem is a lack of consensus over what the problem is. Legal educators and regulators are developing well-intended but inadequate responses to the symptoms, not the causes of law school woes. In addition to identifying the problem, this Article discusses potential reforms. Financial issues represent a significant source of much of the current criticisms face by law schools today. Tuition rates have increased at a pace far outstripping the steep hikes seen at universities as …

Reimagining Merit As Achievement, Aaron N. Taylor

AARON N TAYLOR

Higher education plays a central role in the apportionment of opportunities within the American meritocracy. Unfortunately, narrow conceptions of merit limit the extent to which higher education broadens racial and socioeconomic opportunity. This article proposes an admissions framework that transcends these limited notions of merit. This “Achievement Framework” would reward applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who have achieved beyond what could have reasonably been expected. Neither race nor ethnicity is considered as part of the framework; however, its nuanced and contextual structure would ensure that racial and ethnic diversity is encouraged in ways that traditional class-conscious preferences do not. The overarching …

Good Practice Guide (Bachelor Of Laws): Law In Broader Contexts, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

This Good Practice Guide was commissioned by the Law Associate Deans Network to support the implementation of Threshold Learning Outcome 1: Knowledge. The Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) for the Bachelor of Laws were developed in 2010 as part of the Learning and Teaching Academic Standards (LTAS) Project, led by Professors Sally Kift and Mark Israel. TLO 1 states: Graduates of the Bachelor of Laws will demonstrate an understanding of a coherent body of knowledge that includes: (a) the fundamental areas of legal knowledge, the Australian legal system, and underlying principles and concepts, including international and comparative contexts, (b) the broader …

Broader Social Context As A Lens For Learning: Teaching Criminal Law, Alex Steel, Melanie Schwartz

Alex Steel

This chapter considers how best to teach criminal law in broader social contexts and beyond a focus on positivist doctrinal accounts. It provides examples of how broader social science research could be included within a criminal law curriculum.

Defending The Law Review - A Response To Judge Posner & Professor Lindgren, Harvey Gilmore

Harvey Gilmore

I am fairly new to the publication game. I am not a professional writer. I was never a law review editor. My current teaching job does not mandate that I “publish or perish.” On top of that, I do believe that law reviews were invaluable to me in helping me write research papers during my time in law school. I enjoy reading law review articles to this day. In addition, I have enjoyed the privilege of having several of my own pieces accepted for publication as law review articles. Consequently, I have had positive experiences dealing with law review editors …

Recasting The Llm: Course Design And Pedagogy, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Dharmendra Chatur

Dharmendra Chatur

The introduction of the one-year Master of Laws (LLM) has been touted as a game changer for post-graduate legal education in India. This paper argues that, despite the unclear rationale for the course and the hastily put together course structure, the one-year LLM may transform post-graduate legal education if rigorous intellectual effort is invested in the process of translating the curriculum into active learning materials allowing for a critical pedagogy to emerge in the classroom. Using the Law and Social Transformation course in the two-year LLM as an example, the paper shows that despite a well designed curriculum, the syllabi …

Promoting Language Access In The Legal Academy, Jayesh Rathod, Gillian Dutton, Beth Lyon, Deborah M. Weissman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Since the 1960s, the United States government has paid increasing attention to the rights of language minorities and to the need for greater civic and political integration of these groups. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the issuance of Executive Orders, and intervention by the federal judiciary, progress has been made in the realm of language access. State and local courts have likewise taken steps (albeit imperfectly) to provide interpretation and translation assistance to Limited English Proficient persons. Most recently, responding to both lack of services and inconsistent practices, the American Bar Association has set out …

Gaining From The System: Lessons From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement About How Students Benefit From Law School, Carole Silver, Lindsay Watkins, Louis Rocconi, Heather Haeger

Carole Silver

This paper considers the factors that influence law students’ assessment of their development professionally and academically during law school. It uses responses of 5,612 third- and fourth-year law students to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement to identify student activities and behaviors that influence professional and academic gains; individual and law school characteristics also are examined. Four aspects of the law school experience emerge as common influences of students’ professional and academic development.

When Socrates Meets Confucius: Teaching Creative And Critical Thinking Across Cultures Through Multilevel Socratic Method, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

A Strategy For Teaching Objectivity To The Domestic Relations Student: Utilizing Psychodrama To Explore Attorney Empathy Toward Improving Family Law Outcomes, Bruce L. Beverly

Bruce L. Beverly

The basic domestic relations law course is often taught by the casebook method, with little reference to actual underlying human drama. In order to produce effective advocates, it is necessary for student to be brought out of the sterile case recitation model and into a role where the student experiences, in a controlled and directed fashion, some of the hardships faced by the players in a family law case. This article proposes that, in line with new emphasis on experiential learning and alternate learning styles, one might employ a psychodramatic approach to teaching the domestic relations course, in order to …