Law Commons^™

What American Legal Education Can Learn From The 'Harry Potter' Series, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

Both legal education and a Hogwarts magical education involve a new way of seeing the world—an immersive and intense process requiring, in many ways, a transformation. Students need a new wardrobe for both law school and wizarding school—and an awful lot of puzzling and expensive textbooks. Both Hogwarts and law school have been accused of operating entirely apart from reality. One of these criticisms may be valid. ...

This lighthearted comparison to the Harry Potter stories can perhaps join other voices to help make a serious and important case for practical legal education. There are few principled reasons for not …

Learning By Doing: An Experience With Outcomes Assessment, Mary Crossley, Lu-In Wang

Articles

An emphasis on assessment and outcomes measures is a drum beat that is growing louder in American legal education. Prompted initially by the demands of regional university accreditation bodies, the attention paid to outcomes assessment is now growing with the forecast that the ABA will revise its accreditation standards to incorporate outcomes measures. For the past three years, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law has been developing a system for assessing the learning outcomes of its students. By describing our experience here at Pitt Law, with both its high and low points, we hope to suggest some helpful pointers …

Should Applicants For Admission To The Bar Be Required To Take A Law School Course?, Henry M. Bates

Articles

If the requirements for admission to the bar had been advanced in any thing like equal degree with the progress made in law schools, there would be unqualified reasons for rejoicing in the prospect. Unfortunately, however, this is far from the case, though some notable advances even in this respect have been made. It is remarkable and unfortunate that in America and in Great Britain, whose system of law is undoubtedly the most difficult of all systems in the world to master, we require no institutional or school training of the men who are to fill the important functions of …

A Four Year Course In Law, Henry M. Bates

Articles

In the February, 1914, number of The Alumnus, devoted in part to the Michigan Law School, some account was given of the large number of new courses which had been added recently to the curriculum. The courses commented upon in that discussion, besides one advanced course in procedure, deal mainly with what may be called extra-legal or at least extra-professional subjects, such as the History of English Law, the Philosophy of Law and advanced courses in Roman Law and Jurisprudence. Prior to this period of expansion in the law curriculum many other additions had been made to the list of …