Law Commons^™

Towards A New World Of Externships: Introduction To Papers From Externships 4 And 5, Alex Scherr, Harriet N. Katz

Scholarly Works

The scholarly literature on externships is growing and deepening, addressing concerns of importance to field placement programs and to clinicians in general. This Introduction places the issues raised by the subsequent four articles on externships into the context of current national debates about the externship method. These issues, which both extend and diverge from current thinking about externship pedagogy, include: 1) the impact of a harsh economic climate; 2) the educational potential of placements in corporate counsel offices; 3) the argument for compensating students in for-credit placements; and 4) the value of course design for teaching power dynamics in supervisory …

Law Students Compete In Society Of Advocates, Sara Gordon

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the Society of Advocates (SOA) at the Boyd School of Law. The SOA is an organization whose members represent the school in interscholastic advocacy competitions throughout the United States.

The Potential Contribution Of Adr To An Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students For Real World Lawyering, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes and proposes a modest menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can largely achieve without investing substantial additional resources. This Article emphasizes the special contributions that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can provide to legal education more generally. ADR instruction is an important corrective to a curriculum that routinely conveys the erroneous implication …

The Accidental Clinician And The Experienced Director: A Conversation On The Value Of Externships, Marjorie A. Silver, Mary Jo Eyster

Scholarly Works

In the summer of 2010, Mary Jo Eyster and Marjorie Silver conversed, via email, about the ways in which externship programs add unique value to the student’s education, separate and apart from their cost-effectiveness as compared to the in-house clinic. The result is this paper, a dialogue between a stand-up teacher who chose to teach the externship seminar and a seasoned clinician.

Mary Jo and Marjorie agree that the well-designed, well-executed program should drive the design, teaching and administration of externships and their accompanying seminars. They share the goals that each of them privilege in the programs they have designed, …

What Balance In Legal Education Means To Me: A Dissenting View, Lawrence Raful

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching & Scholarship, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

Professor Beazley joins a panel of the elite of legal writing professors at Mercer University, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute in this transcript of the proceedings.

Report And Recommendations On The Status Of Clinical Faculty In The Legal Academy, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

"Report and Recommendations on the Status of Clinical Faculty in the Legal Academy" identifies and evaluates the most appropriate modes for clinical faculty appointments in the legal academy, concluding that legal education is best served when full-time clinical faculty are appointed predominantly on a unitary tenure-track model. Drawing on data collected through a survey of clinical program directors and faculty, the Report analyzes the five most identifiable clinical faculty models: unitary tenure track; clinical tenure track; long-term contract; short-term contract; and clinical fellowships. It determines that, despite great strides in the growth of clinical legal education in the last 30 …

Studying And Teaching “Law As Rhetoric”: A Place To Stand, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

This article proposes that law students may find a better fit within the legal culture of argument if they are introduced to rhetorical alternatives to counter narrowly formalist and realist perspectives on how the law works and how judges decide cases. To support this proposal, the article describes and evaluates an upper-level elective course in Law & Rhetoric, which I have offered at two law schools since 2003.

The article makes a two-part argument: first, introducing law students to rhetorical alternatives allows them to envision their role as lawyers as constructive, effective, and imaginative while grounded in law, language, and …