Law Commons^™

Tort Law: Cases And Commentaries, Samuel Beswick

All Faculty Publications

Preface

The law of obligations concerns the legal rights and duties owed between people. Three primary categories make up the common law of obligations: tort, contract, and unjust enrichment. This casebook provides an introduction to tort law: the law that recognises and responds to civil wrongdoing. The material is arranged in two main parts. Following a brief introduction (§1), the first main part addresses intentional, dignitary and dishonesty torts as well as corresponding defences and remedies (§2-§10). The focus pivots with a consideration of the overarching theories and goals of tort …

An Approach To Monitoring And Assessing Online/Hybrid J.D. Programs, Rti International

Commissioned Research

The expansion of distance learning among American Bar Association (ABA)-approved J.D. programs has the potential to increase access to a legal education, especially for students who have traditionally faced barriers to J.D. attainment because of employment, family duties, geographical location, and other circumstances. Compared to attending class in person, distance learning provides greater flexibility and increased convenience and may also result in cost savings since students do not have to relocate or forgo earnings to enroll full-time.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only a few law schools offered ABA-approved hybrid J.D. programs, but the pandemic temporarily forced all law schools online …

Revised Aba Standard 303: Curricular, Pedagogical, And Substantive Questions, Steven W. Bender

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

ABA accreditation standards now require law schools to provide education and training on racism, bias, and cross-cultural competence. This seemingly straightforward mandate raises numerous questions as schools plan for and implement compliance. Here, I articulate and approach these compliance questions using insights drawn from critical theory—which supplies helpful guidance for responses and ultimately antiracism legal education that is more than minimalist. Armed with critical insights, lawyers are better equipped to contribute to the struggle to eradicate systemic social ills in law and society.

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Benjamin H. Barton, Sameer M. Ashar, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Scholarly Works

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

Implementing Aba Standard 303(B)(3): Positive Legal Education Through A Community Of Inquiry, Joshua Aaron Jones

Faculty Scholarship

According to William Adams, Executive Director of Legal Education and Bar Admissions at the American Bar Association (ABA), “Full implementation [of 303(b)(3)] [was] expected by 2023.” The revised Standard requires that law schools provide “substantial opportunities” for professional identity development (PID). Though the ABA’s Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools and the related interpretations allow flexibility, the ABA left law schools without detailed guidance; without a unified professional identity concept, law schools across the country will implement a patchwork of programs, some stronger than others, that may curtail a global strengthening of the profession. Fortunately, scholars …

Maurer School Of Law, Iu Northwest Partner On Law Scholars Program, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law, working in collaboration with Indiana University Northwest, has established a new program to act as a pipeline into law school, the schools announced today (June 27).

The Indiana University Northwest Law Scholars Program will substantially reduce tuition for up to four IU Northwest graduates interested in pursuing a legal education in Bloomington, as well as supply qualifying students with dedicated faculty mentorship to help ensure their success.

Mindfulness For Lawyers Cannot Begin Too Early, Heather Simmons

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Mindfulness can help law students handle the stress of Socratic method and cold calling. But the standard mindfulness panic practice, which is to stop and take three deep breaths, doesn’t work because the professor is waiting for an answer. In my ABA Student Lawyer article, I describe the following alternative: Step 1. Plant your feet firmly on the floor; Step 2. Sit up straight; Step 3. Take one deep breath; Step 4. Now restate the question. These steps could easily be modified to work in court when the judge asks a challenging question.

‘Radical Turn Away’ From Admissions Tests? Deans Say Claims Of Increased Diversity May Be Unfounded, Tyler Fenwick

Christiana Ochoa (7/22-10/22 Acting; 11/2022-)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law Dean Christiana Ochoa said those who want to do away with requiring law school admission tests for diversity’s sake have it backward.

The idea that law school diversity would increase if tests like the LSAT and Graduate Record Examination, or GRE, became an optional part of the admissions process is unfounded, Ochoa said.

Instead, she said she’s worried the opposite is true — that the move would actually hurt diversity.

And she is not alone.

Ochoa was one of 60 deans to sign a letter last September pushing back against the proposed change to …

Silencing Students: How Courts Have Failed To Protect Professional Students’ First Amendment Speech Rights, Shanelle Doher

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Over the past two decades, social media has dramatically changed the way people communicate. With the increased popularity of virtual communication, online speech has, in many ways, blurred the boundaries for where and when speech begins and ends. The distinction between on campus and off campus student speech has become particularly murky given the normalization of virtual learning environments as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court clarified that students retain their First Amendment rights on campus but that schools may sanction speech that materially and substantially …

John Osborn's Enduring Words On Law & Learning, Walter Effross

Popular Media

When I started my first year at Harvard Law School, 17 years after Osborn did, I wasn’t looking for enlightenment. But I expected to be — and was — intimidated by Socratic taskmasters who, like the movie version of Osborn’s Professor Kingsfield (a role for which John Houseman won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 1973), were ready with “always another question, another question to follow your answer.”

Mental Health, Law School, And Bar Admissions: Eliminating Stigma And Fostering A Healthier Profession, Natalie C. Fortner

Arkansas Law Review

Part II of this Comment explores the current state of mental health in the legal profession and the shortcomings of state bar associations, lawyer assistance programs “LAPs”), and courts applying the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) in combating the profession’s mental health problem. Part III then examines practical steps the profession can take at the law school level that will aid in eliminating the stigma associated with seeking mental health treatment in the legal profession, thus addressing the problem at its source.

Covid And Bar Admissions, Steven R. Smith

Arkansas Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic, killings of George Floyd and others, and civil unrest created dislocation, hardship, and uncertainty. For millions of people, it included deaths in family, unemployment, and serious mental and physical illness. Graduates of professional schools preparing to take licensing examinations faced unexpected obstacles in meeting licensing standards for their chosen professions. It quickly became apparent, for example, that the usual licensing examination arrangements were problematic. The question for licensing authorities in 2020 was what accommodations would be appropriate to take account of the disruptions applicants faced while fully protecting the public’s interest in careful licensing.

Ok, Zoomer: Teaching Legal Research To Gen Z, Olivia R. Smith Schlinck

Library Staff Articles

Generation Z has entered law school. With each new generation comes new education preferences. While research on Gen Z in the legal academy has grown over the past few years, to date none deal explicitly with teaching legal research to Gen Z. This article connects Gen Z’s childhood and resulting peer personality to 10 tangible pedagogical changes for teaching legal research to Gen Z.

Dinner With Andre: A Personal Tribute To Andre Hampton, David Dittfurth

Faculty Articles

A tribute to long-time St. Mary's University School of Law professor Andre Hampton upon his retirement.

High Anxiety: Racism, The Law, And Legal Education, Elayne E. Greenberg

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Conspicuously absent from the United States’ ongoing discourse about its racist history is a more honest discussion about the individual and personal stressors that are evoked in people when they talk about racism. What if they got it wrong? The fear of being cancelled -- the public shaming for remarks that are deemed racist -- has had a chilling effect on having meaningful conversations about racism. What lost opportunities!

This paper moves this discussion into the law school context. How might law schools rethink their law school curricula to more accurately represent the role systemic racism has played in shaping …

The First Woman Dean Of A Texas Law School: Barbara Bader Aldave At St. Mary's University, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

How Santa Clara Law's "Tech Edge Jd" Program Improves The School's Admissions Yield, Diversity, & Employment Outcomes, Laura Lee Norris, Eric Goldman

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Secret Sauce: Examining Law Schools That Overperform On The Bar Exam, Derek T. Muller, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Journal Articles

Since 2010, law schools have faced declining enrollment and entering classes with lower predictors of success despite recent signs of improvement. At least partly as a result, rates at which law school graduates pass the bar exam have declined and remain at historic lows. Yet, during this time, many schools have improved their graduates' chances of success on the bar exam, and some schools have dramatically outperformed their predicted bar exam passage rates. This Article examines which schools do so and why.

Research for this Article began by accounting for law schools' incoming class credentials to predict an expected bar …

Restoring Confidence In Educational Technologies, Ariel Newman

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Sameer M. Ashar, Benjamin H. Barton, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Articles

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

High Anxiety: Racism, The Law, And Legal Education, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

Conspicuously absent from the United States’ ongoing discourse about its racist history is a more honest discussion about the individual and personal stressors that are evoked in people when they talk about racism. What if they got it wrong? The fear of being cancelled - the public shaming for remarks that are deemed racist - has had a chilling effect on having meaningful conversations about racism. What lost opportunities!

This paper moves this discussion into the law school context. How might law schools rethink their law school curricula to more accurately represent the role systemic racism has played in shaping …

Reaching Out Through The Universal: The Powerful And Positive Role Of A Jesuit Catholic Law School On The Secular Line, Judith A. Mcmorrow

Touro Law Review

There are multiple ways in which Catholic law schools can provide an education that supports and reflects a Catholic vision. Some schools align more closely to an orthodox view in which text and doctrine are the starting lens. Catholic law schools closer to the secular end of the spectrum play a powerful role by actively building bridges with the secular world. These schools, either implicitly or explicitly, start with values framed in more universal terms -- a moral or ethical worldview that can implement the common good in the secular world. A Catholic law school that emphasizes the universal generally …

What Law Schools Must Change To Train Transactional Lawyers, Stephanie Hunter Mcmahon

Pace Law Review

Not all lawyers litigate, but you would not know that from the first-year curriculum at most law schools. Despite 50% of lawyers working in transactional practices, schools do not incorporate its legal doctrines or skills in the foundational first year. That the Progressives pushed through antitrust laws and the New Dealers founded the modern administrative state reframed how people use the law, particularly in transactional practices, and should be given equal weight as the appellate-based common law in any legal introduction. Nevertheless, the law school model created by Christopher Columbus Langdell in the 1870s remains dominant. As this review of …

Leading Law Schools: Relationships, Influence, And Negotiation, Michael T. Colatrella Jr.

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching Case Theory, Binny Miller

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As the key means of framing a case, case theory is the central problem that lawyers confront in constructing a case, and many of the decisions made during the life of a case are decisions that rest on case theory. Building on the author's earlier scholarship on case theory, this essay articulates a concept of case theory called "storyline," and sets out a framework for teaching this concept. The framework for this process has three basic stages - imagining case theory, evaluating (and constructing) case theory, and choosing case theory. The material for this process is stories, which are the …

Imposter Syndrome & The Law School Caste System, Sara L. Ochs

Pace Law Review

For decades, legal academia has been structured around a hierarchical caste system, with tenured and tenure-track doctrinal law professors—many of whom are men—occupying the highest caste, and professors of legal skills courses—who more often identify as women—relegated to the lower castes. The status of these “lower caste” professors is routinely reinforced through weaker job security, less respect, and lower pay than received by their doctrinal, “upper caste” colleagues. Given this inequality, imposter syndrome plays a pervasive role in the lives and careers of professors of legal skills courses. Relying on qualitative data obtained from teaching faculty and staff at ABA …

Law’S Contributions To The Mindfulness Revolution, Elizabeth F. Emens

Utah Law Review

These are phenomenally challenging times. Mindfulness is a tool that can help lawyers support themselves, each other, their clients, and their collaborators in the hard work needed to build community and take action. For these and other reasons, mindfulness has made major inroads into law and legal institutions. Law firms, law schools, and courthouses offer training in mindfulness meditation to support the cognitive clarity and emotional self-regulation necessary for the demanding work of analyzing problems, resolving conflicts, overcoming bias, and doing justice. A growing literature, from empirical social science to legal scholarship, catalogs these and other benefits of mindfulness for …

The Black-White Paradigm’S Continuing Erasure Of Latinas: See Women Law Deans Of Color, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

The Black-white paradigm persists with unintended consequences. For example, there have been only six Latina law deans to date with only four presently serving. This Article provides data about women law deans of color, the dearth of Latina law deans, and explanations for the data. It focuses on the enduring Black-white paradigm, as well as other external and internal forces. This Article suggests how to increase the number of Latina law deans and emphasizes why it matters.

The Foundational Skill Of Reflection In The Formation Of A Professional Identity, Neil W. Hamilton

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

There is a growing scholarly literature on the professional development and formation of law students into the core values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.* This growing scholarly literature can guide effective curriculum development to foster student growth toward later stages of development on these learning outcomes. This Article focuses on the skill of reflection as one of the most effective curricular strategies to foster each student’s growth toward later stages of these learning outcomes. This same curricular strategy will also be effective in engaging practicing lawyers to grow toward these same goals. Part II …

A Book Club With No Books: Using Podcasts Movies, And Documentaries To Increase Transfer Of Learning, Incorporate Social Justice Themes, Create Community, And Bolster Traditional And Character-Based Legal Skills During A Pandemic, Marni Goldstein Caputo, Kathleen Luz

Faculty Scholarship

In the fall of 2020, students entered law school under extreme circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic led to isolation, depression, and restrictions on activities. A new hybrid learning environment was created. Social upheaval also caused unease. The 2020 national elections loomed, bringing divisive political discourse. The murder of George Floyd and other BIPOC, at the hands of police, led to a reckoning around the country. Additionally, with the COVID-19 pandemic came a rash of anti-Asian violence.

Faced with these unprecedented realities, we, as legal educators, struggled with how to adapt our curriculum to this new normal. These realities forced us to …