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Analysis, Research, And Communication In Skills-Focused Courses, Ruth Anne Robbins, Amy E. Sloan, Kristen Konrad Tiscione

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Since the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education were published, a new focus has emerged on building students’ traditional foundational skills through increased opportunities for experiential education, including legal research and writing instruction. Although the Carnegie Report explored legal writing pedagogy in some detail, Best Practices devoted little attention to how foundational analytical, research, and writing skills are or should be taught with specificity, which provided the impetus for more extended treatment here. This section identifies some “better practices” being used and urges adoption of best practices.

In skills-focused courses, legal analysis, research, and writing should be taught …

The 95 Theses: Legal Research In The Internet Age, Amy E. Sloan

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No abstract provided.

Implementing Effective Education In Specific Contexts, Ruth Anne Robbins, Amy E. Sloan, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

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This chapter of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World includes contributions from many authors:

• Section A, The Socratic Method, is by Elizabeth G. Porter
• Section B, Analysis, Research, and Communication in Skills-Focused Courses, is by Ruth Anne Robbins, Amy Sloan & Kristen K. Tiscione
• Section C, Use of Technology in Teaching, is by Michele Pistone and Warren Binford
• Section D, Law Libraries and Legal Education, is by Jonathan Franklin
• Section E, Cross-Border Teaching and Collaboration, is by Kimberly D. Ambrose, William H. D. Fernholz, Catherine F. Klein, Dana Raigrodski, Stephen A. Rosenbaum & Leah Wortham …

Beyond Gilson: The Art Of Business Lawyering, Praveen Kosuri

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Thirty years ago, Ronald Gilson asked the question, “what do business lawyers really do?” Since that time legal scholars have continued to grapple with that question and the implicit question of how business lawyers add value to their clients. This article revisits the question again but with a more expansive perspective on the role of business lawyer and what constitutes value to clients.

Gilson put forth the theory of business lawyers as transaction cost engineers. Years later, Karl Okamoto introduced the concept of deal lawyer as reputational intermediary. Steven Schwarcz attempted to isolate the role of business lawyer from other …

Function, Form, And Strawberries: Subverting Langdell, Jeremiah A. Ho

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So why do law schools place skills instruction below the dissemination of legal knowledge even though it is the practice of law that lawyers are engaged in doing and not just the mere knowing of it? Both should be equally significant. Although law teaching methodologies have shifted somewhat to accommodate the changing cognitive adaptations of the human mind in this age of digital technology, law instruction in classrooms still possess a deeply-rooted basis in legal formalist considerations of the law from the 19th century that displaces skills instruction for the advancement of the legal knowledge. Consequently, in order to further …

The Holmes School Of Law: A Proposal To Reform Legal Education Through Realism, Robert Rubinson

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This article proposes the formation of a new law school, the Holmes School of Law. The curriculum of the Holmes School would draw upon legal realism, particularly as articulated by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The proposed curriculum would focus on educating students about "law in fact"—how law is actually experienced. It rejects the idea that legal education should be about reading cases written by judges who not only bring their own biases and cultural understandings to their role, but who also ignore law as experienced, which, in the end, is what law is. This disconnect is especially troubling because virtually all …