Law Commons^™

Introduction To Faculty Essays, Gary J. Simson

Mercer Law Review

This collection of essays by Mercer law faculty is the result of a process that my predecessor as dean, Daisy Floyd, set in motion in the fall of 2008. At that time, Dean Floyd named an ad hoc committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the law school's celebrated Woodruff Curriculum. Adopted after extensive discussion, planning, and debate, the Woodruff Curriculum went into effect in 1990. Within a few years, the American Bar Association recognized the Woodruff Curriculum's distinctive and remarkably forward-looking contribution to legal education by naming the law school as the recipient of the Association's prestigious Gambrell Professionalism …

Thoughts On Legal Education, The Curriculum, And The Importance Of Process Over Substance, John O. Cole

Mercer Law Review

Curricular reform conversations are valuable as a process of continually thinking about, and discussing, the form that a "proper" legal education should take. The key concepts here are "conversations" and "process," for I would immediately suggest that the "substance" of whatever curricular reform that is created at the back end of this conversational process is itself of little importance or interest. That is to say, in the grand scheme of ideas concerning legal education, the specific ordering of courses and the particular list of required courses are of relatively minor importance in the development of a healthy curriculum.

I offer …

Pedagogy And Purpose: Teaching For Practical Wisdom, Daisy Hurst Floyd

Mercer Law Review

This year marks my thirtieth as a legal educator. During that time, I have taught a variety of courses and served in several administrative roles, including seven years as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and six years as Dean. I am now newly returned to full-time teaching after a post-deanship sabbatical. I have served on numerous law school, university, professional, and civic committees and boards, and have attended untold number of professional meetings. From these various perspectives, I have followed closely the debates about what we are and are not doing well in legal education, including such developments as the …

The Lawyer Meets The Therapist, The Minister, And The Psychiatrist: Law School Cross-Professional Collaborations, Timothy W. Floyd

Mercer Law Review

Lawyers in practice rarely encounter purely legal problems. Understanding the social, economic, political, and historical context is often crucial to resolving legal issues, and legal decisions are often dependent upon business, scientific, medical, psychological, and technological information. Most legal representation occurs within some field of enterprise or industry, and nearly all representation of clients involves complex emotional and interpersonal dynamics.

Early in my legal career, I realized the importance of knowing other fields and specialties in order to be an effective lawyer. My first practice experience was in commercial litigation, and our firm represented clients from a wide range of …

Teaching Seminars—Pedagogy And Potential, Gary J. Simson

Mercer Law Review

I love teaching, especially seminars. In my many years of law teaching, I have taught a seminar in all but a handful of years, and in some years, I have taught two. My first experience teaching a seminar came in my very first semester of law teaching, and my most recent experience was in the semester that came to a close a couple of months ago.

In this essay, I hope to encourage other faculty to reap the benefits of seminars for their students and themselves that my students and I have enjoyed. Although the selection of subject area for …

Trusts And Estates Drafting: Avoiding Rigor Mortis In The Law School Curriculum, Karen J. Sneddon

Mercer Law Review

Every day lawyers sit with fingers curled above keyboards and pens poised above notepads. Lawyers are writers. There may have been a time when the practice of law primarily involved oral communication. However, the practice of law has long since become one of written communication. Although most law schools pride themselves on producing client-ready graduates, few schools actually deliver on this promise, especially as it relates to transactional practice.

The American Bar Association Standards and Procedures' requires that each law student receive substantial instruction in, among other categories, "writing in a legal context, including at least one rigorous writing experience …

Fundamental Dimensions Of Law And Legal Education: Perspectives On Curriculum Reform, Mercer Law School's Woodruff Curriculum, And... "Perspectives", Mark L. Jones

Mercer Law Review

This Article is the third in a series of articles that are intended to address in depth my central concerns about the law school curriculum and associated professionalism issues. This larger project, which I have entitled "Fundamental Dimensions of Law and Legal Education," seeks to make the case for the liberalization of U.S. legal education, although perhaps the term reliberalization would be more accurate given the emphasis upon a broad education for lawyers during the first phase in the history of U.S. legal education. Whereas the two prior articles are essentially descriptive-the first being conceptual and the second historical in …

Beyond Chalk And Talk: The Law Classroom Of The Future, Timothy W. Floyd, Karen J. Sneddon, Oren R. Griffin

Articles

Law schools are rethinking the traditional Langdellian classroom as they construct the law classroom of the future. Although the reform of legal education has long been heralded, law schools are now on the cusp of actual change. Carnegie’s Educating Lawyers and the Clinical Legal Education Association’s Best Practices for Legal Education are promoting a rethinking of the law classroom. Also encouraging the examination of legal education are changes in the incoming student population, such as the influx of students from the Millennial Generation; technological innovations; and shifting realities and economics of law practice, such as the increased focus on efficiency …

Learning From Clergy Education: Externships Through The Lens Of Formation, Daisy Hurst Floyd, Timothy Floyd, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

Educating Lawyers, the 2007 Carnegie Foundation study of legal education, challenges law schools to become more intentional about educating students for formation of professional identity. Noting that clergy education has focused more on the formative aspects of professional education than have other professional schools, the study suggests that legal educators could learn a great deal from clergy education about teaching for professional identity formation. Taking that suggestion to heart, the authors undertook an examination of clergy education, with a particular focus on the role of field education in students’ personal and professional formation. This article reports on that examination …