Law Commons^™

Making The Case For Law Tech, Janet Kearney

Staff Publications

As the concept of a “practice-ready” attorney continues to grow in both law firms and law schools, law school libraries are meeting this need by offering programming related to legal technology. In this article, a law librarian from the United States discusses their successes and failures in creating and maintaining legal technology programming, a first step in a larger conversation on practice-ready law graduates. This article is based on a June 2021 presentation given at the annual conference of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians.

Toward A Writing-Centered Legal Education, Adam Lamparello

Res Gestae

The future of legal education—and experiential learning—should be grounded in a curriculum that requires students to take writing courses throughout law school. Additionally, the curriculum should be one that collapses the distinction between doctrinal, legal writing, and clinical faculty, as well as merges analytical, practical, and clinical instruction into a real world curriculum.

The justification for a writing-intensive program of legal education is driven by the reality that persuasive writing ability is among the most important skills a lawyer must possess and a skill that many lawyers and judges claim graduates lack. Part of the problem is that law schools …

What Cornell Veterinary School Taught Me About Legal Education, Tina Stark

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Financial Retrenchment And Institutional Entrenchment: Will Legal Education Respond, Explode, Or Just Wait It Out?, Ian Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

Both markets and ideas have turned against the American legal profession. Legal hiring has contracted, and law school enrollments are decreasing. The business models of big law and legal education are under pressure, current levels of student indebtedness seem unsustainable, and a hero has yet to emerge from our fragmented regulatory structures. In the realm of ideas, the information revolution has sparked deep critiques of structured knowledge and expertise, opening the roles of the law and the university in society to reexamination. We are less enamored of the scholar-lawyer and gaze with longing at technocrats. I hope that clinical law …

Making Lawyers Good People: Possibility Or Pipedream?, Subha Dhanaraj

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Comment first outlines general conceptions of morality and moral development according to the widely accepted model promulgated by Professor Lawrence Kohlberg, and enunciates the importance of moral theory in the context of legal education. Next, it analyzes competing views of moral development and challenges some general concerns about the value of moral education in law schools. It then proposes the incorporation of moral teaching in the law school curriculum to remedy the disjunction between persona convictions and legal analysis stemming from the Langdellian method of legal training. Finally, it discusses the challenges to incorporating moral education into legal training. …

Teaching Jewish Law In American Law Schools: An Emerging Development In Law And Religion, Samuel J. Levine

Fordham Urban Law Journal

There has been a "religious lawyering movement," where religion has gained increased prominence in the legal profession and academia. This essay discusses one aspect of the movement, Jewish law in the American law school curriculum. The author describes four models for courses teaching Jewish law in American law schools, outlining their advantages and disadvantages. The first model teaches Jewish law in comparative law. The course would compare and contrast the substantive areas of law in both Jewish and American law. The second model teaches Jewish law in international law. By focusing on the impact of Jewish law on Israel's legal …

Does Law Teaching Have Meaning? Teaching Effectiveness, Gauging Alumni Competence, And The Maccrate Report, Daniel Gordon

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article examines law school teaching evaluation techniques and probes the use of a law school alumni survey to measure teaching effectiveness. The Article focuses on a survey of St. Thomas University School of Law graduates. The Article also examines teaching effectiveness in the context of the MacCrate Report and the so called gaps between legal education and law practice it identified. The Article argues that the MacCrate Report was incomplete in its coverage of teaching effectiveness, and that much of the discord it created can be overcome by focusing on teaching effectiveness.