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David Williams Ii, "In Memoriam" 1948-2019, Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt Law Review

On February 15, 2019, hundreds of people gathered at the Temple Church in Nashville to celebrate the life and impact of David Williams II.

David Williams Ii, In Memoriam 1948-2019, Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt Law Review

On February 15, 2019, hundreds of people gathered at the Temple Church in Nashville to celebrate the life and impact of David Williams II. As remembrances were spoken from the pulpit, and as tearful exchanges occurred between friends in the crowd, it was clear that people, communities, institutions, and lives were forever molded by this man—this fearless leader who left us unexpectedly.

In remembering my dear friend David, it is impossible not to think big. Words like “leader,” “trailblazer,” and “revolutionary” may seem diffuse on their own, but they are clear in their description of a man who always thought …

Legal Education In The Blockchain Revolution, Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P.M. Vermeulen

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The legal profession is one of the most disrupted sectors of the consulting industry today. The rise of Legal Technology, artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, and, most importantly, blockchain technology is changing the practice of law. The sharing economy and platform companies challenge many of the traditional assumptions, doctrines, and concepts of law and governance--requiring litigators, judges, and regulators to adapt. Lawyers need to be equipped with the necessary skill sets to operate effectively in the new world of disruptive innovation in law. A more creative and innovative approach to educating lawyers for the twenty-first century is needed.

Tribute: Elizabeth Chitwood, Jessica L. Haushalter

Vanderbilt Law Review

Elizabeth "Beth" Chitwood was one of the newest members of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Our community mourns her unexpected loss and is grateful for the time we were able to share with her. The following Tribute briefly highlights Beth's contributions to the Vanderbilt Law community and the Vanderbilt Law Review.

Richard A. Nagareda, "In Memorian" 1963-2010, Chris Guthrie, John C.P. Goldberg, Andrew R. Gould, J. Maria Glover

Vanderbilt Law Review

A year ago, many of us gathered in Vanderbilt University Law School's Flynn Auditorium to attend a "Celebration of the Life of Professor Richard Nagareda." Frankly, I didn't feel like celebrating, a sentiment I suspect others shared. Richard-scholar, teacher, mentor, colleague, friend, father, husband-had left this earth before any of us were ready to part with him. And yet, as the speakers shared their memories of Richard, the intense grief I had felt since learning of Richard's untimely death began to dissipate. There was then, and there remains now, so much to celebrate about his life. For in his forty-seven …

On The Effective Communication Of The Results Of Empirical Studies, Part Ii, Lee Epstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

While law professors are increasingly making use of data in their scholarship and while the data work housed in their studies is (generally) of a high quality, they have been less effective at communicating the products of their labor. A strong devotion to tabular, rather than graphical, displays, and claims about "statistical significance" rather than substantive importance, are just two areas requiring improvement.

Here, as in Part I, we attempt to adapt a burgeoning literature in the social and statistical sciences to the unique interests of legal scholars. Our proposals are many in number, but none is particularly difficult to …

The Geologic Strata Of The Law School Curriculum, Robert W. Gordon

Vanderbilt Law Review

The modest aim of this piece is to supply some historical background to the other contributions to this Symposium. The modern American law school curriculum is the product of a few but critical choices of design, some of them over a century old. In this Article, I seek to (1) outline how the basic structure and content of the modern American law school curriculum came into being and what were the main competitors that curriculum displaced; (2) describe some of the ways in which the curriculum's basic structure and content have changed since its inception; and (3) point to some …

Psychological Theories Of Educational Engagement: A Multi-Method Approach To Studying Individual Engagement And Institutional Change, Bonita London, Geraldine Downey, Shauna Mace

Vanderbilt Law Review

As teachers, administrators, scholars, and practitioners, one critical issue we face in the academic world is how to foster the academic success and psychological well-being of future generations of teachers, scholars, and practitioners. In some cases, even the most well-prepared and academically motivated students enter law school with the drive and ability to succeed, but along the way, may encounter difficulties that interfere with their potential success in law school and beyond. What are the barriers to engagement, academic success and psychological well-being that impede some students? How might we understand the process of engagement and investment in legal education, …

What's Wrong With Langdell's Method, And What To Do About It, Edward Rubin

Vanderbilt Law Review

Here we are, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, using a model of legal education that was developed in the latter part of the nineteenth. Since that time, the nature of legal practice has changed, the concept of law has changed, the nature of academic inquiry has changed, and the theory of education has changed. Professional training programs in other fields have been redesigned many times to reflect current practice, theory, and pedagogy, but we legal educators are still doing the same basic thing we were doing one hundred and thirty years ago. Many law professors are conscientious and …

Can Law Survive Legal Education?, Ernest J. Weinrib

Vanderbilt Law Review

Legal education exists at the confluence of three activities: the practice of law, the enterprise of understanding that practice, and the study of law's possible understandings within the context of a university. The first of these, the practice of law, consists of the activities consciously governed by law, including, for example, lawyers giving legal advice, citizens contemplating the legality of prospective actions, legislators creating law within the limits of their jurisdiction, and judges determining the rights and duties of litigants. It thus comprehends the entire field of legal institutions, legal doctrine, and legal interaction. The second activity, the enterprise of …

A Lawyer's Lament: Law Schools And The "Profession" Of Law, Wayne S. Hyatt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Back in the mid-eighties, I offered a first year, second semester "un-elective" called American Legal Theory and American Legal Education. It scrunched together two history courses I had taught irregularly before. I liked the way the two topics fit together and still do, but with so many recalcitrant law students enrolled in it, the course was an unmitigated disaster. As is always the case with such attempts at offering perspective, amidst the shambles I had acquired at least a few devoted students. At the end of the last class one of them came up to the front to ask a …

Inside The Law School Classroom: Toward A New Legal Realist Pedagogy, Elizabeth Mertz

Vanderbilt Law Review

In recent years, the legal academy has been experiencing a strong renewed interest in empirical legal research. Referred to by various analysts as a "new legal realism" or as "empirical legal studies," this restored focus on the social sciences in many ways echoes an earlier era of legal realism in American law, with some important differences.' . . .

This Article combines these two themes: empirical research on law and careful examination of legal education. It reports on an empirical study of legal education, which I have been conducting under the auspices of the American Bar Foundation (a research institute …

2007 Symposium On The Future Of Legal Education, Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt Law Review

Like the proverbial elephant, law school appears different when perceived from different perspectives. During my twenty years as a law professor, I saw law school as a professional training program, a legal research institute, and a wonderful group of academic colleagues. The articles in this Symposium on the Future of Legal Education, based on a conference held at Vanderbilt in spring of 2006, generally view law school from a similar perspective. Now that I'm a Provost, my perspective is different. This raises some new issues, but it also underscores the basic theme of the Symposium. Law schools, like business schools, …

A Damn Hard Thing To Do, John H. Schlegel

Vanderbilt Law Review

Back in the mid-eighties, I offered a first year, second semester "un-elective" called American Legal Theory and American Legal Education. It scrunched together two history courses I had taught irregularly before. I liked the way the two topics fit together and still do, but with so many recalcitrant law students enrolled in it, the course was an unmitigated disaster. As is always the case with such attempts at offering perspective, amidst the shambles I had acquired at least a few devoted students. At the end of the last class one of them came up to the front to ask a …

A Case For Another Case Method, Todd D. Rakoff, Martha Minow

Vanderbilt Law Review

American legal education is pretty good. Generally speaking, it is rigorous, and generally speaking, students learn a lot. After three years in law school, students usually leave not only with knowledge of specific legal materials, but also with the sharp analytic skills and ability to work in existing legal institutions that people expect from lawyers. But our society is full of new problems demanding new solutions. Less so than in the past-less than in the 1930s and less than in the 1960s-are lawyers inventing those solutions. Much of the action is moving to graduates trained in other disciplines and professions, …

Taking Law And _______ Really Seriously: Before, During And After "The Law", Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Any consideration of what legal education should consist of must begin with the question of what "law," as a field of study, is. Whether a study of "the law" is science, philosophy, political science, or a field unto itself, or is more like a social science study of the norms and behaviors that human beings create and enforce for their self- governance, what the field is should have something to do with how it is studied.

So, one can ask, what is the object of study when one studies "the law"? Court decisions and interpretations (doctrine) and statutes and regulations …

Making Lawyers (And Gangsters) In Japan, Mark D. West

Vanderbilt Law Review

How insulting to have juxtaposed "lawyers" and "gangsters" in the title, to hint that lawyers are not engaged in a supremely noble profession, to insinuate a commonality between counselors-at-law and godfathers. There will be no explicit comparisons here, for this is an Essay about Japanese legal education, not La Cosa Nostra. Instead I offer a description of how Japan trains its lawyers and what lawyers in Japan do. I'll also talk a bit about how gangsters in Japan are trained, and what they do. Perhaps a serendipitous connection will present itself.

I begin by briefly discussing the old system of …

Professor Harold G. Maier At Pepperdine, W H. Bigham

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A curious concatenation of events brought Hal Maier and me together, once again, in school year 2000-2001 at Malibu and Pepperdine. We had labored concurrently in the Vanderbilt vineyard for a decade and a half, where we were close friends and colleagues on the Vanderbilt Law School faculty--a time of thrilling growth and maturing in the law school. We went our separate ways at the end of the '70s, but on the invitation of a former Vanderbilt student of both of us, Pepperdine Dean Richard Lynn, whom I had recommended for a faculty position at Pepperdine years earlier, Hal Maier …

A Teacher's Teacher, Lonnie T. Brown Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Jackie Robinson once said, "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." By that measure, Harold Maier has led an extraordinarily important life. I know that he has had a profound impact on innumerable students throughout his career and upon one in particular. I continue to learn because Professor Maier inspired me, and I teach others because of the wonderful example he set. Though he has now left the classroom, Professor Maier's legacy as a teacher will always endure through the countless minds he has awakened and lives he has touched.

Four Decades Later, Robert Covington

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Hal Maier and I have taught on the same faculty for four decades. I still like him and enjoy his company, and there are not many people of whom I can say that forty years later. We have agreed and differed with one another on a whole range of issues, from the shape of the first-year curriculum to politics and back again, but have managed to stay friends through it all. Perhaps this is because we could put our differences to one side in the interest of what we insisted was music back when Hal was the drummer and I …

Professor Jonathan I. Charney: Commitment Underpinned By Conviction, James R. Mchenry, Iii

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When I was asked to speak on behalf of the students regarding Professor Charney's contributions to the Law School, I did initially wonder how closely my relationship with him mirrored the experiences of other students. I worked for him for almost two years as a research assistant for the American Journal of International Law; I spoke with him frequently, either in person or via e-mail, about various international legal issues; and he advised me on both my student note for the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and on my PhD dissertation. Thus, I knew the image that I had of …

Remarks On Jonathan I. Charney, Jeffrey Schoenblum

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

I have been asked to speak for 10 to 15 minutes about a very dear friend and colleague of 25 years, Jon Charney, specifically about his contribution to Vanderbilt Law School. It is difficult to encapsulate any professor's contribution over the course of 30 years in mere minutes. This is especially difficult in Jon Charney's case, because in my opinion, Jon made an extraordinary, extensive, and enduring contribution that has earned him a place in the pantheon, among the giants in the history of this Law School.

This might seem an odd assertion to those who were acquainted with Jon. …

Comments Of A Commissioner, Peter D. Ehrenhaft

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

These comments are solely the views of Peter D. Ehrenhaft, one of the twelve members of the ABA Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice. They are not the official views of the Commission and, indeed, may be modified by the presenter based on the further information the Commission is now gathering from interested parties. These comments are intended to stimulate thought and discussion of the issues and to encourage all sectors of the profession to submit their views to the Commission. The final deadline for the submission of written materials for the Commission's consideration in the preparation of its Initial Draft Report …

Educating Russia's Future Lawyers--Any Role For The United States?, Jane M. Picker, Sidney P. Picker, Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In the wake of the devaluation of the Russian ruble in 1998 and the resulting flight of foreign investment, which was exacerbated by allegations of massive corruption and capital flight at the highest levels of government in 1999, the question of an appropriate role for the United States in helping Russia to establish an environment able to attract and retain foreign and domestic capital, to maintain a viable globally integrated market-based economic system, and to create a stable civil society, is under discussion.

The authors believe that a viable market economy will not flourish in Russia until a more stable …

Introduction: Attorney Well-Being In Large Firms, Kent D. Syverud

Vanderbilt Law Review

It took courage for Professor Patrick Schiltz to write the article that opens this symposium issue of the Vanderbilt Law Review. At the Notre Dame Law School, where Professor Schiltz teaches, as at the Vanderbilt University Law School and all elite schools, most graduates go to work in private practice, most often at large law firms. Professor Schiltz's portrayal of lawyers at such firms-as rich, overworked, unhappy, and often unethical--ought to be provocative and profoundly troubling to alumni at Vanderbilt and elsewhere. It will also be troubling to Deans, who struggle mightily each year to convince alumni to give money …

Comparing United States And New Zealand Legal Education: Are U.S. Law Schools Too Good?, Gregory S. Crespi

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article offers a thoughtful comparison of the legal educational systems of the United States and New Zealand. The author highlights the significant differences between these two legal educational systems by contrasting their admissions policies, clinical programs, "law-and-economics" electives, and staffing of required courses. Based on this analysis, the author concludes that although U.S. law schools are clearly "better," such superiority may have been achieved at too high of a cost, in terms of both the substantial resources now devoted to legal education which could otherwise be applied to alternative uses and the problematic effects of the stratified legal educational …

John W. Wade, John P. Frank

Vanderbilt Law Review

John Wade's most distinguishing quality was his capacity for friendship. He was a great scholar; his bibliography runs for pages. He was a great teacher and law school administrator; he took over the Vanderbilt Law School when it had a hundred students and no physical home of its own and built it into a great regional institution with an admirable building. He was a great reporter for the American Law Institute. He was a war hero.

But memory dwells especially on that capacity for friendship. I have read some of the memorial letters: Our colleague, Lawrence Walsh, in a handwritten …

Introduction: Dean John W. Wate -- A Fitting Tribute, Victor Schwartz

Vanderbilt Law Review

I express my deepest appreciation to the editors of the Vanderbilt Law Review for permitting me the honor of writing this tribute to Dean John W. Wade, my dear partner in scholarship and co-author for over two decades.

It is a privilege to join with the Honorable Gilbert S. Merritt, and distinguished attorney John Frank who have warmly, skillfully and accurately portrayed a few of the highlights of Dean Wade's distinguished life.

Dean Wade's scholastic works, extraordinary development of Vanderbilt Law School, and impact on the law of torts will always remain. His special skill in balancing his professional activities …

Restating Strict Liability And Nuisance, Robert E. Keeton

Vanderbilt Law Review

John Wade was a master of the craft of restating the law. The American Law Institute ("ALI") benefitted especially from his distinctive service during development of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. It is fitting that we use, as a vehicle for honoring his service, an inquiry into a segment of tort law that was first considered in the decades just after the Institute was founded and remains, even today, among the most difficult areas of law to restate. This segment of tort law concerns the general theory of strict liability and the extent that it applies to nuisance cases.

To …

Dean John W. Wade, Gilbert S. Merritt

Vanderbilt Law Review

John Webster Wade, one of the outstanding men in the history of Nashville-an unsung hero at home, but a nationally acclaimed scholar and teacher in the world of law--died recently at age eighty- three without sufficient public notice and recognition. During his life, he had more influence on the shaping of the legal system and the law in Tennessee than any politician or judge, and he had as much influence on the national legal system as any other Tennessean of his generation.

As a young Marine Corps 2nd Lieutenant in World War II, he guided troops through the bloody battles …