Law Commons^™

Mindfulness: Foundational Training For Dispute Resolution, Leonard Riskin

Leonard L Riskin

This Article addresses the problem of mindlessness in counseling, negotiating, and mediating, and offers potential solutions and recommendations for developing foundational capacities through training in mindfulness meditation.

Creating A Classroom Component For Field Placement Programs: Enhancing Clinical Goals With Feminish Pedagogy, Linda Morton

Linda H Morton

This article supports the use of feminist pedagogy to provide the ideal environment for engaging clinic students in self-learning. The author describes the complementary relationship between clinic goals and feminist pedagogy, illustrated through her use of a student-facilitated and non-hierarchical teaching model in her externship classes. The model used provides a unique and valuable educational environment for the training of prospective professionals.

Stuck In A Rut: The Role Of Creative Thinking In Problem Solving And Legal Education, Janet Weinstein, Linda Morton

Linda H Morton

This article focuses on the mental process of creative thinking. We discuss what it is, why we have difficulty engaging in it, and how we can overcome this difficulty through specific techniques and a more conducive environment. Creative thinking is an essential component to problem solving. In training future lawyers, we must do a better job of incorporating and supporting creative thinking in legal education. We conclude the article with a description of some of our efforts toward this objective.

Teaching The Newly Essential Knowledge, Skills, And Values In A Changing World, Section E: Intercultural Effectiveness, Rhonda Magee, Mary Lynch, Robin Boyle, Antoinette Lopez

Rhonda V Magee

Chapter from the forthcoming book "Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World" (2015). addresses the need of legal education to prepare cross-culturally competent lawyers. Outlines techniques and educational outcomes to develop law students' intercultural awareness.

Exporting The Legal Incubator: A Conversation With Fred Rooney, Fred Rooney, Justin Steele

Fred Rooney

A legal conversion between Justin Steele, Executive Articles Editor of the UMass Law Review and Fred Rooney, Director of the International Justice Center for Post-Graduate Development at Touro Law Center.

Damages: Using A Case Study To Teach Law, Lawyering, And Dispute Resolution, Leonard Riskin

Leonard L Riskin

Seven law school faculty members and one practicing attorney recently developed and taught a wholly new kind of law course based on an already published case study, Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, by Barry Werth, an investigative reporter who spent several years researching to write the book. Damages, an in-depth account of a medical malpractice case, presents the perspectives of the injured family, the defendant physician, the lawyers, and the three mediators. In this Symposium Introduction, the authors provide a summary of Werth's book, explain why they decided to create a course based on his …

The Elephant In The Admissions Office: The Influence Of U.S. News & World Report On The Rise Of Transfer Students In Law Schools And A Modest Proposal For Reform, Bruce Price, Sara Star

Bruce M Price

Students who perform well after the first year of law school are increasingly transferring to schools ranked higher by U.S. News to maximize their chances of getting a law firm job immediately following graduation. This phenomena raises two fundamental and understudied issues: how students make the decision to seek to transfer to a higher-ranked and higher-tier law school, and why such law schools are willing to admit transfer students into their second-year class who they were not willing to admit initially. The first issue we explore through interviews with students who transferred as well as those who could have transferred …

A Technological Trifecta: Using Videos, Playlists, And Facebook In Law School Classes To Reach Today’S Students, Dionne Anthon, Anna Hemingway, Amanda Smith

Anna P. Hemingway

Vulnerable Populations And Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader, Chapter 6 - Vulnerability In Contracting: Teaching First-Year Law Students About Inequality And Its Consequences, Deborah Post, Deborah Zalesne

Deborah W. Post

Traditional legal pedagogy fails to demonstrate the relationship of contract to the subordination of vulnerable populations. As a result, students rarely see the complex web of interrelationships where economic activity takes place or the legal regime that maintains it. Students are not taught how to interrogate the discourse or dismantle the systems and structures that oppress subordinated communities. This Essay describes a technique that we have developed to help students learn the meaning of law and its cultural, social, and structural significance. The traditional framing of the study of contract doctrine as one that is objective, neutral, and fair avoids …

A Search For Balance In The Whirlwind Of Law School: Spirituality From Law Teachers, Thomas Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Studies Of Legal Education: A Review Of Recent Reports, Thomas Shaffer, Robert Redmount

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Thirteen Rules For Academic Meetings, Thomas Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Harmonizing Current Threats: Using The Outcry For Legal Education Reforms To Take Another Look At Civil Gideon And What It Means To Be An American Lawyer, Cathryn Miller-Wilson

Cathryn A. Miller-Wilson

"Harmonizing Current Threats: Using the Outcry for Legal Education Reforms to Take Another Look at Civil Gideon and What it Means to be an American Lawyer," makes the argument that, like medical education, legal education should be seen as a public responsibility. With the extra government funding that would come from this view of legal education, Miller-Wilson proposes incorporating "teaching law firms" after law school for students to practice in various specialties before graduation, similar to a medical residency.

Brooklyn Law School: The First Hundred Years, Jeffrey Morris

Jeffrey B. Morris

No abstract provided.

Cat, Cause, And Kant, Richard Peltz-Steele

Richard J. Peltz-Steele

These are precarious times in which to launch a new law school and a new law review. Yet here we are. The University of Massachusetts is now in its first year of operation with provisional ABA accreditation. This text is a foreword to the first general-interest issue of the University of Massachusetts Law Review. Now marks an appropriate time to take stock of what these institutions mean to accomplish in our unsettled legal world.

Teaching Westlawnext: Next Steps For Teachers Of Legal Research, Ronald Wheeler

Ronald E Wheeler

As a follow up to his earlier piece titled "Does WestlawNext Really Change Everything: The Implications of WestlawNext on Legal Research," Professor Wheeler here explores strategies for teaching students to effectively research using the WestlawNext legal research platform. He focuses on challenging law librarians and other teachers of legal research to embrace change, to innovate and to devise research exercises that highlight both the advantages and the alleged pitfalls of WestlawNext. In particular, Professor Wheeler discusses source selection, filters, addressing the volume of results, esoteric content, and Boolean searching.

Seasons & Sea Changes: Weathering The Storm, An Encouraging Tale, Linda Ammons

Linda L. Ammons

Legal education is not immune to the realities of the marketplace. With declining applications, fewer jobs, and more and more demands from students, accrediting bodies, politicians, and employers (to name just a few), law schools and law deans are adjusting their expectations and programs to stay competitive and relevant. Managing the demands (realistic or not) of all of the constituencies who are a part of the greater law school universe, in good times, can be tricky. Trying to do so, when resources—some of which you control and others which you do not—are scarce can be complicated.

One thing is for …

Developing Professional Identity Through Reflective Practice, Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus

Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus

No abstract provided.

Learning Law While Walking The Dog: The Pedagogical Potential Of Podcasting, Kenneth Kristl

Kenneth T Kristl

The typical law school classroom for a doctrinal course utilizes a learning structure that limits opportunities for students to learn directly from the professor. Time constraints inherent in the need for coverage and the desire to keep the class engaged encourages movement through the material. Cognitivist learning theory views learning as involving the movement of information from sensory memory (perception) into short-term, working memory for analysis and organization, and then into long-term memory for storage. This process of information movement suggests that the typical law school classroom creates impediments to student learning. Distracted students who fail to capture the concept …

Reforming The Third Year Of Law School, David Millon, Robert Danforth

David K. Millon

No abstract provided.

Accomplishing Your Scholarly Agenda While Maximizing Students’ Learning (A.K.A., How To Teach Legal Methods And Have Time To Write Too), Anna P. Hemingway

Anna P. Hemingway

Law Schools: Where The Elite Meet To Teach (Transforming Legal Education: A Symposium Of Provocative Thought), Howard Glickstein

Howard Glickstein

No abstract provided.

Educating Lawyers With A Global Vision, Phoebe Haddon

Phoebe A. Haddon

This article is based on a presentation made at Justice & the Global Economy, a conference celebrating the appointment of Phoebe A. Haddon as the ninth Dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, October 3, 2009.

The Essential And Growing Role Of Legal Education In Achieving Sustainability, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

This article suggests that law schools need to play a leading role in the national and global effort to achieve sustainability, including the effort to address climate change. The article first describes the various drivers for sustainability in law schools. Clients are increasingly demanding that their lawyers 'walk the talk,' as many businesses and corporations already are. The universities that provide an institutional home for most law schools are also adopting sustainability policies and practices that influence their law schools. Within the legal profession, the American Bar Association, as well as many state and local bar associations, have adopted a …

Misuse And Abuse Of The Lsat: Making The Case For Alternative Evaluative Efforts And A Redefinition Of Merit, Phoebe Haddon, Deborah Post

Deborah W. Post

No abstract provided.

Growin’ Up: An Assessment Of Adult Self-Image In Clinical Law Students, Judith Ritter

Judith L Ritter

My thesis is that a majority of law students do not view themselves as adult professionals. When upper-class law students participate in live-client clinical programs, their lack of an adult self-image presents a barrier to effectiveness.

This article draws upon theories of psychological and moral development to explore the ingredients of being an adult and having an adult self-image. It examines the obstacles to development confronted by contemporary law students. The article explains the ways in which having an adult self-image is so important to the success of the student lawyer and how lacking an adult self-image can diminish the …

The Faces Of Law In Theory And Practice: Doctrine, Rhetoric, And Social Context, Richard Boldt, Marc Feldman

Richard C. Boldt

No abstract provided.

The Law Librarian's Role In The Scholarly Enterprise: Historical Development Of The Librarian/Research Partnership In American Law Schools, Michael Slinger, Rebecca Slinger

Michael J. Slinger

No abstract provided.

David Hoffman: Life, Letters And Lectures At The University Of Maryland 1821-1837, Bill Sleeman

Bill Sleeman

David Hoffman was a prominent pioneer in the establishment of university-based legal education. He helped to found the University of Maryland Law School in 1816 and was its first professor. His A Course of Legal Study (1817) and Legal Outlines (1829) played a critical role in the development of law school curricula and provided guidance to hundreds of antebellum law students and attorneys.

Professionalism Videos, Mary Ann Robinson, Alison Kehner

Mary Ann Robinson

A series of short filmed vignettes to be used to teach law students about concepts of professionalism. They are intended to be used to help our students realize that their careers as lawyers commence in law school, and that they must begin to adopt and emulate standards of professionalism in law school that they will carry with them when they become legal professionals. Choices made now not only impact their professional reputations, but also establish patterns that can serve them for the better or for the worse in practice.