Law Commons^™

The Salary Memo, Robert M. Jarvis

Robert M. Jarvis

This short essay takes a humorous look at how law school deans decide faculty raises.

The Importance Of Comparative Law In Legal Education: United States Goals And Methods Of Legal Comparisons, Hugh J. Ault, Mary Ann Glendon

Hugh J. Ault

This Essay discusses the gradual changes occurring within legal education, which are finding wide acceptance in law schools throughout the United States. These changes include greater attention to other disciplines, primarily economics and behavioral sciences, and the contributions they make to a fuller understanding of the legal system. In addition, law schools are increasingly exploring the ways in which the law in textbooks may differ from the law in action. Nearly every law school, therefore, is seriously investigating the social and economic background of legal rules and their consequences through clinical legal education, which attempts to provide a real or …

Emerging Models For Alternatives To Marriage, Sanford N. Katz

Sanford N. Katz

Perhaps one of the most important changes in family law in the past thirty years has been the inclusion of certain kinds of friendships in the range of relationships from which rights and responsibilities can flow. Domestic partnership laws, a phenomenon of the 1990s, may be seen as a natural development from the judicial recognition of contract cohabitation and the legislative and judicial response to same-sex couples who, unable to meet statutory requirements for marriage, have sought official recognition of their relationships. This essay discusses an aspect of certain kinds of domestic partnership laws-their formal requirements and the extent to …

Beyond The Ada: How Clinics Can Assist Law Students With “Non-Visible” Disabilities To Bridge The Accommodations Gap Between Classroom And Practice, Alexis Anderson, Norah Wylie

Norah Wylie

This article examines how best to educate law students with disabilities so that they can successfully transition from classroom to practice. At the very time that the importance of experiential learning is being trumpeted as critical to the preparation of all law students for practice, all too little attention has been given to the role of clinical education in helping students with non-visible disabilities succeed in their chosen careers. Increasingly, law students are seeking accommodations for a range of mental health, cognitive, and learning disabilities. Law schools have become more adept at providing accommodations in academic classes to qualified students …

A Brief Reflection On The Multiple Identities And Roles Of The Twenty-First Century Clinician, Michael Pinard

Michael Pinard

No abstract provided.

Why I Teach (A Prescription For The Post-Tenure Blues), R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

In this brief essay from a collection of articles designed to demonstrate the scope and breadth of issues in legal pedagogy, Professor Michael Cassidy explores an important psychological event for many in the legal academy - the post-tenure blues. He offers reasons to keep doing what we do - teach with joy, inspiration and a sense of purpose for the next generation. He encourages us to think of our own reasons for what keeps us going in an occupation that many of us think is one of the best in the world.

"The Purer Fountains": Bacon And Legal Education, Daniel R. Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

Today, the classical underpinnings of American legal education are under intense critical review. The dominant pedagogy, the case book and the Socratic method, were established by Christopher Columbus Langdell (1806-1906) at Harvard Law School more than a century ago. Together with Langdell's first year curriculum, which was exclusively focused on Anglo-American common law doctrine, and his emphasis on a competitive, anonymous graded meritocracy, this system still exercises an incredible grip on elite American law schools. But Langdell's 19th Century model has now been challenged by many rivals, including critical legal studies, law and economics empiricism, global curriculums, and clinical instruction. …

Environmental Law And Three Economies: Navigating A Sprawling Field Of Study, Practice, And Societal Governance In Which Everything Is Connected To Everything Else, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

The vast sprawl of the environmental law field makes it a bemusing and confounding puzzle even to those who pursue it as their primary academic vocation. The amorphous breadth and intricate depths of environmental law present special challenges to anyone who tries to navigate the field. This Article addresses several of these challenges, briefly analyzing how environmental curricula are designed, and then suggests a potentially useful new way to conceptualize the realm of environmental law.

The Law School Firm, Bradley T. Borden, Robert J. Rhee

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Training Tomorrow's Lawyers: What Empirical Research Can Tell Us About The Effect Of Law School Pedagogy On Law Student Learning Styles, Eric A. Degroff

Eric A DeGroff

ABSTRACT

Training Tomorrow’s Lawyers: What Empirical Research Can Tell Us About the Effect of Law School Pedagogy on Law Student Learning Styles

Though the legal academy is a relative newcomer to the field, questions concerning law school pedagogy and law student learning styles have gained increasing traction among legal scholars in recent years. This article reports on the results of empirical research concerning the effects of the law school experience and of disparate pedagogical approaches on law student learning styles.

In what appears to be the first research of its kind in a law school context, the article reports the …

The Usefulness Of . . . Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Why Every Law Student Should Be A Gunner, Robert M. Lloyd

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

This essay forcefully urges law students to stand up to peer pressure and volunteer frequently in class.

Scamlaw And The Macroeconomy, Alan J. Meese

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Mind The Gap: How Law Professors, Academic Support Professionals, And Students Can Fill In The Formative Assessment Gap, Heather Zuber-Harshman

Heather Zuber-Harshman

This article serves to accomplish three things. First, to provide students with feedback tools that will help them achieve academic success and improve the quality of their law school experience. Students who do not receive feedback or receive inadequate feedback should use the provided forms to proactively and creatively find ways to obtain feedback. They should never be afraid or too proud to ask others for assistance with generating this feedback.

Second, to encourage professors and Academic Support professionals who believe students should receive adequate feedback to take steps towards providing the feedback.

Third, to provide Academic Support professionals with …

Use Your Words: Providing Informational Feedback As A Means To Support Self-Determination And Improve Law Student Outlook And Outcomes, Paula J. Manning

Paula J Manning

When law school faculty neglect to make careful and informed choices about the words we use, ignoring the impact of those words on our students’ potential for success in law school, law practice and life, we contribute to our students’ psychological distress and decline in motivation and performance—which may well carry forward to the legal profession and justice system. This article uses the lens of self-determination theory to explore a simple and concrete step law school faculty can take to improve students’ outlook and outcomes, by making changes in feedback practices that contribute to the autonomy thwarting educational environment that …

Book Review Of Current Issues In Constitutional Litigation: A Context And Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press 2011), Christy Whitfield

Sarah E. Ricks

This is a book review of Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation: A Context & Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press 2011). My perspective is unique because I have worked with and watched this casebook evolve – I was assigned an early draft of the casebook as a law school student taking a constitutional litigation course, I worked as a research assistant on a later version of the casebook, and now, several years later, I have viewed the final result of the casebook as a practicing attorney. As a former law clerk and now as an attorney advisor in the beginning years …

Using John Dewey's Pragmatist Epistemology To Teach Legal Analysis And Communication, David T. Ritchie

David T. Ritchie

In this article I discuss the epistemology of the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, who maintained that there is a “common pattern or structure” of human reasoning. According to Dewey, we naturally employ pragmatic problem-solving. In his epistemological works Dewey frequently discussed legal reasoning as a paradigm example of this sort of problem-solving. I develop and explain Dewey’s pragmatist epistemology, and then relate it to how novices can benefit from understanding his account. I end the article by explaining how I use this account of human reasoning in my law school classes.

.Compelling Orthodoxy: Myth And Mystique In The Marketing Of Legal Education, Kenneth Lasson

Kenneth Lasson

Abstract In many ways the story of modern legal education reads like a grim fairy tale, whose moral dénouement is no less compelling and perhaps more consequential than its fabulist forbears. Today's law schools are preoccupied with their reputations -- as much a survival instinct as anything else. The competition for bright students and talented faculty is more intense than ever, and marketing has increasingly come to be treated as a consideration at least as important as the actual academic enterprise. Thus do administrators seek to adopt a strategic identity plans – “building the brand” in the common parlance of …

Teaching Social Justice Lawyering: Systematically Including Community Legal Education In Clinical Legal Education, Margaret Johnson, Catherine Klein, Margaret Barry, Lisa Martin, A. Camp

Margaret E Johnson

There is a body of literature on clinical legal theory that urges a focus in clinics beyond the single client to an explicit teaching of social justice lawyering. This Article adds to this emerging body of work by discussing the valuable role community legal education plays as a vehicle for teaching skills and values essential to single client representation and social justice lawyering. The Article examines the theoretical underpinnings of clinical legal education, community organizing and community education and how they influenced the authors’ design and implementation of community legal education within their clinics. It then discusses two projects designed …

Alternative Justifications For Academic Support Ii: How “Academic Support Across The Curriculum” Helps Meet The Goals Of The Carnegie Report And Best Practices, Louis N. Schulze Jr.

Louis N. Schulze Jr.

In the wake of two momentous critiques of legal education, popularly known as the “Carnegie Report” and “Best Practices,” law schools are reconsidering certain basic assumptions about how we educate future lawyers. Even the most forward-thinking reformers, however, struggle with the details of how to implement many of the recommendations of those reports. Providing more formative assessment, for instance, is a laudable objective but one that has serious ramifications in terms of resource expenditures. This article seeks to provide a remedy for many of these struggles: “Academic Support Across the Curriculum.” This piece argues that the reconceptualization of an under-leveraged …

The Law School Firm, Bradley T. Borden, Robert J. Rhee

Robert Rhee

This Article introduces the concept of the law school firm. The concept calls for law schools to establish affiliated law firms. The affiliation would provide opportunities for students, faculty, and attorneys to collaborate and share resources to teach, research, write, serve clients, and influence the development of law and policy. Based loosely on the medical school model, the law school firm will help bridge the gap between law schools and the practice of law.

Performance Isn’T Everything: The Importance Of Conceptual Competence In Outcome Assessment Of Experiential Learning, Stefan H. Krieger

Stefan H Krieger

The ABA is on the brink of a seismic shift in its law school accreditation standards. The new standards would require law schools to identify, pursue and assess goals for student learning outcomes. This change in focus has been heavily influenced by the Carnegie Report’s recommendations for reform of American legal education. This report has been hailed in numerous law review articles but has been subject to little critical analysis. This article scrutinizes—and ultimately rejects—the recommendations of the Carnegie Report for outcomes and assessment in the area of experiential education. The Carnegie Report argues that practical education should focus on …

Social Capital Benefits Of Peer Mentoring Relationships In Law School, Meera E. Deo, Kimberly A. Griffin

Meera E Deo

Scholars have addressed the rigors of law school and suggest mentorship may help students better navigate their educational environments. However, literature largely addresses the role of faculty mentors, less often considering peer mentors in the law school context. This study explores first year law students’ motivation in forming peer mentoring relationships and the roles peer mentors play in students’ lives. Analyses of survey and focus group data collected from 203 first-year law students at 11 institutions reveal that the majority rely on peer support, forming formal, informal, and “organizational” peer mentoring relationships. Relationship formation is motivated by students’ acknowledged need …

Reinvigorating The 1l Curriculum: Sequenced "Writing Across The Curriculum" Assignments As The Foundation For Producing Practice-Ready Law Graduates, Alice M. Noble-Allgire, Suzanne J. Schmitz

Alice M. Noble-Allgire

Study after study lists written legal analysis as one of the most critical skills of a lawyer; yet it is often under-developed in the traditional law school curriculum. This article describes an integrative, sequenced “Writing Across the Curriculum” (WAC) program to help first-year law students master legal analysis and writing by systematically developing these skills though writing assignments in doctrinal courses, thereby enhancing the instruction that students receive in the Lawyering Skills course. The article discusses the key components of the program --- writing assignments sequenced to build skills incrementally from simple to complex; prompt and consistent feedback based upon …

Reinvigorating The 1l Curriculum: Sequenced Awriting Across The Curriculum@ Assignments As The Foundation For Producing Practice-Ready Law Graduates, Alice M. Noble-Allgire, Suzanne J. Schmitz

Alice M. Noble-Allgire

This article describes an integrative, sequenced “Writing Across the Curriculum” (WAC) program to help first-year law students master legal analysis and writing by systematically developing these skills though writing assignments in doctrinal courses, thereby enhancing the instruction that students receive in the Lawyering Skills course. The article discusses the key components of the program --- writing assignments sequenced to build skills incrementally from simple to complex; prompt and consistent feedback based upon a competency model; and transparency in setting forth the professor’s expectations, both in advance of the exercise and in the feedback --- and assesses some of the benefits …

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2011, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2011, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Ethical Issues In Business And The Lawyer's Role, Robert J. Rhee, Carol Morgan, Tamar Frankel, Mark Fagan

Robert Rhee

No abstract provided.

Teaching Law With Online Role-Playing Simulations, Ira Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

This document contains materials prepared for the summer 2011 conference of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning held at New York Law School. The concise materials include: a listing of useful online tools; documentation for a miniature simulation; suggested components of an "associate" case file; methodology for formative and summative evaluation; and a sample scoresheet incorporating all ten MacCrate skills. A summary of the presentation is provided below: Live websites provide a dynamic “sandbox” for role-playing simulations that cast students as “lawyers” acting for fictional clients. Such simulations, initially crafted for a Cyberlaw class, can also be used in …

Re-Conceptualizing The Law Of Nuisance Through A Theory Of Economic Captivity, George P. Smith

George P Smith

Re-conceptualizing the Law of Nuisance through a Theory of Economic Captivity

George P. Smith, II

Matthew Saunig

Abstract:

Generally, the fact that a plaintiff comes to a nuisance is not a per se defense to a nuisance action. This defense is viewed in many jurisdictions as but a factor in determining whether a defendant’s conduct is an unreasonable interference with use and enjoyment of a neighbor’s property. In principle, two other affirmative defenses are—although not often allowed in practice by the courts—found in contributory negligence and assumption of the risk.

This Article seeks to develop a theory of economic captivity …