Law Commons^™

The Intentional Pursuit Of Purpose: Nurturing Students’ Authentic Motivation For Practicing Law, Katya S. Cronin

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

“Why do you want to pursue a career in the law?” Nearly every aspiring attorney answers this question as part of their law school application personal statement. They pour their hopes, dreams, and challenges into the answer to this question—their formative struggles, deeply held values, and resolve to make the world a better place as legal practitioners. Soon after starting law school, however, law students turn their attention from core aspirations to immediate concerns. Forgotten and slowly choked by the thorns of competition, prestige, and external validation, law students’ internal sense of self and purpose begin to wither away until, …

Terrible Freedom, Ambiguous Authenticity, And The Pragmatism Of The Endangered: Why Free Speech In Law School Gets Complicated, Len Niehoff

Hofstra Law Review

The article explores the complexities surrounding free speech in law schools, highlighting the challenges and controversies that arise in relation to guest speakers, student protests, student group agendas, faculty expression, and speech on student listservs. The author argues that understanding the dynamics of free speech in law schools requires considering factors such as the nature of private law schools, the suspension of authenticity, and the diverse life experiences of students.

The Next Gerneration Professional: An Opportunity To Reframe Legal Education To Center Student Wellness, Benjamin Afton Cavanaugh

Hofstra Law Review

The article discusses the challenges of mental wellness and mental health in legal education, particularly in law schools. It highlights issues like depression, anxiety, and stress among students and legal professionals. It emphasizes the need for reform in legal education to address these mental health concerns and advocates for a more comprehensive approach to promote well-being in the field.

Comment, Francesca Procaccini

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Let's start with the antecedent question that both the theme of this conference and all three papers in this session present. That is, before we ask how law schools might better advance the freedom of expression on campus, and even before asking what role law schools play in protecting or suppressing free speech more generally, we must ask the first order question: whether freedom of expression at U.S. law schools is indeed imperiled?

There is an underlying assumption in all three papers that something is amiss, that things are not quite at their optimal, that improve- ment is needed. And …

The Kids Are Alright, Thomas Healy

Hofstra Law Review

In this symposium essay responding to the handwringing about free speech at law schools, I defend law students against the charge of illiberalism, consider whether my fellow aging liberals are turning into their parents, and look to Russian literature for insights about intergenerational conflict. I also reference Robert Frost and The Who.

2022 Conference Of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools: Reflections On Faculty Vocation And Support, Lucia A. Silecchia

Touro Law Review

In the United States, numerous law schools identify themselves as “religiously affiliated.” There are many opportunities and challenges that come with such affiliation. What “religiously affiliated” may mean for a law school’s faculty is a particularly critical aspect of this question. I was grateful to have been invited to reflect on what religious affiliation might mean for faculty hiring at the “Past, Present, and Future of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools” conference. What follows are reflections that consider not merely that question—important as it is—but also explore what happens after the hiring decision to make the vocation to teach at a …

Rethinking Introductory Statutory Research Instruction, Leslie A. Street, Frederick Dingledy

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Applying Universal Design In The Legal Academy, Matthew L. Timko

College of Law Faculty Publications

Too often barriers to access in the form of physical, technological, and cognitive environments play a large role in keeping many people out of law school. While federal and state laws address these barriers, universal design provides the clearest policy change for law schools to remedy these issues.

Protecting The Guild Or Protecting The Public? Bar Exams And The Diploma Privilege, Milan Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

The bar examination has long loomed over legal education. Although many states formerly admitted law school graduates into legal practice via the diploma privilege, Wisconsin is the only state that recognizes the privilege today. The bar examination is so central to the attorney admissions process that all but a handful of jurisdictions required it amidst a pandemic that turned bar exam administration into a life-or-death matter.

This Article analyzes the diploma privilege from a historical and empirical perspective. Whereas courts and regulators maintain that bar examinations screen out incompetent practitioners, the legal profession formerly placed little emphasis on bar examinations …

Survey Says--How To Engage Law Students In The Online Learning Environment, Andrele Brutus St. Val

Articles

The pandemic experience has made it clear that not everyone loves teaching or learning remotely. Many professors and students alike are eager to return to the classroom. However, our experiences over the last year and a half have also demonstrated the potentials and possibilities of learning online and have caused many professors to recalibrate their approaches to digital learning. While the tools for online learning were available well before March of 2020, many instructors are only now beginning to capitalize on their potential. The author of this article worked in online legal education before the pandemic, utilizing these tools and …

Tax Law Is An Ideal Subject For Advanced Legal Research, Kincaid C. Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

Tax law is an ideal regulatory area for advanced legal research classes when you want to teach a comprehensive research topic putting together all of the various case, regulatory, legislative, and analytical sources that are needed in the real world. Since everyone pays taxes, tax is accessible and a good starting point to expend from the first-year common law focus, especially for those students resistant to regulatory research. Every regulatory area is different in terms of agency practice, resources, and the tools available, but tax law is an ideal example area because the tools used by law firms are great …

Directed Questions: A Non-Socratic Dialogue About Non-Socratic Teaching, Kris Franklin, Rory Bahadur

Articles & Chapters

Despite frequent criticism of Socratic and case-method teaching, the core teaching in most foundational law classes has been remarkably stagnant. But in a time of turmoil and reexamination of the traditions we have all inherited, there is also opportunity for meaningful adaptation to the modern era. This Article introduces Directed Questions methodology as an alternative to the traditional teaching models currently operating in most law schools. Directed reading pedagogy allows legal educators to seamlessly transition to a modern and effective pedagogy incorporating best practices which recognizes that fostering inclusion and the success of diverse students is mandatory in post-Langdellian legal …

Modernizing Discrimination Law: The Adoption Of An Intersectional Lens, Marisa K. Sanchez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Radical Imagination: Fostering Community In Legal Education, Adrienne Baker

Student Scholarship

Study after study alerts us to concerns about law student wellbeing. Statistics are staggering, and law students are more likely to become anxious, depressed, and turn to substance abuse. Self-care is framed as an antidote, but the individual responsibility is still placed on the student. Rather, the issue is better resolved upstream.

Law schools must transgress and transform; they must reimagine their function. This article reflects on law school pedagogy and simple ways to build community in the classroom as well as school-wide administrative suggestions to promote law student wellbeing.

Will Legal Education Change Post-2020?, Heather K. Gerken

Michigan Law Review

The famed book review issue of the Michigan Law Review feels like a reminder of better days. As this issue goes to print, a shocking 554,103 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States alone, the country seems to have begun a long-overdue national reckoning on race, climate change and economic inequality continue to ravage the country, and our Capitol was stormed by insurrectionists with the encouragement of the president of the United States. In the usual year, a scholar would happily pick up this volume and delight in its contents. This year, one marvels at the scholars who …

Affirmative Inaction: A Quantitative Analysis Of Progress Toward “Critical Mass” In U.S. Legal Education, Loren M. Lee

Michigan Law Review

Since 1978, the Supreme Court has recognized diversity as a compelling government interest to uphold the use of affirmative action in higher education. Yet the constitutionality of the practice has been challenged many times. In Grutter v. Bollinger, for example, the Court denied its use in perpetuity and suggested a twenty-five-year time limit for its application in law school admissions. Almost two decades have passed, so where do we stand? This Note’s quantitative analysis of the matriculation of and degrees awarded to Black and Latinx students at twenty-nine accredited law schools across the United States illuminates a stark lack of …

The Brief (Edition #6, February 2021), William & Mary Law School

The Brief

No abstract provided.

The Brief (Edition #5, February 2021), William & Mary Law School

The Brief

No abstract provided.

#Fortheculture: Generation Z And The Future Of Legal Education, Tiffany D. Atkins

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Generation Z, with a birth year between 1995 and 2010, is the most diverse generational cohort in U.S. history and is the largest segment of our population. Gen Zers hold progressive views on social issues and expect diversity and minority representation where they live, work, and learn. American law schools, however, are not known for their diversity, or for being inclusive environments representative of the world around us. This culture of exclusion has led to an unequal legal profession and academy, where less than 10 percent of the population is non-white. As Gen Zers bring their demands for inclusion, and …

From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal …

Maybe Law Schools Do Not Oppress Minority Faculty Women: A Critique Of Meera E. Deo’S “Unequal Profession: Race And Gender In Legal Academia” (Stanford University Press 2019), Dan Subotnik

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Maybe Law Schools Do Not Oppress Minority Faculty Women: A Critique Of Meera E. Deo’S “Unequal Profession: Race And Gender In Legal Academia” (Stanford University Press 2019), Dan Subotnik

Touro Law Review

This essay tests Professor Meera Deo’s unsettling assertion that “implicit bias” in law schools is holding minority female and, to a lesser extent minority male, faculty back. It then presents her second, and more provocative claim, that minority faculty can generally offer better training in “solving complex problems.”

Regarding the former claim, Deo explains that minority women are not hired according to fair standards, not welcomed when they are hired, and not fairly evaluated for promotion. In addition, she argues that minority women professors are abused by their students. Because Deo barely tries to substantiate the second claim, it is …

The Brief (Edition #4, January 2021), William & Mary Law School

The Brief

No abstract provided.

Criminal Legal Education, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

All Faculty Scholarship

The protests of 2020 have jumpstarted conversations about criminal justice reform in the public and professoriate. Although there have been longstanding demands for reformation and reimagining of the criminal justice system, recent calls have taken on a new urgency. Greater public awareness of racial bias, increasing visual evidence of state-sanctioned killings, and the televised policing of peaceful dissent have forced the public to reckon with a penal state whose brutality was comfortably tolerated. Scholars are publishing op-eds, policy proposals, and articles with rapidity, pointing to different factors and actors that produce the need for reform. However, one input has gone …

Conversations After Class: 'Becoming Critical,' Or The Steps Necessary To Achieve Critical Thought For Law Students, Daniel J. Sequeira

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Brief (Edition #3, November 2020), William & Mary Law School

The Brief

No abstract provided.

Samy W. Abdallah '21: Reflections On The Fall 2020 Semester, Samy W. Abdallah

Law School Personal Reflections on COVID-19

No abstract provided.

Professor Jennifer S. Stevenson: Reflections On The Fall 2020 Semester, Jennifer S. Stevenson

Law School Personal Reflections on COVID-19

No abstract provided.

Associate Dean Laura N. Shepherd: Reflections On The Fall 2020 Semester, Laura N. Shepherd

Law School Personal Reflections on COVID-19

No abstract provided.

Research Across The Curriculum: Using Cognitive Science To Answer The Call For Better Legal Research Instruction, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The American Bar Association (ABA), law students, and employers are demanding that law schools do better when teaching legal research. Academic critics are demanding that law professors begin to apply the lessons from the science of learning to improve student outcomes. The practice of law is changing.

Yet, the data shows that law schools are not changing their legal research curriculum to respond to the need of their students or to address the ABA’s mandate. This stagnation comes at the same time as an explosion in legal information and a decrease in technical research skills among incoming students. This article …