Law Commons^™

The Black-White Paradigm’S Continuing Erasure Of Latinas: See Women Law Deans Of Color, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

The Black-white paradigm persists with unintended consequences. For example, there have been only six Latina law deans to date with only four presently serving. This Article provides data about women law deans of color, the dearth of Latina law deans, and explanations for the data. It focuses on the enduring Black-white paradigm, as well as other external and internal forces. This Article suggests how to increase the number of Latina law deans and emphasizes why it matters.

Reflections On Legal Education In The Aftermath Of A Pandemic, Timothy Casey

Faculty Scholarship

This essay considers two significant changes to legal education in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, on-line programs will expand, based on the largely successful experiment in delivering legal education on-line during the pandemic. But this expansion must be thoughtful and deliberate. The legal education curriculum could include more on-line courses, but only if the learning outcomes and the pedagogy are aligned with on-line education. Experiential courses may not be the best fit for on-line given the specific learning outcomes and the benefits of in-person instruction in those courses. Second, student well-being will receive more attention in legal education. …

The Unified Legal Skills Program: How One Law School Adapted To Meet The Needs Of Students Online, And How Those Adaptations May Inform Post-Pandemic Teaching, David Austin, Allison D. Cato, Amy E. Day, Liam Vavasour

Faculty Scholarship

When CWSL was forced to switch to online learning for the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked hard to follow best practices for online learning by attending online conferences and voraciously reading everything we could find to make the learning experience the best we could for our students. CWSL's Legal Skills program earned high praise in student evaluations for adapting so quickly given the difficult circumstances.

During the summer of 2020, we met as a Legal Skills team to discuss how to approach the regular school term. Specifically, we faced a larger-than-anticipated first-year class and contemplated how to remedy the sense of …

Women Law Deans, Gender Sidelining, And Presumptions Of Incompetence, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

Discussions of presumptions of incompetence and gender sidelining all address challenges that women, especially women of color, face in leadership roles. This Article explores these topics in the context of law deans.

This Article starts with updated data on the number of women law deans, including women of color, and demonstrates increased numbers of both women and women of color in deanships. It then shifts to plausible explanations for this growth: some optimistic and some more skeptical. It may be no coincidence that as the job became less desirable, women were appointed in greater numbers.

Next, this Article provides narrative …

Law School Based Incubators And Access To Justice, Patricia Salkin, Ellen Suni, Niels Schaumann, Mary Lu Bilek

Faculty Scholarship

At the end of February 2015, law professors, law deans, incubator staff and attorneys, and self-selected others gathered at California Western School of Law for the Second Annual Conference on Law School Incubators and Residency Programs. The incubators that are the subject of this article tend to focus on transition to law practice and access to justice, and some are also working to incorporate technology for the practice of law as a means of enhancing access to justice. As more law schools decide to host, sponsor or offer an incubator, and following our panel discussion at the February 2015 incubator …

Three Modes Of Legal Problem Solving–And What To Do About Them In Legal Education, Thomas D. Barton

Faculty Scholarship

Legal problems are addressed in at least three basic ways, or modes, each of which is associated with a particular "tense": (1) through judgment, an authoritative decision pronounced by an empowered third party concerning the legal significance of past behaviors; (2) through consent, a "present tense" resolution in which the parties to a legal concern resolve it privately by negotiated or mediated agreement; and (3) through prevention, a future-oriented process that designs contracts, legal arrangements, compliance regimes, education and training programs, organizational structures, or even physical environments so as to keep legal risks from erupting into injuries or legal liability. …

Searches, Seizures, Confessions, And Some Thoughts On Criminal Procedure: Regulation Of Police Investigation -- Legal, Historical, Empirical, And Comparative Materials, Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

Criminal procedure casebooks densely populate the market but rarely are reviewed. In Criminal Procedure: Regulation of Police Investigation-Legal, Historical, Empirical, and Comparative Materials, Christopher Slobogin copes with the anxiety of influence by writing a different sort of text. Simply put, the book is outwardly somewhat homely. Aesthetics aside, the book is mostly excellent and astonishingly so for a first edition. As the subtitle promises, the book has something for everyone: historians, empiricists, comparativists, theoreticians, case-crunchers, and practitioners. This review essay tracks the book's crowning achievement-the refreshing and inventive "perspectives" chapter that opens the book. The essay then reflects on …