Law Commons^™

Experiential Education In The Lecture Hall, Jessica Erickson

Law Faculty Publications

Legal education today is composed of two separate worlds. The first world includes clinical faculty, law skills faculty, and other related faculty. These faculty members have long embraced experiential education, and they organize and attend conferences like the "Experience the Future" symposium, hosted by Northeastern University School of Law and the Alliance for Experiential Learning in Law. The other world includes people like me- doctrinal faculty members who are still largely teaching the way we always have. As we see it, our role is to teach doctrine and legal analysis, leaving skills training and other experiential teaching to others. Experiential …

Salvaging The 2013 Federal Law Clerk Hiring Season, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Ten years ago, the judiciary instituted the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, an employment system meant to regularize hiring in which most circuit and district court jurists voluntarily participated. Throughout the succeeding decade, this process operated effectively for innumerable trial judges, but functioned less well for appellate jurists. In early 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revealed that all its members "will hire law clerks at such times as each individual judge determines to be appropriate," concomitantly explaining "the plan is [apparently] no longer working." With these statements, the D.C. Circuit explicitly acknowledged what …

Ideas For Law Students And Recent Graduates Entering The Real World, Wendy Collins Perdue

Law Faculty Publications

In light of a more challenging job market for law school graduates due to the recession, the Virginia Lawyer asked the deans of Virginia's law schools for their thoughts on how law students could better prepare themselves for their employment searches. This was Dean Wendy Perdue's contribution.

Educating New Lawyers, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

In this article, the author discusses how law schools have been challenged recently to place greater emphasis on preparing students for the realities of legal practice through skills training and community-based learning.

Tribute To Professor Carroll: “Without A Doubt”, W. Wade Berryhill

Law Faculty Publications

A tribute to Professor John Carroll.

Education & Practice (Newsletter Of The Section On Education Of Lawyer, Virginia State Bar) - V. 20, No. 2 (Spring 2012), Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

Contents

Ethical Practice within Interdisciplinary Collaborations: The Law School Clinic as an Example, by Portia Cole, Asst. Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth School of Social Work

Chair’s Column, by Professor A. Benjamin Spencer of Washington and Lee School of Law

Beyond the Blame Game, by Jayne W. Barnard, Cutler Professor of Law at William & Mary Law School

William R. Rakes Leadership in Education Award

Law Faculty News

News and Events Around the Commonwealth

Section’s Website Update

2011-2012 Board of Governors

How Are Law Schools Addressing Major Changes In The Practice Of Law And In Accrediting Standards For Legal Education?, Margaret Ivey Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

There was a consensus at the first panel discussion on how law schools are addressing major changes in legal practice and accrediting standards for legal education, that law schools are doing a good job teaching critical thinking and legal analysis. A recurring theme was that more experiential legal education is needed to help students become "practice ready." Deficits in legal writing, problem solving, and understanding the various contexts within which legal problems arise were concerns. A major issue is how do schools enhance legal education given the unsustainable costs and changes in the legal profession?

Education & Practice (Newsletter Of The Section On Education Of Lawyer, Virginia State Bar) - V. 19, No. 3 (Spring 2011), Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

Contents

What Every Lawyer Should Know About the Economic Realities of a Legal Education, by Heather Jarvis, a student loan lawyer and founder of askheatherjarvis.com

Chair’s Column, by Professor A. Benjamin Spencer of Washington and Lee School of Law

Beyond Langdell, by Professor A. Benjamin Spencer

Law Faculty News

News and Events Around the Commonwealth

Section’s Website Update

2011-2012 Board of Governors

Top 10 Law School Home Pages Of 2010, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

This ranking report attempts to identify the best law school home pages based exclusively- on objective criteria. The goal is to assess elements that make websites easier to use for sighted as well as visually impaired users. Most elements require no special design skills, sophisticated technology or significant expenses.

Reviewing Joan Delfattore's Knowledge In The Making, Suzanne Corriell

Law Faculty Publications

A book review of Joan DelFattore's Knowledge in the Making.

Legal Education Prepares Students To Weather Tough Times, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

The author discusses how law students are facing a daunting problem—a competitive job market in the midst of an economic recession. But because of the training they receive both inside and outside of the classroom, law students are uniquely poised to weather this storm.

A Tribute To Mary Lawrence, Ruth C. Vance

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Good Lawyering, You Can Learn From Elder Law, Linda S. Whitton

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Top 10 Law School Home Pages Of 2009, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

This brief ranking report attempts to identify the best law school home pages based entirely on objective criteria. The goal was to include elements that make websites easier to use for sighted as well as visually impaired users. Most elements require no special design skills, sophisticated technology or significant expenses

Re-Hashing The Hash Tag - Crowd Competition And Community Standards At The #Aall2009 Conference, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

This article notes that conferences and events "rely on the hashtag system more than almost any other entity." This year's AALL conference was no exception. Now that the conference is over, this is a great chance to look at conference‑related Twitter activity, searching for possible meaning or moral lessons. If you attended the conference but didn't follow Twitter, here's an insight into what you may have missed, and what you might look forward to trying at the next conference you attend.

Cool Data On A Hot Issue: Empirical Evidence That A Law School Bar Support Program Enhances Bar Performance, Emmeline Paulette Reeves

Law Faculty Publications

Many law schools have become increasingly concerned about the bar passages rates of their graduates. Low bar passage rates may negatively impact student morale, accreditation, and future admissions. Law schools are also concerned about the emotional and financial impact on their graduates of failing the bar examination. What, if anything, can and should law schools do to improve their graduates' chances of passing the bar examination?

Many law schools are deciding that they should do something. A significant number of law schools are now offering programs "specifically designed" to improve their graduates' performance on the bar examination. And these schools …

Providing A Framework For Learning, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

This new book on teaching law draws upon the wisdom of hundreds of legal educators to provide ideas, materials, and alternatives for teaching a variety of law school courses. The book offers guidance for new and experienced law teachers to plan and deliver effective courses. From Business Associations to Family Law, Federal Income Taxation to Torts, each chapter addresses one of the fifteen courses most students take during their legal education.

Each chapter has five sections: (1) Approach, encompassing global issues about a course, such as goals, organizational scheme, general philosophy, syllabi, and coverage; (2) Materials, evaluating what kinds of …

Brown And The Desegregation Of Virginia Law Schools, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

One-half century ago, the Supreme Court of the United States declared unconstitutional racially segregated public elementary and secondary schools in Brown v. Board of Education. The pathbreaking opinion culminated a three-decade effort that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("NAACP") and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund ("LDF"), an independent litigating entity, had orchestrated. An important feature of the evolving NAACP and LDF tactical approach was to contest the segregation of government-sponsored professional and graduate education, particularly implicating law schools in jurisdictions bordering the South, namely Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. These pioneering attorneys and the …

The Winchester Law School, 1824-1831, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

On March 5, 1824, Henry St. George Tucker was elected by the General Assembly of Virginia to be the judge of the circuit superior court of chancery to sit in Winchester and Clarksburg. Tucker had built up a very successful law practice in Winchester, where he had settled in 1802 upon his admission to the bar. He had also built up a large family; he had six sons and two daughters as well as three children who died young. The elevation to the bench resulted in an increase in professional status, but it also resulted in a substantial decrease in …

An Introduction To The Mission And Methodology Of Academic Support, Emmeline Paulette Reeves

Law Faculty Publications

Academic Support Programs (ASPs) "are an extremely hot issue" in legal education. Earlier this semester, the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) announced that it would fund annual academic support conferences for the next six years, and last fall, the LSAC published an updated handbook on ASPs. The Association of American Law Schools established a permanent section on academic support in 1998. A recent survey of 151 ABA-accredited law schools revealed that 13 7, or 90.7% of the schools surveyed, have an academic support program in one form or another. Within the past year, three Virginia Law schools-the University of Richmond …

English Ideas On Legal Education In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

In 1700 the only methods of legal education in England and Virginia were apprenticeship to a practising lawyer, either a barrister, a solicitor or a court clerk, and independent reading of law books; most persons seeking active membership in the legal profession did an apprenticeship supplemented by reading and observing the courts in action. In 1700 the inns of court had long since ceased to provide legal instruction, and the universities in England and Virginia had not yet begun to do so. The obvious importance of legal education was, however, not overlooked on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Manuscript Selection Anti-Manifesto, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Joining a conversation begun by James Lindgren, An Author's Manifesto, 61 U. Chi. L. Rev. 527 (1994), Prof. Tobias discusses the process of submission, review, and editorial work on articles published in student-edited law reviews.

An Author's Manifesto (Manifesto) constructively criticizes the amazingly arcane process of law review publication and affords salient suggestions for its improvement. The essay treats two aspects of this process-the selection of manuscripts and the editing of articles which sustain that venerable institution: student-edited law journals. Manifesto regales readers with many terrible tales of travesties which involve article editing but recounts comparatively few sordid stories that …

Stuck Inside The Heartland With Those Coastline Clerking Blues Again, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Circuit Judge Edward Becker, and Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi deserve kudos for helping to craft, implement, and publicize an efficacious solution to the increasing difficulties engendered by the selection of federal judicial law clerks. The jurists' essay, The Federal Judicial Law Clerk Hiring Problem and the Modest March 1 Solution, which recently appeared in the Yale Law Journal, is a must read for all those who participate in the process of law clerk hiring.

The concerted efforts of Justice Breyer and Judges Becker and Calabresi have apparently succeeded in bringing considerable order out of chaos, …

The Case For A Feminist Torts Casebook, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Leslie Bender's recent essay, An Overview of Feminist Torts Scholarship, contributes substantially to the construction of feminist perspectives on tort law. She carefully and comprehensively surveys burgeoning feminist scholarship in the field of torts. Professor Bender closely examines feminist histories of substantive tort law, the application of feminist theory to tort doctrine, to tort law concepts, and to the teaching of torts, tort issues that are important to women's lives, social science research involving feminism and torts, book reviews that are relevant to feminist tort law, and overviews of material that implicate feminist viewpoints of torts. After Professor Bender …

Teaching Legal Research: Past And Present, Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

For years librarians have debated which procedures will most effectively instruct law students in the art of legal research. Ms. Janto and Ms. Harrison-Cox trace the history of these efforts and propose a model program for the teaching of legal research.

Elixir For The Elites, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias offers the editorial board tongue-in-cheek advice in the matter of law review rankings.

Engendering Law Faculties, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Numerous women have experienced great difficulty securing tenure at many institutions during the 1980's, even though significant numbers of women entered law teaching in that period. There currently is only an imperfect understanding of the reasons why women have encountered problems in attaining tenure. It is imperative that an enhanced appreciation of these difficulties be developed. If the problems are allowed to persist, the career and the personal well-being of every woman who considers seeking tenure are jeopardized, legal education's commitment to fairness is threatened, and the prospects for improving the treatment of women in the legal profession are reduced. …

Respect For Diversity: The Case Of Feminist Legal Thought, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Respect for diversity was one quality many faculty members considered significant when searching in 1987 for a new dean of the University of Michigan School of Law. Yet other so-called elite law schools and less prestigious institutions recently have evinced little concern for diversity and even indifference toward the idea. Tenure and appointment disputes at several Ivy League schools have sparked heated controversy and call into question their institutional commitments to diversity. Those disputes have involved the legitimacy of work by women in legal theory and feminist legal thought, although considerable contentious activity also seems to reflect a general lack …

In Praise Of Student-Edited Law Reviews: A Reply To Professor Dekanal, John Paul Jones

Law Faculty Publications

Prof. Jones responds to a previous writer's arguments that the student-edited law review be replaced by journals edited by law faculty members. He argues that there are not enough willing faculty editors and staff members to sustain the present number and production rate of law journals.