Education Commons^™

Revised Aba Standard 303: Curricular, Pedagogical, And Substantive Questions, Steven W. Bender

Seattle University Law Review Online

ABA accreditation standards now require law schools to provide education and training on racism, bias, and cross-cultural competence. This seemingly straightforward mandate raises numerous questions as schools plan for and implement compliance. Here, I articulate and approach these compliance questions using insights drawn from critical theory—which supplies helpful guidance for responses and ultimately antiracism legal education that is more than minimalist. Armed with critical insights, lawyers are better equipped to contribute to the struggle to eradicate systemic social ills in law and society.

‘Radical Turn Away’ From Admissions Tests? Deans Say Claims Of Increased Diversity May Be Unfounded, Tyler Fenwick

Christiana Ochoa (7/22-10/22 Acting; 11/2022-)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law Dean Christiana Ochoa said those who want to do away with requiring law school admission tests for diversity’s sake have it backward.

The idea that law school diversity would increase if tests like the LSAT and Graduate Record Examination, or GRE, became an optional part of the admissions process is unfounded, Ochoa said.

Instead, she said she’s worried the opposite is true — that the move would actually hurt diversity.

And she is not alone.

Ochoa was one of 60 deans to sign a letter last September pushing back against the proposed change to …

Computer-Supported Peer Review In A Law School Context, Kevin D. Ashley, Ilya Goldin

Articles

Legal instructors have been urged to incorporate peer reviewing into law school courses as a way to provide students much needed feedback. Peer review can benefit legal education, but only if law school instructors adopt peer review on a large scale, and for that, computer-supported peer review systems are crucial. These web-based systems orchestrate the mechanics of students submitting written assignments on-line and distributing them to other students for anonymous review, making it considerably easier for instructors to manage.

Beyond the problem of orchestrating mechanics, however, a deeper obstacle to widespread acceptance of peer review in legal education is the …

Practicing Civility In The Legal Writing Course: Helping Law Students Learn Professionalism, Sophie M. Sparrow

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article suggests some concrete ways to teach civility— one component of professionalism—to law students. Professionalism certainly includes much more than civility, incorporating the concepts of ethics, morals, public service, life-long learning, personal integrity, professional identity, and a commitment to selfdevelopment. This Article begins with a brief overview of civility in Part I. Part II provides a few of the many arguments for why we should teach law students to be civil. Part III explores some concrete ways in which we can teach civility within individual classes, using the dynamics of student engagement in the classroom as an opportunity to …