Law Commons^™

Ferguson, The Rebellious Law Professor, And The Neoliberal University, Harold A. Mcdougall Iii

School of Law Faculty Publications

Neoliberalism, a business-oriented ideology promoting corporatism, profit-seeking, and elite management, has found its way into the modern American university. As neoliberal ideology envelops university campuses, the idea of law professors as learned academicians and advisors to students as citizens in training, has given way to the concept of professors as brokers of marketable skills with students as consumers. In a legal setting, this concept pushes law students to view their education not as a means to contribute to society and the professional field, but rather as a means to make money. These developments are especially problematic for minority students and …

William & Mary Law School Commencement Address: Reflections On The Future Of The Legal Academy, Antonin Scalia

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Webex From An Instructor's Perspective, Jennifer Mart-Rice, Terri Iacobucci, Jaesook Gilbert

Jennifer Mart-Rice

No abstract provided.

Dean's Desk: Stewart Fellows Bring Global Experience To Indiana, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

No abstract provided.

Legal Education In Disruption: The Headwinds And Tailwinds Of Technology, Jon M. Garon

Faculty Scholarship

By harnessing improvements on communications and computational systems, law firms are producing a revolution in the practice of law. Self-help legal manuals have transformed into sophisticated interactive software; predictive coding can empower clients to receive sophisticated legal advice from a machine; socially mediated portals select among potential lawyers and assess the quality of the advice given; and virtual law firms threaten to distintermediate the grand edifices of twentieth century Big Law. These changes may profoundly restructure the legal practice, undermining the business model for many solo and small firm practices.

This paper focuses on the implications of these profound disruptive …

Law Schools And Technology: Where We Are And Where We Are Heading, Michele R. Pistone

Michele R. Pistone

1. For many years, the question of how to use technology to teach the law has been a minor concern of the legal academy. That era of general indifference to developments in learning technologies is now coming to an end. There are many reasons for the change. Law schools are facing such a host of difficulties— declining enrollments, declining job prospects for graduates, reduced public funding, and understandable concerns about cost and debt—that sometimes it seems the only debate is over whether the situation is best described as a “tsunami” or “a perfect storm.” Against this backdrop, technology offers the …

The Legal Academy Under Erasure, Richard E. Redding

Catholic University Law Review

We hear much about the “crisis” in legal education: steep declines in law school enrollments and graduates unprepared for practice who cannot find jobs. Proposals to address the crisis enjoy wide support and are poised to dramatically change the landscape of legal education. These reforms are harmful to law students and the legal profession, placing the legal academy “under erasure,” as Jacques Derrida would say. They erase the academic nature of law school by: (1) reorienting it from an academically-grounded legal education towards vocational training, (2) requiring just two years of study for the J.D. degree, (3) allowing graduates of …

Book Review Of The Boulder Statements On Legal Research Education: The Intersection Of Intellectual And Practical Skills, Leslie A. Street

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Water Law-Gged: The Muddy Relationship Between Water Law, The Environment, And Economic Development Introduction, Josh Eagle, Matthew W. Orville

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Is Criminal Law About?, Guyora Binder, Robert Weisberg

Journal Articles

In a recent critique, Jens Ohlin faults contemporary criminal law textbooks for emphasizing philosophy, history and social science at the expense of doctrinal training. In this response, we argue that the political importance of criminal law justifies including reflection about the justice of punishment in the professional education of lawyers. First, we argue that both understanding and evaluating criminal law doctrine requires consideration of political philosophy, legal history, and empirical research. Second, we argue that the indeterminacy of criminal law doctrine on some fundamental questions means that criminal lawyers often cannot avoid invoking normative theory in fashioning legal arguments. Finally, …

, The Law School Of The Future: How The Synergies Of Convergence Will Transform The Very Notion Of “Law Schools” During The 21st Century From “Places” To “Platforms”, Jeffrey A. Van Detta

Jeffrey A. Van Detta

This article discusses the disruptive change in American (and trans-national) legal education that the convergence of technology and economics is bringing to legal education. It posits, and then defends, the following assertion about "law schools of the future":

“Law schools will no longer be ‘places’ in the sense of a single faculty located on a physical campus. In the future, law schools will consist of an array of technologies and instructional techniques brought to bear, in convergence, on particular educational needs and problems.”

This paper elaborates on that prediction, discussing the ways in which technology will positively impact legal education, …

The End Of Law Schools, Ray W. Campbell

Ray W Campbell

What would legal education look like if it were designed from the ground up for a world in which legal services have undergone profound and irreversible change? Law schools as we know them are doomed. They continue to offer an educational model originally designed to prepare lawyers to practice in common law courts of a bygone era. That model fails to prepare lawyers for today’s highly specialized practices, and it fails to provide targeted training for the emerging legal services fields other than traditional lawyering.

This article proposes a new ideology of legal education to meet the needs of modern …

Experiential Education And Our Divided Campuses: What Delivers Practice Value To Big Law Associates, Government Attorneys, And Public Interest Lawyers?, Margaret E. Reuter, Joanne Ingham

Margaret E. Reuter

How will law schools meet the challenge of expanding their education in lawyering skills as demanded from critics and now required by the ABA? This article examines the details of the experiential coursework (clinic, field placement, and skills courses) of 2,142 attorneys. It reveals that experiential courses have not been comparably pursued or valued by former law students as they headed to careers in different settings and types of law practice. Public interest lawyers took many of these types of courses, at intensive levels, and valued them highly. In marked contrast, corporate lawyers in large firms took far fewer. When …

Interactive Group Learning In The Legal Writing Classroom: An International Primer On Student Collaboration And Cooperation In Large Classrooms, Roberta Thyfault, Kathryn Fehrman

Kathryn Fehrman

Research has long shown that students who work in small groups learn and retain more than students who are taught by other techniques. This crucial bit of information has led many scholars and educators to explore a variety of models for supporting and involving students in group learning. Part II of this article will provide an overview of the scholarship of collaborative and cooperative learning and the associated definitions and techniques. Part III discusses the application of collaborative and cooperative learning techniques in the law school classroom and special considerations and suggestions for international and large law school classrooms. Finally, …

How Not To Be Jaded When The World Is Going To The Bad Place In A Hand Basket, Kathryn Fehrman

Kathryn Fehrman

Five proactive steps for lawyers to take to prevent callous and jaded attitudes.

Making Lawyers Out Of Law Students: Shifting The Locus Of Authority, Kathryn Fehrman, Tim Casey

Kathryn Fehrman

This article proceeds in three parts. Recent critiques of legal education have centered on two main themes: the cost of legal education and the need for curricular reform (to teach law students to be lawyers rather than legal theorists). In the first and second sections of this article, we address the call for curricular reform and describe the innovative curricular design of the STEPPS Program at California Western School of Law as an answer to that call. The STEPPS Program, a required second-year course in ethics and skills, provides a unique forum for teaching the knowledge, skills, and values necessary …

Virginia Bar Exam, February 2015, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, February 2015, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

The End Of Law Schools, Ray Worthy Campbell

Ray W Campbell

Law schools as we know them are doomed. They continue to offer an educational model originally designed to prepare lawyers to practice in common law courts of a bygone era. That model fails to prepare lawyers for today’s highly specialized practices, and it fails to provide targeted training for the emerging legal services fields other than traditional lawyering.

This article proposes a new ideology of legal education to meet the needs of modern society. Unlike other reform proposals, it looks not to tweaking the training of traditional lawyers, but to rethinking legal education in light of a changing legal services …

Why The Bar Examination Fails To Raise The Bar, Carol Goforth

Carol Goforth

Law Vs. Science: Should Law As A Core Subject Be Eliminated At The U.S. Armed Services Academies In Favor Of More Relevant Stem Courses?, Gregory M. Huckabee

Gregory M. Huckabee

Law vs. Science: Should law as a core subject be eliminated at the U.S. Armed Services Academies in favor of more relevant STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) courses? As recent cyberterror events have unfolded, more STEM knowledge is needed in the armed forces. STEM courses are on the march for inclusion in greater numbers in academy core curriculums. In order for new STEM courses to join the academic heart of academy learning, predecessor courses must be reviewed for relevancy, significance, and materiality. One core course in common at all three military academies is law. Yet few core curriculums can absorb …

Ferguson, The Rebellious Law Professor, And The Neoliberal University, Harold A. Mcdougall Iii

Harold A. McDougall III

Neoliberalism, a business-oriented ideology promoting corporatism, profit-seeking, and elite management, has found its way into the modern American university. As neoliberal ideology envelops university campuses, the idea of law professors as learned academicians and advisors to students as citizens in training, has given way to the concept of professors as brokers of marketable skills with students as consumers. In a legal setting, this concept pushes law students to view their education not as a means to contribute to society and the professional field, but rather as a means to make money. These developments are especially problematic for minority students and …

An Institutional Commitment To Minorities And Diversity: The Evolution Of A Law School Academic Support Program, Jackie Slotkin

Jacquelyn H. Slotkin

Given the severe underrepresentation of minorities in the legal profession, law schools have begun to realize their obligation to provide minorities with access to a quality legal education. This Article profiles the ongoing efforts of one private, free-standing law school to fulfill its commitment to diversity in education.

A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner

James R Maxeiner

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a common law country of precedents where, until the 20th century (the “Age of Statutes”), statutes had little role. Digitization by Google and others of previously hard to find legal works of the 19th century challenges this common law myth. At the Centennial in 1876 Americans celebrated that “The great fact in the progress of American jurisprudence … is its tendency towards organic statute law and towards the systematizing of law; in other words, towards written constitutions and codification.” This article tests the claim of the Centennial Writers of 1876 and finds …

Legal Education As A Rule Of Law Strategy: Problems And Opportunities With U.S.-Based Programs, David Pimentel

David Pimentel

Education can be powerful force in building the rule of law in developing countries and transitional states—especially in light of its power to influence culture and its ability to sustain meaningful change. Building a more effective system of legal education is a long term project, however, and a difficult sell given the way rule of law reform gets funded. Shorter term impacts are possible, however, through U.S.-based educational opportunities, which therefore present a compelling opportunity for rule of law promotion. Addressing short-term legal education deficiencies with U.S.-based education can contribute to a vision for the future of legal education in …

Yes, Virginia, There Are Stupid Questions, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

A Vast Image Out Of Spiritus Mundi: The Existential Crisis Of Law Schools, Jeremiah A. Ho

All Faculty Scholarship

In her recent book, Teaching Law: Justice, Politics, and the Demands of Professionalism, Robin L. West articulates that the crisis is not merely as the The New York Times and other media outlets have described it — not entirely about the faulty business practices of law schools or the lack of practice-oriented teaching in law classrooms. Instead, the crisis lies at the existential core of law schools. The original nineteenth-century set-up of the American law school and that model’s continued existence today have contributed to an identity crisis for law schools, revealing its major incompatibility with how the law is …

Law School Deans And The “New Normal.", Peter C. Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Chip Off The Old Block, Jim Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

What a proud moment it is for a father or mother to have a child pursue the same vocation as the parent. There is something affirming about knowing that a child has observed your work, your lifestyle, your colleagues, and your impact on the world, and chooses to follow in your vocational footsteps. A child who claims the lifestyle and work of the parent, after having observed it close at hand for a number of years, sends a positive message to the parents that what they are doing is worthwhile enough to be emulated. One son chose to attend law …

Bankruptcy And Higher Education Institutions, St. John’S University School Of Law Symposium, Scott F. Norberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.