Law Commons^™

Question #1: Is There A Gender Gap In Performance On Multiple Choice Exams? A. Always B. Never C. Most Of The Time, Jane Bloom Grisé

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The correct answer to Question #1 is C. Most of the time, women score lower than men on multiple-choice exams. Question #2: How did you become interested in this topic?

A. The author likes to create multiple-choice tests.

B. The author does well on multiple-choice tests.

C. The author unexpectedly discovered this disparity.

The correct answer is C. I discovered this disparity unexpectedly and was surprised to find that women scored lower than men on multiple-choice exams and that multiple-choice exams underpredicted women's academic performance.

While educators might assume that different types of assessments such as multiple-choice and essays are …

Plagiarism Pedagogy: Why Teaching Plagiarism Should Be A Fundamental Part Of Legal Education, Brian L. Frye, Megan E. Boyd

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As a practicing lawyer, if you aren’t plagiarizing, you’re committing malpractice. Litigators copy forms and arguments from winning briefs rather than bill their clients for reinventing the wheel. Transactional lawyers copy enforceable agreements to ensure their agreements are enforceable too. Partners routinely present documents prepared by associates (and sometimes even paralegals) as their own work. And judges are the most prolific plagiarists of all, copying briefs, opinions, treatises, and legal and nonlegal scholarship, adopting arguments from lawyers and holdings from other judges as their own and claiming authorship of opinions written primarily by their clerks or the parties to the …

When Your Plate Is Already Full: Efficient And Meaningful Outcomes Assessment For Busy Law Schools, Melissa N. Henke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation standards involving outcome-based assessment are a game changer for legal education. The standards reaffirm the importance of providing students with formative feedback throughout their course of study to assess and improve student learning. The standards also require law schools to evaluate their effectiveness, and to do so from the perspective of student performance within the institution’s program of study. The relevant question is no longer what are law schools teaching their students, but instead, what are students learning from law schools in terms of the knowledge, skills, and values that are essential for those …

The 2019 Revealed-Preferences Ranking Of Law Schools, Christopher J. Ryan, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 2017, we published A Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools, which presented the first (intentionally) objective ranking of law schools. Other law school rankings are subjective because their purpose is to tell prospective law students where to matriculate. Our “revealed preferences” ranking is objective because its purpose is to ask where prospective law students actually choose to matriculate. In other words, subjective rankings tell students what they should want, but our objective ranking reveals what students actually want. These rankings were originally based on an average of the previous five years of LSAT and GPA quartile and median averages …

The Sharpest Tool In The Toolbox: Visual Legal Rhetoric, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Visual briefs and other forms of visual rhetoric in legal communication may eventually become the norm in legal practice because of the enormous communicative and rhetorical power of visual media. I have discussed the uses of visual legal rhetoric and the ensuing ethical and professional considerations elsewhere. Here, I will focus on providing instruction to law students and lawyers regarding proper and effective usage of visual legal rhetoric.

A Revealed Preferences Approach To Ranking Law Schools, Brian L. Frye, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) “Best Law Schools Rankings” defines the market for legal education. Law schools compete to improve their standing in the U.S. News rankings and fear any decline. But the U.S. News rankings are controversial, at least in part because they rely on factors that are poor proxies for quality, like peer reputation and expenditures per student. While many alternative law school rankings exist, none have challenged the market dominance of the U.S. News rankings. Presumably the U.S. News rankings benefit from a first-mover advantage, other rankings fail to provide a clearly superior alternative, …

An Empirical Study Of The Copyright Practices Of American Law Journals, Brian L. Frye, Franklin L. Runge, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article presents an empirical study of the copyright practices of American law journals in relation to copyright ownership and fair use, based on a 24-question survey. It concludes that many American law journals have adopted copyright policies that are inconsistent with the expectations of legal scholars and the scope of copyright protection. Specifically, many law journals have adopted copyright policies that effectively preclude open-access publishing, and unnecessarily limit the fair use of copyrighted works. In addition, it appears that some law journals may not understand their own copyright policies. This article proposes the creation of a Code of Copyright …

Creac In The Real World, Diane B. Kraft

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article will examine the extent to which common legal writing paradigms such as CREAC are used by attorneys in the "real world" of practice when writing on the kinds of issues law students may encounter in the first-year legal writing classroom. To that end, it will focus on the analysis of two factor-based criminal law issues: whether a defendant was in custody and whether a defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy. In focusing on "first-year" issues, the article seeks not to examine whether organizational paradigms are used at all in legal analysis, but to discover whether and how …

Leaping Language And Cultural Barriers With Visual Legal Rhetoric, Michael D. Murray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article discusses the scholarship of popular culture, cognitive studies and brain science, data visualization studies, modern argument theory in rhetoric, the rapid development of technology in the production of documents, and technology in the reading and reception of documents, which all point to one outcome: the tools of legal education and law practice must become more visual by following principles of visual legal rhetoric and visual narrativity. Visual has become the "new normal" in communication, and legal rhetorical communication in law school and law practice must not let itself fall behind the times.

Technology And Client Communications: Preparing Law Students And New Lawyers To Make Choices That Comply With The Ethical Duties Of Confidentiality, Competence, And Communication, Kristin J. Hazelwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

That the use of technology has radically changed the legal profession is beyond dispute. Through technology, lawyers can now represent clients in faraway states and countries, and they can represent even local clients through a “virtual law office.” Gone are the times in which the lawyer’s choices for communicating with clients primarily involve preparing formal business letters to convey advice, holding in-person client meetings in the office, or conducting telephone calls with clients on landlines from the confines of the lawyer’s office. Not only do lawyers have choices about how to communicate with their clients, but they also frequently choose …

Individual Academic Freedom: An Ordinary Concern Of The First Amendment, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us, and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.

There is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court's customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same …

Justifying Academic Freedom, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

While academic freedom can only be described in relation to academic norms, its justification can and should depend on its contribution to the common good. Academics contribute to the common good by producing scholarship. But scholarship is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Academic freedom is justified not only because enables academics to produce more and better scholarship, but also because it enables academics to challenge academic norms that diminish the quantity or quality of scholarship they produce.

Justice John Marshall Harlan: Professor Of Law, Brian L. Frye, Josh Blackman, Michael Mccloskey

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

From 1889 to 1910, while serving on the United States Supreme Court, the first Justice John Marshall Harlan taught at the Columbian College of Law, which became the George Washington University School of Law. For two decades, he primarily taught working-class evening students in classes as diverse as property, torts, conflicts of law, jurisprudence, domestic relations, commercial law, evidence-and most significantly-constitutional law.

Harlan's lectures on constitutional law would have been lost to history, but for the enterprising initiative-and remarkable note-taking-of one of Harlan's students, George Johannes. During the 1897-98 academic year, George Johannes and a classmate transcribed verbatim the twenty-seven …

Enlivening Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Election law cases are often lengthy and include complex discussion of constitutional doctrines. Moreover, there is rarely a clear-cut answer to a tricky election law question. The field is full of balancing tests, competing interests to weigh, and ever-shifting standards. A challenge for Election Law teachers, then, is to ensure that the long judicial opinions and difficult constitutional doctrines undergirding the field of election law do not bury the vibrancy of the topic. One way to keep an Election Law course student-friendly is to make frequent use of electronic media. Election law is well-suited to the adoption of images, videos, …

Tenure And The Law Library Director, James M. Donovan, Kevin B. Shelton

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This essay offers a response to the current discussion concerning the possible rescission of ABA Accreditation Standard 603 governing tenure-track appointment of the law library director.

Part I reviews this discussion, highlighting the terms and arguments on all sides of the debate. Part II offers a defense of the current standard, based upon the need for the director both to receive the protections of academic freedom and to participate in faculty governance of the law school. The need for tenure to perform a director's professional duties, however, does not make one automatically tenureable. Part III examines the skeptical attitude that …

Two And A Half Ethical Theories: Re-Examining The Foundations Of The Carnegie Report, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the past three years, the American Bar Association, several major state bar associations, the Association of American Law Schools, the New York Times, law students, and many legal educators have called for fundamental changes in the way we educate new lawyers. Some critics have suggested that legal education faces a crisis that will be exacerbated by rising tuitions, declining enrollments, and a precipitous drop in the demand for new lawyers. Most of those calling for change have relied on the critical analysis of modem legal education presented in a 2007 report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement …

Succeeding In The Candidate Pool: Resources Available At Association Of American Law Schools For Persons Interested In Becoming A Law School Dean, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article covers three areas that fall under the author’s supervision as Deputy Director of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). First, the author will discuss the two Deans Databanks that he administers, which relate directly to increasing diversity among the ranks of law school deans in America: the Women Deans Databank and the Minority Deans Databank. In particular, the author will address how these two databanks reflect the core values of the AALS and how the databanks function in the deanship process. Second, the author will discuss the Law Deanship Manual an AALS publication that addresses nearly every …

Race And Equality Across The Law School Curriculum: The Law Of Tax Exemption, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

What is the relevance of race to tax law? The race issues are apparent when one studies a subject like constitutional law. The Constitution concerns itself explicitly with such matters as defining rights of citizenship, allocating powers of government, and determining rights with respect to property. Given the history of our country -- with slavery followed by periods of de jure and de facto racial discrimination -- these constitutional law matters obviously must have racial dimensions.

Tax law, however, does not generally concern itself explicitly with matters of race. Tax law is often thought of as completely race neutral in …

A Quarter Century, Not A Raised Voice, Robert G. Lawson, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr., Christopher W. Frost

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A tribute to Professor Willburt “Burt” D. Ham.

Tribute To Paul Oberst, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr., William H. Fortune, Alvin L. Goldman, Edward T. Breathitt, John H. Garvey, John Hatch

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A tribute to Professor Paul Oberst.

Tribute To Frederick W. Whiteside, Jr., Robert G. Lawson, William H. Fortune, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A series of tributes to Frederick W. Whiteside, Jr., a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law.

Reconsidering The Reliance Interest, Christopher W. Frost

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This essay discusses the place of Fuller and Perdue's The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages in the contracts classroom. After first describing my use of The Reliance Interest, I will set out what I consider to be the pedagogical benefits of beginning the course with remedies and the attractiveness of Fuller and Perdue's analytical model in conveying an understanding of the remedial structure. Next, I will discuss the views of critics Craswell, Kelly and Barnes. Finally, I will revisit the place of Fuller and Perdue's work in the contracts course in light of these criticisms.

Class Participation: Random Calling And Anonymous Grading, John M. Rogers

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

My perception is that opposition has been growing to law teachers' demanding student participation in class. At least one new teacher recently suggested to me that no good reason supports calling on students who have not volunteered. Many teachers, not to mention students, find something like an invasion of the student's dignity in that practice. Other teachers worry about the pitfalls of calling on or not calling on members of ethnic or gender groups, so they simply lecture or call only on volunteers. On another, indirectly related issue, my perception is that students often do not trust the anonymity of …

“Some Kind Of Lawyer”: Two Journeys From Classroom To Courtroom And Beyond, Terry Birdwhistell

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In January 1996 a panel of the American Bar Association released a report concluding that "discrimination continues to permeate the structures, practices and attitudes of the legal profession." It has been a long journey in women's efforts to obtain equity in both law schools and in the legal profession generally. This article is composed of two interviews with University of Kentucky College of Law graduates: Norma Boster Adams (’52) and Annette McGee Cunningham (’80). Twenty-eight years separated Norma Adams and Annette Cunningham at the College of Law. They faced different obstacles and chose varied paths to success. While each can …

Tribute To Donald A. Winslow, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr., Elbert P. Tuttle, Patricia T. Morgan, W. Thomas Halbleib Jr., Susan Stockton, Robert Weir

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article is comprised of a series of tributes to Donald A. Winslow, who was a law professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law.

John Edward Kennedy, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This tribute was in recognition of John E. Kennedy’s death. John E. Kennedy was a member of the College of Law faculty.

Professor John E. Kennedy: 1934-1989 A Remembrance, Alvin L. Goldman

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This dedication was in recognition of John E. Kennedy’s death. John E. Kennedy was a member of the College of Law faculty.

Foreword To Volume 77, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Professor Louise Graham authors this forward to the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Kentucky Law Journal. In this brief statement, Graham discusses the relevance of entrusting the guardianship of legal scholarship to students.

A Quarter Century, Not A Raised Voice, Robert G. Lawson, Paul A. Willis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This dedication was in recognition of Wilbert D. Ham’s retirement from the University of Kentucky College of Law faculty. Wilber D. Ham served on the faculty from 1949 until 1986.

Faculty Collective Bargaining And The Law Schools, Alvin L. Goldman

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Introductory address for a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools.