Law Commons^™

Book Review. Glass Half Full: The Decline And Rebirth Of The Legal Profession By Benjamin H. Barton, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Access To Justice?: A Study Of Access Restrictions On The Papers Of U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Susan David Demaine, Benjamin J. Keele

Articles by Maurer Faculty

For scholars of law, history, and government—and the American public—the papers of all Supreme Court Justices are of vital importance. They contribute to biographies, histories, and legal critiques. Our understanding of the Court and its decisions is enriched by access to the thinking of the justices. In turn, this knowledge informs our views on our laws and social order and helps shape the future of our legal, political, and even moral culture. Despite the importance of these papers, many justices who have donated their papers in the past 75 years or so have placed restrictions on access to the collection. …

The Distractions Of Technology, Kimberly Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Since the moment I became a librarian, I have had a problem with technology. It’s not that I can’t keep up with the developments or that I can’t figure out ways to incorporate technology into my work. My problem is much simpler in a way—I find technology too distracting. With my desktop, my phone, and my iPad sitting in my office, how could I not be drawn to the glowing screens and the limitless websites before me? The Internet is never-ending, and so too, it seems, is my ability to be distracted by it. With a little dedication, however, I …

Book Review. Rethinking The Law School: Education, Research, Outreach And Governance By Carel Stolker, Ashley A. Ahlbrand

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Creative Assessment: Connecting Legal Research Training And Instruction To Results (Review Of Aall Program), Kimberly Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

As academic law librarians, we should all be concerned with identifying whether our students are meeting AALL’s Principles and Standards for Legal Research Competency. I was excited to attend this session on Creative Assessment so that I could learn new ways in which librarians can evaluate their students to see if they are adequately trained in these core competencies. The panelists were Pamela Rogers Melton, Associate Director for Administration at the University of South Carolina, Gail Partin, Interim Director at the Dickinson School of Law Library, and Barbara Gabor, Senior Research and Reference Specialist at WilmerHale.

From Thinking Like A Lawyer To Acting Like A Lawyer: Externships Provide Invaluable Experience, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Reflections On Our Founding, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel Charles

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Making Sausage: What, Why And How To Teach About Legislative Process In A Legislation Or Leg-Reg Course, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Although a rapidly growing number of law schools require students to take a course on legislation, many of these courses teach very little about how laws are actually enacted. This essay, written for a special issue of the Journal of Legal Education, argues that study of the legislative process helps students interpret and apply statutory language.

The essay surveys existing text books and supplemental resources that could be easily integrated into a Leg-Reg or Legislation class to explain modern Congressional procedure. The focus is the multiple distinct paths that bills may take through a legislative body and the written …

The 2014 Leadership Academy: Six Months Out - How Are Participants Using What They Learned?, Susan David Demaine

Articles by Maurer Faculty

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

These wise words were one of many lessons that the attendees of the 2014 AALL Leadership Academy took home with them following two full days of hands-on learning this past April. Now, a little more than six months later, Spectrum catches up with a few of the Academy attendees to find out how they are using what they learned and the ways that the Academy has affected their professional (and personal) lives.

Alumni Services: Strategies For Keeping The Law Library's Doors Open After Graduation, Michelle M. Trumbo

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Reclaiming Our Essential Freedom To Determine Who May Be Admitted To Study Law, Jeffrey E. Stake

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Who's Eating Law Firms' Lunch? The Legal Service Providers, Law Schools And New Grads At The Table, William D. Henderson, Rachel M. Zahorsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Improving Law School "Transparency", Jeffrey E. Stake

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

A Blueprint For Change, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article discusses the financial viability of law schools in the face of massive structural changes now occurring within the legal industry. It then offers a blueprint for change – a realistic way for law schools to retool themselves in an attempt to provide our students with high quality professional employment in a rapidly changing world. Because no institution can instantaneously reinvent itself, a key element of my proposal is the “12% solution.” Approximately 12% of faculty members take the lead on building a competency-based curriculum that is designed to accelerate the development of valuable skills and behaviors prized by …

Interdisciplinary Psychology And Law Training In Family And Child Mediation: An Empirical Study Of The Effects On Law Student Mediators, Amy Applegate, Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, Brittany N. Rudd, Ann Freeman, Brian D'Onofrio

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There is growing interest in interdisciplinary training programs for law students. The goal of these programs is to prepare law students for the real world interdisciplinary settings they will face in their careers. However, there exists little research to provide evidence of the utility of such training. This study examined the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary psychology and law training program on law students using a multi-method approach (i.e., knowledge tests and focus group discussion). Findings suggest that interdisciplinary training of law students increased law students’ knowledge of law and psychology, was enjoyed by law students, and had a beneficial impact …

Issues Facing Academic Law Libraries - New Challenges, New Opportunities, Linda K. Fariss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Law libraries are facing new challenges, including evolving methods of legal research, and space and budget constraints. This article explores those challenges, and looks at the opportunities that accompany changes.

Degree Pedigree: Assessing The Effect Of Degree-Granting Institutions’ Ranks On Prospective Employment At Academic Law Libraries, Ashley A. Ahlbrand, Michael Johnson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the academic law library hiring process, candidates are assessed based on a variety of factors. The study conducted here focuses on education—specifically the institutional rank of degree-granting law and library science institutions—to explore how the rank of one’s graduate education might influence hiring decisions at academic law libraries.

Book Review. Legal Education In Asia: Globalization, Change And Contexts, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Challenges Of "Sameness": Pitfalls And Benefits To Assumed Connections In Lawyering, Carwina Weng, Lynn Barenberg, Alexis Anderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Individuals are drawn to connect with other people because of shared experiences and personal characteristics. These connections often help people establish rapport, trust, and engagement. Surely these same benefits would apply in the lawyer-client relationship where a lawyer’s ability to find common links with her client would facilitate the lawyering process.

Perhaps that is true, but not necessarily and not without some potential costs. As clinical teachers, we have become increasingly wary that assumptions attributable to sameness can complicate lawyering. Untested assumptions, whatever their source, can impair lawyering judgments. In our collective experience, we have found that assumptions rooted in …

The Law School Bubble: Federal Loans Inflate College Budgets, But How Long Will That Last If Law Grads Can't Pay Their Bills?, William D. Henderson, Rachel M. Zahorsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Pedigree Problem: Are Law School Ties Choking The Profession?, William D. Henderson, Rachel M. Zahorsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

States Side Story: Career Paths Of International Ll.M. Students, Or "I Like To Be In America", Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article draws on an empirical study of the careers of international law graduates who earned an LL.M. in the United States, and considers the role of a U.S. LL.M. as a path for building a legal career in the United States. It identifies the institutional, political, and economic forces that present challenges to graduates who attempt to stay in the United States. While U.S. law schools prize the international diversity of their graduate students, this study reveals that the U.S. legal profession is most accessible to international students from English-speaking common law countries, whose language and background allow them …

Academic Sailers: The Ford Foundation And The Efforts To Shape Legal Education In Africa, 1957-1977, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This study examines a major law-and-development project in Africa undertaken by the New York-based Ford Foundation in the decades following the Second World War. By the 1960s, many countries in Africa freed themselves of colonial rule, and Ford eagerly sought to assist these newly emerging states in the nation-building process. One area towards which Ford contributed considerable resources was legal education. Labeling its program ‘SAILER’ – or the Staffing of African Institutions of Legal Education and Research – Ford engaged in a range of initiatives, including sending American lawyers to teach in several different African countries and bringing Africans to …

Gaining From The System: Lessons From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement About Student Development In Law School, Carole Silver, Louis Rocconi, Heather Haeger, Lindsay Watkins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This paper considers the factors that influence law students' assessment of their professional and academic development during law school. It uses responses of 5,612 third- and fourth-year law students to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement to identify student activities and behaviors that relate to professional and academic gains; individual and law school characteristics also are examined. Four aspects of the law school experience emerge as integral parts of students' professional and academic development.

Unpacking The Apprenticeship Of Professional Identity And Purpose: Insights From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, Carole Silver, Amy Garver, Lindsay Watkins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Drawing on data from the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, this paper investigates the ways in which law students develop a sense of professional identity and purpose, the third apprenticeship identified by the Carnegie Foundation in its report, Educating Lawyers. The data offer only a first step toward unpacking how students learn about professional identity and purpose. Generally, the findings point to the importance of law school classes for effective learning about legal ethics, and to the role of clinical legal education as a means for deepening the effectiveness of lessons about ethics, professional identity and purpose.

The Variable Value Of U.S. Legal Education In The Global Legal Services Market, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Many U.S. law firms now claim to be global organizations, and they seek to occupy the same high status everywhere they work. In part, simply supporting overseas offices is an indication of status for U.S.-based firms. But firms want more than this and they strive for recognition as elite advisors around the world. In this pursuit, have firms identified a set of common characteristics and credentials that define a "global lawyer?" That is, is there a uniform and universal profile, or perhaps a set of assets that comprise global professional capital, which are emerging as the indicia of credibility and …

The Social Reconstruction Of Race & Ethnicity Of The Nation's Law Students: A Request To The Aba, Aals, And Lsac For Changes In Reporting Requirements, Kevin D. Brown, Tom I. Romero Ii

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article is extraordinarily timely as it responds directly to new rules formulated by the Department of Education (DOE) that require law schools to gather and report upon the racial and ethnic makeup of its student body. We argue that these new rules fail to be responsive to the dramatic changes in the meaning and utility of racial and ethnic categories. In turn, such changes threaten to negatively impact individuals from communities that are both underrepresented in the nation’s law schools and victims of the longest and most extreme histories of discrimination in the U.S. Accordingly, our article explores the …

The Class Of 2009: Recession Or Restructuring?, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us: The Need For Empirical Research In Regulating Lawyers And Legal Services In The Global Economy, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Special Introduction: October 2010, Lauren K. Robel

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.