Law Commons^™

The Need For Social Support From Law Schools During The Era Of Social Distancing, Michele Okoh, Inès Ndonko Nnoko

Faculty Scholarship

Law students have been faced with unparalleled stress during the syndemic. They must cope with being students during the COVID-19 pandemic but also must deal with stress related to social and political unrest. This essay recommends that law schools apply social support theory in developing interventions to effectively address the needs of law students now and in the future.

Social support theory focuses on the value and benefits one receives from positive interpersonal relationships. These positive relationships impact both mental and physical health and promote beneficial short and long-term overall health. However, not all supports are the same, and social …

Lawyering Paradoxes: Making Meaning Of The Contradictions, Susan P. Sturm

Faculty Scholarship

Effective lawyering requires the ability to manage contradictory yet interdependent practices. In their role as traditionally understood, lawyers must fight, judge, debate, minimize risk, and advance clients’ interests. Yet increasingly, lawyers must ALSO collaborate, build trust, innovate, enable effective risk-taking, and hold clients accountable for adhering to societal values. Law students and lawyers alike struggle, often unproductively, to reconcile these tensions. Law schools often address them as a dilemma requiring a choice or overlook the contradictions that interfere with their integration.

This Article argues instead that these seemingly contradictory practices can be brought together through the theory and action of …

Dumping: On Law Reviews, James Boyle

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Law Students And Cell Phone Use: Results Of A Six-School Survey, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Student-Edited Law Reviews Should Continue To Flourish, Sudha Setty

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, the Author opines that the institution of the student-edited law review could no doubt be improved upon in a number of ways, but the existence of the student-edited journal should be sustained, nurtured, and grown by law school administration and faculty. Helping student-edited law reviews improve and flourish should be part of the mission of teachers, scholars, and lawyers committed to providing a skills-based education, for an intellectual discourse, and a service to the legal community.

Meeting The Challenges Of Instructing International Law Graduate Students In Legal Research, Nina E. Scholtz, Femi Cadmus

Faculty Scholarship

Teaching international LL.M. students legal research offers its own peculiar challenges. The brevity of the LL.M. program and the limited time available for thoroughly introducing basic research concepts have made it particularly difficult, but the innovative and creative methods of instruction highlighted in this article have provided good solutions.

A Case For Grade Inflation In Legal Education, Joshua M. Silverstein

Faculty Scholarship

This Article contends that every American law school ought to substantially eliminate C grades by setting its good academic standing grade point average at the B- level. Grading systems that require or encourage law professors to award a significant number of C marks are flawed for two reasons. First, low grades damage students' placement prospects. Employers frequently consider a job candidate's absolute GPA in making hiring decisions. If a school systematically assigns inferior grades, its students are at an unfair disadvantage when competing for employment with students from institutions that award mostly A's and B's. Second, marks in the C …

What's On First?: Organizing The Casebook And Molding The Mind, Donald G. Gifford, Joseph L. Kroart Iii, Brian Jones, Cheryl Cortemeglia

Faculty Scholarship

This study empirically tests the proposition that law students adopt different conceptions of the judge’s role in adjudication based on whether they first study intentional torts, negligence, or strict liability. The authors conducted an anonymous survey of more than 450 students enrolled in eight law schools at the beginning, mid-point, and end of the first semester of law school. The students were prompted to indicate to what extent they believed the judge’s role to be one of rule application and, conversely, to what extent it was one of considering social, economic, and ideological factors. The survey found that while all …

Inside-Out As Law School Pedagogy, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

In the fall of 2010, and again in spring 2012, the Author taught a course entitled Gender & Criminal Law inside the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center in Springfield. Participants in the course included roughly equal numbers of law students from the Author's home academic institution, Western New England University School of Law, and residents of the facility. For fourteen weeks, the class met weekly at the institution to discuss issues including domestic violence law reform, the role of family ties in sentencing, and gender issues in prisoner reentry. The Author taught this course in a modified form of the …

Humanizing Legal Education: An Introduction To A Symposium Whose Time Came, Michael Hunter Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Giving Millennials A Leg-Up: How To Avoid The If I Knew Then What I Know No Syndrome, Leslie Larkin Cooney

Faculty Scholarship

While it may not be possible for law schools to train students completely within three years for the practice of law, we can come much closer to this goal and make the transition to professional life an easier and more productive one. This article explores the common traits of members of the generation comprising today's law students who prefer the label Millennial to others because of their expressed wish not to be associated with Generation X. The article discusses ways to enhance clinical education and teach lifelong learning skills so students can continue developing their problem solving expertise long after …

The Happy Charade: An Empirical Examination Of The Third Year Of Law School, Mitu Gulati, Richard Sander, Robert Sockloskie

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Professional Training, Diversity In Legal Education, And Cost Control: Selection, Training And Peer Review For Adjunct Professors, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

The thesis of this article is that adjunct faculty make a unique and valuable contribution to legal education, that law is best taught by a combination of full-time and adjunct faculty members, and that serious consideration should be given to the issues of how best to divide teaching between full-time faculty and adjuncts. In addition, if adjunct faculty are to be viewed as a positive part of the teaching endeavor, it is essential to consider the ways to maximize their contribution. This article recommends a serious change in the way law schools think about and relate to adjunct faculty. Part …

Note, Moving Ground, Breaking Traditions: Tasha’S Chronicle, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This Note uses a fictional dialogue to analyze and engage issues concerning stereotypes, stigmas, and affirmative action. It also highlights the importance of role models for students of color and the disparate hiring practices of law firms and legal employers through the conversations and thoughts of its main character, Tasha Crenshaw.

The U.C.C. (Sales) As An Introductory Law School Course, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Alienation Of Law Students, Paul D. Carrington, James J. Conley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.