Law Commons^™

Imposter Syndrome & The Law School Caste System, Sara L. Ochs

Pace Law Review

For decades, legal academia has been structured around a hierarchical caste system, with tenured and tenure-track doctrinal law professors—many of whom are men—occupying the highest caste, and professors of legal skills courses—who more often identify as women—relegated to the lower castes. The status of these “lower caste” professors is routinely reinforced through weaker job security, less respect, and lower pay than received by their doctrinal, “upper caste” colleagues. Given this inequality, imposter syndrome plays a pervasive role in the lives and careers of professors of legal skills courses. Relying on qualitative data obtained from teaching faculty and staff at ABA …

Law Faculty Experiences Teaching During The Pandemic, Bridget J. Crawford, Michelle S. Simon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

When colleges and universities abruptly shifted to online teaching in March 2020 all focus (appropriately) was on ensuring continuity of education for students. In adapting courses to the new online environment, professors were encouraged to take into account the incredible stress students were experiencing, their new living conditions and, in some cases, lack of access to technology and educational resources. For the Spring 2020 semester, almost all U.S. law schools shifted to some form of pass/fail grading in recognition of the enormous upheaval to students’ educational plans.

Less discussed during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic was how faculty …

Mediation And Millennials: A Generational Shift In Dispute System Preferences, Shawna Benston, Brian Farkas

Pace Law Review

Millennials have been the subject of intense media scrutiny for more than a decade. Studies have examined their social, financial, technological, and work habits. However, few studies have examined this generation’s attitudes or proclivities towards civil litigation. Such an examination presents two problems: First, the absence of data on litigants’ age makes an empirical study virtually impossible. Second, generalizations about an entire generation are inherently problematic, glossing over countless cultural, economic, familial, and demographic differences. Nevertheless, this Article argues that millennials’ experiences and educations have primed them, at the margins, to avoid litigation more than prior generations. Instead, this generation …

Nurturing A More Just And Sustainable Food System: The First Year Of Pace Law's Food And Beverage Law Clinic, Jonathan Brown

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article looks back at the Clinic's first year and explores lessons learned in putting the theory behind the Clinic's model into practice. Launching the Clinic required a leap of faith. Was there in fact a client demand for its services? Was there sufficient interest from law students in the intersection of transactional law and food systems? Was the scope of legal matters too broad? Was the client focus too narrow? The early returns from the first year have given us valuable insights and experience from which to draw. First, this article discusses the unmet legal need the Clinic seeks …

The Untold Story Of The Justice Gap: Integrating Poverty Law Into The Law School Curriculum, Vanita S. Snow

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Eying The Body: The Impact Of Classical Rules For Demeanor Credibility, Bias, And The Need To Blind Legal Decision Makers, Daphne O’Regan

Pace Law Review

This Article focuses on law students and attorneys, not parties, witnesses, experts, and others. Part I briefly provides background: the pivotal role of classical rhetoric in western education, including the United States, the dispositive position of demeanor credibility in oral trial, and the persistent doubts about its reliability—doubts turned into certainty over two decades of research. Part II compares modern and ancient manuals to explain the rules of elite demeanor and its ideological claim to truth. Part III compares ancient and modern understanding of popular delivery; that is, choices in non-verbal communication that run counter to the elite rules and …

"Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It . . .": Taking Law School Mission Statements Seriously, Vanessa Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Learning about the process and the results of mission definition in law schools has made palpable the tension between clarity and inflexibility, candor and marketing concerns, and the specificity that fosters accountability as opposed to the generality that embraces a vague multitude of approaches to the law school endeavor. Building on the strong endorsement of the use of mission statements in the original Best Practices for Legal Education, we present some “Best Practices” for both the development and the content of law school mission statements. We hope that this piece hastens further conversation and commentary that will foster a richer …

Teaching Substantive Environmental Law And Practice Skills Through Interest Group Role-Playing, Karl S. Coplan

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Most law students take their first introductory course in environmental law during their second year of law school. The traditional first-year curriculum does little to prepare students for the complex statutory and regulatory models for most environmental regulation. Law students at the end of their first year often have had little exposure to statutory interpretation. Further, they often have no exposure to administrative law and regulatory implementation. These students may expect statutes to provide clear statements of rules rather than guidelines for administrative rulemaking. They also tend to view the lawmaking and interpretive process through the traditional lens of congressional …

Grit And Legal Education, Emily Zimmerman, Leah Brogan

Pace Law Review

One factor that has received much attention in recent years is “grit,” which has been defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Although grit has been studied in a number of different contexts, grit is understudied in the context of legal education. In light of the existing research regarding grit and performance, and the ongoing interest in law student learning, motivation, and performance, we undertook a research project to investigate the relationship between grit and law school academic performance. Although we hypothesized that grit would be positively related to law school GPA, we did not find a statistically significant …

Origins And Development Of Teaching Animal Law In Brazil, Tagore Trajano De Almeida Silva

Pace Environmental Law Review

This paper examines the strategies utilized on each continent and shows the path made for these scholars to build a framework to discuss animal law within law schools. The conclusion is that this movement produced by such scholars has changed the way law schools are teaching law and is affording new opportunities to solve animal concerns, and likewise, social problems in Brazil and around the world.

Therefore, this article first discusses the philosophical Brazilian background to teach animal law, and how the animal rights movement creates a framework for professors and students working in this field. It then summarily explores …

The Professor And The Judge: Introducing First Year Students To The Law In Context, Michael B. Mushlin, Lisa Margaret Smith

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For the past five years the authors, one a law professor, and the other a federal judge, have joined forces to teach introductory civil procedure to first semester first year students. Our approach is contrary to the traditional theory of legal instruction which holds that students learn first by a rigid diet of Socratic teaching of the fundamentals of legal analysis without any exposure to the real world or even a simulation of it. The central idea behind our experiment is that at the beginning of law school it is essential to provide a contextual introduction to the work of …

Race To The Finish Line: Legal Education, Jobs, And The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

It is true that the recession of 2008–2009 seriously undermined the job market for both new and experienced lawyers. It is also true that legal education is expensive, and many students pay for it through loans that have to be repaid after graduation. And it is well documented that some law schools misstated employment and other statistics in the tight, competitive job market of recent years. But connecting the dots in this case does not lead to a conclusion that our system of legal education is bankrupt or that law school is not an excellent career choice for many students. …

How Derrick Bell Helped Me Decide To Become An Educator, Not Just A Faculty Member, Vanessa Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Way ahead of the current chorus of critique of American legal education, Derrick Bell was a fierce, but lucid and incisive, critic of every aspect of American legal education, from law professors’ inadequacies, to the repetitive passivity of the law school classroom, to the financial exploitation of students, to the negative consequences of the tenure system. Dean Bell did not merely voice these concerns, he creatively structured his own courses to make them more relevant, effective, and student-centered. The author’s chance encounter with Dean Bell’s 1982 article, The Law Student as Slave, which presaged later calls for wholesale reform of …

Practically Grounded: Convergence Of Land Use Law Pedagogy And Best Practices, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The changing dynamics in the field of land use and sustainable community development law demand that land use law professors rethink the way in which we prepare law students to practice law in this area. This needed paradigm shift converges with the growing momentum of the best practices movement which urges law schools to dramatically revise the curricular approach to legal education, arguing that traditional models are no longer effectively serving the goal of producing competent and fully prepared new lawyers. A perfect storm is present and a unique opportunity exists through the application of many “best practices” concepts for …

A Response To Russell Engler By Gretchen Flint, Gretchen M. Flint

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

I am always happy to go back and look at the MacCrate report, and those of you who have been in my clinic know that that's where we start and that's where we end when we talk about the experience of learning. But, as I read Russell's paper, I think the piece that's missing is an acknowledgment of how hard it is for a small group of people who are on the margin to effect change and that institutions have very strong reasons to stay either the way they are or institute very small, incremental changes.

Opening Remarks, Gary A. Munneke

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Interestingly, there is hardly any scholarship, and very little discussion, about the MacCrate Report outside of the clinical and skills programs in the traditional segments of legal education. I am not a clinician, although in the past I have taught courses in interviewing and counseling, and negotiations. I teach Law Practice Management and Professional Responsibility, which address professional skills and values; but I teach Torts as well, and my Torts colleagues, like teachers in other traditional subjects, really do not focus on these issues very much. So, one of the things I wanted to do with this symposium was to …

Daughter Of Liberty Wedded To Law: Gender And Legal Education At The University Of Pennsylvania Department Of Law 1870-1900, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Using the University of Pennsylvania's Law Department and, to some extent, the figure of Carrie Burnham Kilgore as lenses, this article examines a thirty year period of major changes in legal education. In Part I, Prof. Crawford describes the historical roots of the school and its halting establishment in light of the predominant role individual lawyers played in training students through law office clerkships. Part II details several related changes in the legal profession in the 1870s: the law office declined in prominence; bar associations became more active; and law schools developed rigorous requirements. In particular, Prof. Crawford describes the …

Teaching Upperclass Writing: Everything You Always Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask, Lissa Griffin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A survey conducted as part of this project reveals that law schools generally require their students to have an upperclass writing experience taught or supervised by non-writing tenured or tenure-track faculty. These teachers currently bear the responsibility for assigning, supervising, reviewing, and evaluating most of the writing by upperclass students, either through substantive seminars or independent study projects. In almost all schools there is no major curricular planning, systematic instruction, faculty training, or institutional support for upperclass writing.

Playing Beyond The Rules: A Realist And Rhetoric-Based Approach To Researching The Law And Solving Legal Problems, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The proposed realist and rhetorical approach to legal research applies to every conceivable legal problem and provides the student a conceptual foundation not only for solving any legal dispute, but for successfully completing any transactions with which he or she will be confronted. Part I of this article will demonstrate why law students should learn to research the relevant audiences in the legal drama and to research the unpublished and often unwritten rules and practices that these audiences follow. Part II will show how. Part III will present a comprehensive legal problem solving model that integrates these new dimensions of …

The Path Of Legal Education From Edward I To Langdell: A History Of Insular Reaction, Ralph Michael Stein

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article presents an analytic overview of key aspects in the history of legal education in England and the United States from the time of Edward I to the end of the last century. The response of lawyers and legal educators to the perceived need to protect the profession from a variety of ills and plagues is explored. The development of a sense of professionalism by those engaged in the teaching of law, a sense of professionalism that was reactive to public perception about lawyers as well as to academic dismay at the roles played by lawyers, will be explored …