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Stratification, Expansion, And Retrenchment: International Legal Education In U.S. Law Schools, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Curricular Limitations, Cost Pressures, And Stratification In Legal Education: Are Bold Reforms In Short Supply?, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Many critics of legal education and reformers alike demand "bold reforms," though so far most change seems restricted to haphazard modifications of the curriculum, the hope for quick fixes, and a focus on shedding staff and faculty to balance budgets with a smaller student body. Whether those changes alone amount to bold action, defined as "not afraid of danger or difficult situations; showing or needing confidence or lack of fear; very confident in a way that may seem rude or foolish," is questionable. Curricular changes may merely camouflage or even detract from the crucial need to strategically rethink cost structures, …

And Now A Crisis In Legal Education, James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

The current crisis in legal education coincides with a crisis in the practice of law. Law practice has changed as a result of technology, globalization, and economic pressures. The market for legal education's product, law graduates, have diminished. Law schools cannot remain the same in this environment. Except for a very small number of elite schools, those that do not adjust are at serious risk of failing.

An economic change has taken place against a system in which mostly corporate clients willingly paid for the training of beginners at major law firms. Law firms could absorb those costs if partners …

Surgeons Or Scribes? The Role Of United States Court Of Appeals Law Clerks In "Appellate Triage", Todd C. Peppers, Micheal W. Giles, Bridget Tainer-Parkins

Scholarly Articles

Using original survey data, we explore how federal courts of appeals judges select and use their law clerks—a question that we answered in an earlier article about federal district court clerks. As with that first article, we do not intend to tackle such normative issues as whether courts of appeals law clerks possess too much influence over the judicial process or whether the selection criteria used by these judges is appropriate. What we will present, however, is descriptive data on the criteria that courts of appeals judges use to pick their law clerks as well as the tasks assigned to …

Judicial Assistants Or Junior Judges: The Hiring, Utilization, And Influence Of Law Clerks, Chad Oldfather, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Law clerks have been part of the American judicial system since 1882, when Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray hired a young Harvard Law School graduate named Thomas Russell to serve as his assistant. Justice Gray paid for his law clerks out of his own pocket until Congress authorized funds for the hiring of “stenographic clerks” in 1886. The Gray law clerks, however, were not mere stenographers. Justice Gray assigned them a host of legal and non-legal job duties. His clerks discussed the record and debated the attendant legal issues with Justice Gray prior to oral argument, conducted legal research, and …

Guidelines For The Self Evaluation Of Legal Education Clinics And Clinical Programs, J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy

Scholarly Articles

This volume is an effort to present a comprehensive set of guidelines for the self-evaluation of legal clinics and programs. The last time that guidelines were developed for legal clinics was in 1980 when a joint AALS and ABA Committee on Guidelines for Clinical Legal Education published its Guidelines for Clinical Legal Education. The present guidelines trace their lineage to the efforts of a group of clinicians working under the auspices of the CLEA-AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Joint Task Force on Clinical Standards, which was formed in 1995 and was active for several years. These guidelines also draw …

Narrowing The Gap Between Rights And Resources: Finding A Role For Law Students In Court-Annexed Resource Centers, Faith Mullen

Scholarly Articles

This article relates the experience of law students from The Catholic University of America providing assistance in the Small Claims Resource Center during the past eight years. During this time, the District of Columbia Bar Pro Bono Program has played a pivotal role in the development and the ongoing success of court-annexed resource centers in the District of Columbia. They have recruited law firms and legal services providers (including law school clinics) to staff the resource centers, sought changes in the rules of professional responsibility, and developed intake forms and model pleadings. Their steady oversight, provided by knowledgeable and resourceful …