Law Commons^™

Book Review Of Shaping The Bar: The Future Of Attorney Licensing, Marsha Griggs

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In Shaping the Bar: The Future of Attorney Licensing, Professor Joan Howarth issues a clarion call to the academy, the legal community, and the judiciary to reform the way we license lawyers in the United States. In this book Howarth identifies the current crisis in law licensing, the history of racism that created this crisis, and the tools available to address it. Shaping the Bar challenges our entrenched notions of professional identity, and it forces us to confront vulnerabilities in attorney self-regulation. It does so in a manner that will stir even those not immersed in the current debate about …

Debating Disability Disclosure In Legal Education, Jasmine E. Harris

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No abstract provided.

Sustaining Lawyers, Seema Saifee

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Many lawyers are drawn to a career in social justice, in part, to help others and, in part, to fulfill their own path to wellness. Advocacy that sustains personal well-being, however, also poses considerable obstacles to well-being. Some of these obstacles are inherent to social justice work but some are embedded within organizational culture. These cultural norms impair the health of advocates, harm the communities with whom they work, and portend far-reaching consequences for the future of progressive struggles for freedom. Drawing on the author's personal experience, this Essay identifies three cultural norms, described as pathologies, that are rarely discussed …

Function, Form, And Strawberries: Subverting Langdell, Jeremiah A. Ho

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So why do law schools place skills instruction below the dissemination of legal knowledge even though it is the practice of law that lawyers are engaged in doing and not just the mere knowing of it? Both should be equally significant. Although law teaching methodologies have shifted somewhat to accommodate the changing cognitive adaptations of the human mind in this age of digital technology, law instruction in classrooms still possess a deeply-rooted basis in legal formalist considerations of the law from the 19th century that displaces skills instruction for the advancement of the legal knowledge. Consequently, in order to further …

Beyond Gilson: The Art Of Business Lawyering, Praveen Kosuri

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Thirty years ago, Ronald Gilson asked the question, “what do business lawyers really do?” Since that time legal scholars have continued to grapple with that question and the implicit question of how business lawyers add value to their clients. This article revisits the question again but with a more expansive perspective on the role of business lawyer and what constitutes value to clients.

Gilson put forth the theory of business lawyers as transaction cost engineers. Years later, Karl Okamoto introduced the concept of deal lawyer as reputational intermediary. Steven Schwarcz attempted to isolate the role of business lawyer from other …

Learning Critical Legal Theory Across The Curriculum: An Innovative Course In Applied Feminism, Michele E. Gilman

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In law schools, we are so accustomed to a single professor teaching each substantive class that we rarely question this method of teaching. Imagine instead a class taught by fourteen professors, each of whom teaches for one week to share their substantive expertise through the lens of critical legal theory. At the University of Baltimore School of Law, we offer such a course, entitled Special Topics in Applied Feminism. Throughout the semester, students are exposed to feminist legal perspectives on a wide range of substantive topics, including tax law, international law, immigration law, employment law, and many others.

The course …

Mission: Impossible, Mission: Accomplished Or Mission: Underway? A Survey And Analysis Of Current Trends In Professionalism Education In American Law Schools, Alison Kehner, Mary Ann Robinson

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This Article identifies common characteristics of effective professionalism instruction to provide guidance in how to design innovative professionalism instruction. After introducing the topic in Part I, Part II of this Article describes the origins and development of the professionalism education movement in American Law schools. Part III of this Article explains our methods for collecting information and identifies and summarizes the predominant trends, and provides examples of noteworthy programs or initiatives. Part IV concludes by describing our method for assessing successful programs and identifying the characteristics of effective professionalism instruction.

Lrw Program Design: A Manifesto For The Future, Eric Easton

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All of us have, at one time or another, had occasion to consider, or reconsider, our program model. The trigger may have been a new dean; the prospect of a sabbatical inspection; a budget crisis or financial windfall; a faculty champion or saboteur; some-thing we learned at a Legal Writing Institute (LWI) or Association of Legal Writing Directors conference; or merely the cycle of bureaucratic reorganization. Those reconsiderations have led to a great diversity of Legal Research and Writing (LRW) program models: two-, three-, four-, and all-semester programs; adjunct-, contract-, and tenure-track staffing; and directors, co-directors, and no directors. Reconsiderations …

More Than Just Law School: Global Perspectives On The Place Of The Practical In Legal Education, James Maxeiner

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Foreign experiences remind us that legal education is not just law school. They inform us that we should seek for ways not just to integrate theoretical and practical teaching, but to assure that our students or our graduates get real experience with practice. The assumption that law schools are the exclusive place for preparation for the profession of law is bad for students, bad for bar, bad for law schools, bad for the legal system and bad for society. We should look to see what we can do best and should encourage other institutions to do what they can do …

The Rule Of Law In The Reform Of Legal Education: Teaching The Legal Mind In Japanese Law Schools, James Maxeiner

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• a. The Rule of Law is at the heart of the present legal reform.
• b. There is an international consensus about basic elements of the Rule of Law.
• c. Legal methods are central to the Rule of Law. But different legal methods are used to realize the Rule of Law.
• d. Teaching legal methods, i.e., teaching to think like a lawyer, is at the heart of that which is professional in legal education.
• e. The present legal reform invites Japanese law schools to teach legal methods.

The Incredible Shrinking Law School, Phillip J. Closius

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The University of Toledo College of Law faculty and administration performed a task that may be unprecedented in modern American legal education. During a series of luncheon meetings we focused on the topic of enrollment--what size student body should we have given the realities of our market and the pedagogical goals we wish to achieve. We analyzed this issue without either an extensive reliance on our revenue stream or the risk of losing resources if we admitted fewer students. Since we administer both a full- and part-time (mainly evening) program, we also discussed our obligation to serve our metropolitan community …

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights Through Civil Litigation: A Symposium, Eric Easton

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On September 30, 1996, nineteen lawyers, law professors and judges from the People's Republic of China began a six-week program of classroom study, practical experience, and scholarly exchange that focused on the American system of protecting intellectual property rights through civil litigation. The program was funded by a $107,000 grant from the United States Information Agency's Office of Citizen Exchange Programs to the University of Baltimore's Center for International and Comparative Law, in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

The initial, two-week phase of the program included field trips to the U.S. Copyright Office, the Patent …