Law Commons^™

One Small Step For Legal Writing, One Giant Leap For Legal Education: Making The Case For More Writing Opportunities In The "Practice-Ready" Law School Curriculum, Sherri Lee Keene

Faculty Scholarship

Legal writing is more than an isolated practical skill or a law school course; it is a valuable tool for broadening and deepening law students’ and new attorneys’ knowledge and understanding of the law. If experienced legal professionals, both professors and practitioners alike, take a hard look back at their careers, many will no doubt remember how their work on significant legal writing projects advanced their own knowledge of the law and enhanced their professional competence. Legal writing practice helps the writer to gain expertise in a number of ways: first, the act of writing itself promotes learning; second, close …

"Practice Ready Graduates": A Millennialist Fantasy, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

The sky is falling on legal education say the pundits, and preparing “practice ready” graduates is one of the best strategies for surviving the fallout. This is a millennialist version of the argument for clinical legal education that dominated discussion in the law schools in the 1960s and 1970s. The circumstances are different now, as are the people calling for reform, but the two movements are alike in one respect: both view skills training as legal education’s primary purpose. Everything else is a frolic and detour, and a fatal frolic and detour in hard times such as the present.

No …

Contemporary Trusts And Estates - An Experiential Approach, Jerome Borison, Naomi R. Cahn, Susan N. Gary, Paula A. Monopoli

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay in a special issue dedicated to teaching trusts and estates, the co-authors of Contemporary Trusts & Estates: An Experiential Approach (2d. ed. Aspen 2014) reflect on how the teaching of trusts and estates can integrate policy, practice, doctrine, and centuries of tradition. They describe the genesis of their problem-based casebook and the influence of the Carnegie Report on their choice of pedagogic framework. Each of the co-authors embraced the fundamental principles advocated by the Carnegie Report, which counsels that legal education should integrate “theoretical and practical legal knowledge and professional identity.” This essay goes on to outline …

Infusing Technology Skills Into The Law School Curriculum, Simon Canick

Faculty Scholarship

Legal education has never considered technological proficiency to be a key outcome. Law professors may debate the merits of audiovisual teaching tools: do they work when they should?; do they facilitate learning objectives or are they just toys?; whom should they call when something breaks?; and so on. Teachers use course management sites like TWEN and Blackboard to share information and manage basic course functions. Many fear that laptops and other devices distract students in class, and some institute outright bans. Among many law teachers, technology is warily accepted, but only for the purpose of achieving traditional educational objectives.

What …

The Status Gap: Female Faculty In The Legal Academy, Paula A. Monopoli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Deal Deconstructions, Case Studies, And Case Simulations: Toward Practice Readiness With New Pedagogies In Teaching Business And Transactional Law, Michelle M. Harner, Robert J. Rhee

Faculty Scholarship

In this short commentary, we explore the use of two interrelated pedagogical methods for teaching transactional and business law. The first method is deal deconstruction, which analyzes the set of final deal documents and outcomes. This method is backward-looking, conducting a post-mortem on business transactions and analyzing the parties’ choices memorialized in the agreement against the legal and financial alternatives. The second method involves case studies and simulations, which are commonly seen in business schools. This method is forward-looking, exposing students to the uncertainties and situational contexts of doing deals and deal-related litigation. Together, these complementary methods help students understand …