Law Commons^™

Foreword—Establishing A Firm Foundation For The Small Law Practice, Eric J. Gouvin

Faculty Scholarship

On March 26, 2014, the Western New England Law Review sponsored a symposium entitled "Firm Foundations: Managing the Small Firm and Individual Practitioner." The symposium presentations provided perspectives on the often-overlooked world of small firm practice.

A few influential books about the state of legal education and the future of the legal profession prompted public outcry from bar associations across the country to weigh in on the perceived problems of American legal education. The debate has resulted in some real changes in law school programs.

Legal education is in the midst of major changes. For decades, law schools have been …

Teaching And Assessing Professional Communication Skills In Law School, Denitsa R. Mavrova Heinrich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Education In Transition: Trends And Their Implications, Michael A. Millemann, Sheldon Krantz

Faculty Scholarship

This is a pivotal moment in legal education. Revisions in American Bar Association accreditation standards, approved in August 2014, impose new requirements, including practice-based requirements, on law schools. Other external regulators and critics are pushing for significant changes too. For example, the California bar licensing body is proposing to add a practice-based, experiential requirement to its licensing requirements, and the New York Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, is giving third-year, second semester students the opportunity to practice full-time in indigent legal services programs and projects. Unbeknown to many, there have been significant recent changes in legal education that …

Synergy And Tradition: The Unity Of Research, Service, And Teaching In Legal Education, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Most non-profit law schools generate public goods of enormous value: important research, service to disadvantaged communities, and instruction that both educates students about present legal practice and encourages them to improve it. Each of these missions informs and enriches the others. However, technocratic management practices menace law schools’ traditional missions of balancing theory and practice, advocacy and scholarly reflection, study of and service to communities. This article defends the unity and complementarity of law schools’ research, service, and teaching roles. (For those short on time, the chart on pages 45-46 encapsulates the conflicting critiques of law schools which this article …

Prepared For Practice? Developing A Comprehensive Assessment Plan For A Law School Professional Skills Program, Anthony Niedwiecki

Faculty Scholarship

With the challenges facing law schools because of declining enrollment and lower job placement rates, there has been an increased push for more practical training in law school. In fact, a number of law schools are now using the phrase "practice-ready" to promote the practical training provided to their students. Additionally, the new accreditation standards from the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar ("ABA Section on Legal Education") focus more on teaching students professional skills. The most significant changes to the standards require law schools to integrate learning outcomes and assessment into their curriculum, with the …

Client Problem-Solving: Where Adr And Lawyering Skills Meet, Katherine R. Kruse, Bobbi Mcadoo, Sharon Press

Faculty Scholarship

Influenced by critiques of legal education, law schools are scrambling to offer more and better opportunities for experiential education. To fulfill the new demands for experiential education, one obvious place to turn is clinic pedagogy, which has developed methodologies for teaching students in the real-practice settings of in-house clinics and externships. As the interest in experiential education broadens, a wider spectrum of teaching methodologies comes under the experiential tent, creating opportunities to tap new sources of guidance for reshaping legal education.

This article turns the spotlight on one of these other, less obvious resources within legal education: the alternative dispute …

Teaching The Newly Essential Knowledge, Skills, And Values In A Changing World, Eliza Vorenberg, Cynthia F. Adcock, Eden E. Harrington, Elizabeth Kane, Lisa Bliss, Robin Boyle, Conrad Johnson, Susan Schechter, David Udell

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World has contributions from many authors:

• Section A, Professional Identity Formation, includes:
  • Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Values of Professional Identity Formation, by Larry O. Natt Gantt, II & Benjamin V. Madison III,
  • Integrating Professionalism into Doctrinally-Focused Courses, by Paula Schaefer,
  • Learning Professional Responsibility, by Clark D. Cunningham, and
  • Teaching Leadership, by Deborah L. Rhode.
• Section B, Pro Bono as a Professional Value, is by Cynthia F. Adcock, Eden E. Harrington, Elizabeth Kane, Susan Schechter, David S. Udell & Eliza Vorenberg.
• Section C, The Relational Skills of the …

Library Director As Opportunity Identifier, Ronald E. Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

A successful contemporary law library director should seek opportunities to insert the law library, wherever possible, into projects that benefit the law school and its mission and that draw on the talents and expertise of the law librarians. The goal of the modern law library director should be to make the law library an integral part of each and every undertaking within the law school community. Every facet of the law school and its various departments and offices can benefit from either law library research and instructional services or the creative thinking and analytical orientation that librarians bring to the …

Judging Statutes, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Chief Judge Robert Katzmann has written a compelling short book about statutory interpretation. It could set the framework for a two- or three-hour legislation class, supplemented by cases and other readings of the instructor's choosing. Or it might more simply be used as an independent reading assignment as law school begins, to apprise 21st-century law students just how important the interpretation of statutes will prove to be in the profession they are entering, and how unsettled are the judiciary's means of dealing with them. It should be required reading for all who teach in the field.

The Influence Of Juridical Cant On Edificatory Approaches In 21st-Century America, David Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reframes the debate over the "growing disjunction" between legal scholarship and legal practice. Law review articles continue to make the world a better place, the essay stipulates. But are judicial opinions becoming less useful to students and scholars? A rigorous analysis and concrete prescriptions follow.

Is This The Law Library Or An Episode Of The Jetsons?, Ronald E. Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

In this brief essay penned for the inaugural online edition of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, Professor Wheeler discusses his vision for the future of law libraries and the future of legal research, legal research instruction, law teaching, and law related technologies.

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 …