Law Commons^™

Outcomes Assessment And Legal Research Pedagogy, Vicenç Feliú, Helen Frazer

Vicenç Feliú

This article explores application of a taxonomic approach in legal research pedagogy to outcomes assessment based on Prof. Paul Callister's adaptation of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives which integrates instructional design and learning activities compatible with formative assessment during the learning process and summative assessment at its conclusion. It reviews the development of outcomes assessment initiatives by legal educators and the development of outcomes assessment standards by the American Bar Association for the accreditation of law schools.

Once Upon A Legal Time-Lawyers As Storytellers, Jalae Ulicki

Jalae Ulicki

No abstract provided.

The Overlap Of Tax And Financial Aspects Of Real Estate Ventures, Bradley T. Borden

Bradley T. Borden

This article examines the effect partnership tax law has on financial aspects of real estate ventures. It introduces the relevance of the aggregate and entity views of tax partnerships (i.e., LLCs, LPs, and other partnerships) and demonstrates how those views can greatly affect financial projections for each of the members of a real estate venture. It also demonstrates how financial calculations can vary significantly depending upon how closely analysts track a tax partnership’s allocation method. Finally, the article serves as a primer for tax practitioners who are unfamiliar with the financial tools that are so prevalent in real estate analysis, …

The Skepticism Of Critical Legal Studies And Function Of Moral Discourse, Paul J. Gudel

Paul J. Gudel

Paul J. Gudel

California Western School of Law

ABSTRACT

“The Skepticism of Critical Legal Studies and the Function of Moral Discourse”

This article on the philosophy of law aims to expound and evaluate the jurisprudential movement known as Critical Legal Studies – now that the passage of some time allows us to take a less polemical look at what was regarded as a very radical movement. My exposition of CLS organizes its now somewhat familiar concepts (legal indeterminacy, fundamental contradiction, hierarchy, the attack on the public/private distinction) as all directed to one goal: allowing us to see our responsibility for …

Law Student Laptop Use During Class For Non-Class Purposes: Temptation V. Incentives, Jeff Sovern

Jeff Sovern

ABSTRACT LAW STUDENT LAPTOP USE DURING CLASS FOR NON-CLASS PURPOSES: TEMPTATION v. INCENTIVES Jeff Sovern St. John’s University School of Law This article reports on how law students use laptops, based on observations of 1072 laptop users (though there was considerable overlap among those users from one class to another) during 60 sessions of six law school courses. Some findings: • More than half the upper-year students seen using laptops employed them for non-class purposes more than half the time, raising serious questions about how much they learned from class. By contrast, first-semester Civil Procedure students used laptops for non-class …

The Skepticism Of Critical Legal Studies And The Function Of Moral Discourse, Paul J. Gudel

Paul J. Gudel

Paul J. Gudel

California Western School of Law

ABSTRACT

“The Skepticism of Critical Legal Studies and the Function of Moral Discourse”

This article on the philosophy of law aims to expound and evaluate the jurisprudential movement known as Critical Legal Studies – now that the passage of some time allows us to take a less polemical look at what was regarded as a very radical movement. My exposition of CLS organizes its now somewhat familiar concepts (legal indeterminacy, fundamental contradiction, hierarchy, the attack on the public/private distinction) as all directed to one goal: allowing us to see our responsibility for …

The Role Law Schools Should Play In Filling The Justice Gap, Karen Millard

Karen Millard

In the article, details about the current need for legal services in the United States are provided. For example, in 2010, nearly one in seven Americans lived below the poverty line, the highest proportion in nearly two decades. As the number of people living in poverty continues to increase, the number of people needing legal assistance also continues to grow. What is startling is that only about twenty percent of the legal needs of low-income people are being satisfied. One reason for this is that a total of less than one percent of the nation’s legal expenditures is given to …

Rodrigo's Riposte: The Mismatch Theory Of Law School Admissions, Richard Delgado

Richard Delgado

The chronicle proceeds as a dialogue between the fictional alter ego, Rodrigo Crenshaw, and an older professor. After meeting in Rodrigo’s city, the two friends, joined later by “Giannina,” go out to dinner. Rodrigo, who is on his law school’s admissions committee, has been thinking about affirmative action. Prompted by his conservative colleague “Laz,” Rodrigo has formulated a several-pronged attack on Sander’s premise that “stairstep” admissions (and, later, law firm hiring) just hurts the cause of black lawyers. The professor presses Rodrigo to defend his views, and the arrival of Giannina requires him to articulate them even more. You will …

A Way Forward: Transparency At American Law Schools, Kyle P. Mcentee, Patrick J. Lynch

Kyle P McEntee

Law school has long been thought of as an investment in human capital inherently worth consuming. This is a dated view. Today, entering the legal profession through law school requires an increasingly significant financial investment. Yet very little information about the value of a legal education is available for prospective law students. In fact, much of the information tends to mislead rather than inform aspiring lawyers.

This Article surveys the available information with respect to one important segment of the value analysis: post-graduation employment outcomes. It then proposes a new standard for the presentation of post-graduation outcomes, "The LST Proposal." …

Virginia Bar Exam, February 2012, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, February 2012, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

The Crucible And The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Martin Pritikin

Martin Pritikin

Counter-intuitively, one of the best ways to learn the practice-oriented topic of evidence may be by studying a work of fiction—specifically, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which dramatizes the Salem witch trials. The play puts the reader in the position of legal advocate, and invites strategic analysis of evidentiary issues. A close analysis of the dialogue presents an opportunity to explore both the doctrinal nuances of and policy considerations underlying the most important topics covered by the Federal Rules of Evidence, including relevance, character evidence and impeachment, opinion testimony, hearsay, and the mode and order of interrogation.

Changing The Modal Law School: Rethinking U.S. Legal Education In (Most) Schools, Nancy Rapoport

Nancy B. Rapoport

This essay argues that discussions of educational reform in U.S. law schools have suffered from a fundamental misconception: that the education provided in all of the American Bar Association-accredited schools is roughly the same. A better description of the educational opportunities provided by ABA-accredited law schools would group the schools into three rough clusters: the “elite” law schools, the modal (most frequently occurring) law schools, and the precarious law schools. Because the elite law schools do not need much “reforming,” the better focus of reform would concentrate on the modal and precarious schools; however, both elite and modal law schools …

Rankings, Economic Challenge, And The Future Of Legal Education, Gene R. Nichol

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Ethics For The Millennials Avoiding The Compromise Of Integrity, Helia Garrido Hull

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Uncharted Waters Of Teaching Law With Online Simulations, Ira Steven Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

The Internet is more than a place where the Millennial Generation communicates, plays, and shops. It is also a medium that raises issues central to nearly every existing field of legal doctrine, whether basic (such as Torts, Property, or Contracts) or advanced (such as Intellectual Property, Criminal Procedure, or Securities Regulation). This creates tremendous opportunities for legal educators interested in using the live Internet for experiential education. This Article examines how live websites can be used to create engaging and holistic simulations that tie together doctrine, theory, skills, and values in ways impossible to achieve with the case method. In …

Best Practices For The Law Of The Horse: Teaching Cyberlaw And Illuminating Law Through Online Simulations, Ira Steven Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

In an influential 1996 article entitled "Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse," Judge Frank Easterbrook mocked cyberlaw as a subject lacking in cohesion and therefore unworthy of inclusion in the law school curriculum. Responses to Easterbrook, most notably that of Lawrence Lessig in his 1999 article "The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach," have taken a theoretical approach. However, this Article—also appropriating the “Law of the Horse” moniker—concludes that Easterbrook’s challenge is primarily pedagogical, requiring a response keyed to whether cyberlaw ought to be taught in law schools. The Article concludes that despite Easterbrook’s concerns, cyberlaw presents …

Renovating Or Innovating? The Current Curriculum Reforms At Unsw, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

This conference paper outlines the curriculum review process at UNSW as it was in 2012. The paper reflects on the history of the law school and the success of the review processes.

The Law School Critique In Historical Perspective, A. Benjamin Spencer

A. Benjamin Spencer

Contemporary critiques of legal education abound. This arises from what can be described as a perfect storm: the confluence of softness in the legal employment market, the skyrocketing costs of law school, and the unwillingness of clients and law firms to continue subsidizing the further training of lawyers who failed to learn how to practice in law school. As legal jobs become more scarce and salaries stagnate, the value proposition of law school rightly is being questioned from all directions. Although numerous valid criticisms have been put forth, some seem to be untethered from a full appreciation for how the …

Putting Theory Into Practice: Thoughts From The Trenches On Developing A Doctrinally Integrated Semester-In-Practice Program In Health Law And Policy, Michele L. Mekel

Michele L Mekel

With the employment market for attorneys currently in a subpar state, legal employers have the attention of both law students and law schools, and these employers are demanding practice-ready practitioners. In response, law schools are turning increasingly to experiential learning opportunities of various types. For law schools with concentrations, certificate programs, or centers of excellence, experiential learning presents synergies upon which to capitalize in offering students specialized, hands-on training that matches their interests and makes them more attractive employment candidates upon graduation.

Teaching Students To Negotiate Like A Lawyer, John Lande

John Lande

Teaching students to negotiate effectively is central to their thinking, acting, and being like good lawyers. Virtually all lawyers spend much of their time negotiating, whether they deal with disputes or transactions. So law school negotiation courses should provide the most realistic possible portrayal of legal negotiation. This essay is intended to help instructors plan and teach negotiation courses, recognizing that every course should be tailored to fit the interests, capabilities, resources, and constraints of the instructors and students. This essay argues that many lawyers engage in “ordinary legal negotiation” (OLN), which is distinct from “romantic” theories of positional and …

Privacy And Data Protection In Business: Laws And Practices (Sample Chapters), Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

In the fields of digital privacy and data protection in the business world, effective compliance and risk management require not only knowledge of applicable laws and regulations, but at least a basic understanding of relevant technologies and the processes of the company or other organization that is collecting and/or using the personal information or monitoring behavior. This book is structured to provide a framework for law and other students to both learn the law and place it in the necessary technological and practical context, divided into topic areas such as children’s privacy, health information, governmental requirements, employee data and more. …

Law School Grades - Flunked Out, But Did Not Really Fail

Harvey Gilmore

If the plaintiffs in a most interesting, recent lawsuit ultimately get their way, I will need to change the title of this article. After the Spring 2011 semester, plaintiffs Jonathan Chan and Karla Ford were dismissed from their former law school, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law (Texas Southern) for academic deficiency, failing to maintain an overall grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.0. On February 2, 2012, in response to their dismissal, Chan and Ford filed a lawsuit against Texas Southern, along with their Contracts professor, Shelley Smith. In this article, I will look at some …

The Public Speaks: An Empirical Study Of Legal Communication, Christopher R. Trudeau

Christopher R Trudeau

Most attorneys agree that writers need to tailor their writing to a particular audience. This just makes sense. So it is not a stretch to argue that to convey a clear message to a client, attorneys should use plain language. But there is little empirical data supporting the public’s preference for plain language. Rather, most sources largely rely on anecdotal evidence to prove this point. Therefore, in 2011, I conducted a study to help measure many of the following unanswered questions: to what degree does the public prefer plain language over traditional legal language? How do people react when they …

A Supreme Court Clinic’S Place In The Supreme Court Bar, Jeffrey L. Fisher

Jeffrey L Fisher

The past several years have witnessed the emergence of a new phenomenon: clinics in law schools that litigate cases in the Supreme Court. Although some commentators have written about the pedagogical goals and benefits of such clinics, no-one yet has written about their public interest mission. This article takes up that task. It begins by empirically testing, for the first time in modern literature, the clinics’ foundational assumption: that litigants in the Court who are represented by local counsel instead of Supreme Court specialists are generally at a distinct disadvantage. Finding that assumption to be accurate, the article identifies and …

Professor Kingsfield In Conflict: Rhetorical Constructions Of The U.S. Law Professor Persona(E), Carlo A. Pedrioli

Carlo A. Pedrioli

At least since the 1960s, a “‘two cultures’ phenomenon” has become quite apparent within the legal field in the United States. On one hand, some lawyers, usually those within the university, have been more academically oriented, and, on the other hand, other lawyers, usually those in legal practice or sitting on the bench, have been more pragmatically oriented. Problems arise when these two groups begin to talk differently from each other. In a way, the field of law has developed into at least two different legal professions, and, not surprisingly, scholars and practitioners have experienced tension because of this situation. …

Ten Elements Of "Real" Ethics In The Practice Of Law (And Life), David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

The legal profession has been “running a game” on its clients and on American society in its claim that it can self-regulate. The system of ethical regulation as practiced by the legal profession and courts is not a “real” system nor can it even be said to be an Ideal system. It is a deceptive pretense and pretension. It is time to stop the deception and to construct a new way of regulating lawyers and holding them to account for deficiencies and neglect. Many lawyers will not accept this interpretation either because of self-interest or to avoid facing the uncomfortable …

"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

This short essay seeks to give law students hoping to be junior associates at large, big-city law firms some information about the seemingly large salaries offered to them and discusses what life might be like for them if they take a position at one of these firms. The essay begins with a discussion of how much an associate might expect to keep, after the cost of living in a large city is accounted for, from the advertised starting salary offered by such firms. It then considers what it costs the firm to pay an associate such a large salary, how …

Aspire, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

Informational pamphlet on the opportunities available when considering University of Michigan Law School.

Teaching Health Law In Rural Ethiopia: Using A Pepfar Partnership Framework And India's Shanbaug Decision To Shape A Course, Sallie Thieme Sanford Sanfords@Uw.Edu

Articles

In April 2011, I taught a month-long intensive health law course at Haramaya University College of Law in rural eastern Ethiopia. Given the burgeoning interest in global health law, I suspect, and hope, that others are considering teaching similar courses, whether as visiting or resident faculty. This essay attempts to ease their course preparation workload. I will describe how I used two recent documents – India’s 2011 Shanbaug decision and Ethiopia’s 2010 PEPFAR Partnership Framework – to shape the course. Both of these are worth consideration for use in a variety of health law and policy courses based in low-income …