Law Commons^™

Tim, R. Lawrence Dessem

Faculty Publications

There comes a time when every law school dean questions just why she or he has chosen to serve as dean. Deans experience both very high highs and very low lows. The dean often sees faculty, staff, and students at their best but just as often sees these same individuals at their worst. Regardless of the mix of highs to lows in any deanship, decanal service--if taken seriously-- demands a tremendous commitment of time and energy. Thus the question is posed: Why devote such a significant portion of one's professional time to such service?

A Brief Exploration Of Space: Some Observations On Law School Architecture, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

The costs and benefits of some architectural choices are immediately obvious, as in the case of disability accommodations. But other choices are less obvious, even when one does not attempt to predict how a design will function thirty or forty years hence. This is why having a skilled design team involved in developing the plan and executing it is so important.

Culture Clash: Teaching Cultural Defenses In The Criminal Law Classroom, Susan S. Kuo

Faculty Publications

In the law school classroom, the Socratic method of legal analysis removes a dispute at issue in a given case from its sociocultural context and takes the cultural backgrounds of the parties into account only when they serve the legal argument. The language of the law commands law students to siphon off the emotional and cultural content because of the enduring belief that the law is neutral and impartial. Accordingly, cultural conflicts are deemed irrelevant to legal analysis because laws are unbiased and culture-blind. This detached outlook has been termed perpectivelessness to denote a neutral, odorless, colorless non-perspective.

This essay …

In Memoriam: Jerry Phillips: A Scholar & A Gentleman, Elizabeth Price Foley, Elizabeth C. Price

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reflection-In-Action: Lessons Learned From New Clinicians, Justine A. Dunlap, Peter A. Joy

Faculty Publications

Clinical legal education focuses on reflective learning, yet data collected from newer clinical faculty reveal that few schools offer training to assist new clinicians in understanding and incorporating reflective learning techniques as they make the transition from law practice to clinical law teaching. To the extent that training is offered to newer faculty, it may range from ad hoc guidance and informal mentoring to more deliberate programs, which may include periodic meetings devoted primarily to discussing clinical methodology, teaching techniques, and other issues important to newer clinical faculty. Although informal and unstructured approaches to training new clinical faculty may well …

Dr. King, Bull Connor, And Persuasive Narratives, Shaun B. Spencer

Faculty Publications

This article describes an in-class exercise that illustrates the use of persuasive narrative techniques in a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The article first describes the background to the Supreme Court’s decision in Walker v. City of Birmingham. Next, the article examines persuasive narrative techniques through the lens of an in-class exercise in which students identify the Justices’ narrative devices and consider how those devices preview the Justices’ legal arguments. Finally, the article describes why the Walker case and the exercise are valuable not only to teach persuasive narratives, but also to raise broader issues of lawyering and social justice.

Damages As Narrative, Melody Richardson Daily

Faculty Publications

The traditional approach to legal instruction in America-the casebook method-requires students to read hundreds of appellate decisions, most of which include equally terse accounts of human suffering. How might this pedagogical approach affect future lawyers? Can reading a book like Damages help law students develop the ability to empathize with their clients?

Better Lucky Than Good, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Statutory Approach To Criminal Law, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

Article suggests that learning about criminal statutes should be incorporated into teaching criminal law.

Damages: Using A Case Study To Teach Law, Dispute Resolution, And Lawyering , Melody Richardson Daily, Chris Guthrie, Leonard L. Riskin

Faculty Publications

Seven law school faculty members and one practicing attorney recently developed and taught a wholly new kind of law course based on an already published case study, Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, by Barry Werth, an investigative reporter who spent several years researching to write the book. Damages, an in-depth account of a medical malpractice case, presents the perspectives of the injured family, the defendant physician, the lawyers, and the three mediators. In this Symposium Introduction, the authors provide a summary of Werth's book, explain why they decided to create a course based on his …