Law Commons^™

U.S. News U.: Or, The Fighting Volunteer Hurricanes, R. Lawrence Dessem

Faculty Publications

A great deal of controversy, catcalling, and consternation has greeted the rankings of law schools by U.S. News and World Report each spring. In their efforts to place higher in these rankings, law schools have engaged in massive public relations wars, misrepresented data, and done other bad and stupid things.

Unsolicited Advice To Law School Dean Search Committees, R. Lawrence Dessem

Faculty Publications

A true bounty of opinion, anecdotes, and advice has been offered by many outstanding deans in these symposia in recent years. By and large, these deans have focused on the art of deaning, which is to be expected. But in addition to their experiences and observations concerning deaning, law school deans are also uniquely situated to provide insights concerning a related topic: the dean search process. This I take as the subject of the current article. As these symposia contemplate, the present article is informal in tone and is based upon my own experiences both as a law school dean …

A Form Letter, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

A humorous letter from Richard J. Peltz, who at the time was an Associate Professor at William H. Bowen Law School, to Professor John M. A. DiPippa, also of Bowen Law School at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock.

Reflections On Editing A Journal For Law Teachers, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

One should hesitate to draw grand conclusions based on personal experience, but I won't. What I'll do in this essay is discuss some of the decidedly unscientific lessons about American legal education, or at least about the scholarship dealing with American legal education, that I've drawn from my editorial experience: About American legal education's provincialism, about the limited interest in writing on pedagogical subjects, about quality of writing, and about the politicization of the legal academy.

Imagine: A Comment On "A Liberal Education In Law", Melody Richardson Daily

Faculty Publications

While I was impressed with Professor Parker's paper for many reasons, to me her single most striking assertion is this: "Practicing law--and learning law-is at heart an imaginative enterprise."' It is a sentence that should be carved above the entrance to every law school. Few practicing attorneys would disagree with Professor Parker's observation. After all, if imagination is the ability to deal creatively with reality, then imagination is essential for each of the ten fundamental lawyering skills listed in the MacCrate Report. For example, no lawyer can succeed in problem-solving without first engaging in the process of imagining multiple possible …

Providing Structure To Law Students — Introducing The Programmed Learning Sequence As An Instructional Tool, Robin A. Boyle, Lynne Dolle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the past few decades, legal academics have spawned writings about changing law school teaching methods from the traditional Socratic and case method to alternative approaches. Some of these authors encourage law professors to be aware of individual differences among students. Yet there has been little empirical research conducted in law schools concerning the effectiveness of teaching students according to their individual learning styles. "Learning styles" refers to the ways in which individuals "begin [ ] to concentrate on, process, [internalize,] and [remember] new and difficult [academic] information" or skills. The absence of learning-styles research in law schools spurred …

Teacher, Student, Ticket: John Frank, Leon Higginbotham, And One Afternoon At The Supreme Court--Not A Trifling Thing, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

A path to greatness often begins with a special teacher, and this is such a story. In the fall of 1949, John P. Frank was a new associate professor at the Yale Law School. This story also involves a young student. In autumn 1949, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., was a first year law student at Yale. Higginbotham, a 21-year-old black man from Trenton, New Jersey, had attended Purdue University and, after transferring, graduated from Antioch College in 1949. Leon Higginbotham was one of three black students who entered Yale Law School in fall 1949. Higginbotham met John Frank when he …