Law Commons^™

Renovating Or Innovating? The Current Curriculum Reforms At Unsw, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

This conference paper outlines the curriculum review process at UNSW as it was in 2012. The paper reflects on the history of the law school and the success of the review processes.

Putting Theory Into Practice: Thoughts From The Trenches On Developing A Doctrinally Integrated Semester-In-Practice Program In Health Law And Policy, Michele L. Mekel

Michele L Mekel

With the employment market for attorneys currently in a subpar state, legal employers have the attention of both law students and law schools, and these employers are demanding practice-ready practitioners. In response, law schools are turning increasingly to experiential learning opportunities of various types. For law schools with concentrations, certificate programs, or centers of excellence, experiential learning presents synergies upon which to capitalize in offering students specialized, hands-on training that matches their interests and makes them more attractive employment candidates upon graduation.

Teaching Students To Negotiate Like A Lawyer, John Lande

John Lande

Teaching students to negotiate effectively is central to their thinking, acting, and being like good lawyers. Virtually all lawyers spend much of their time negotiating, whether they deal with disputes or transactions. So law school negotiation courses should provide the most realistic possible portrayal of legal negotiation. This essay is intended to help instructors plan and teach negotiation courses, recognizing that every course should be tailored to fit the interests, capabilities, resources, and constraints of the instructors and students. This essay argues that many lawyers engage in “ordinary legal negotiation” (OLN), which is distinct from “romantic” theories of positional and …

Professor Kingsfield In Conflict: Rhetorical Constructions Of The U.S. Law Professor Persona(E), Carlo A. Pedrioli

Carlo A. Pedrioli

At least since the 1960s, a “‘two cultures’ phenomenon” has become quite apparent within the legal field in the United States. On one hand, some lawyers, usually those within the university, have been more academically oriented, and, on the other hand, other lawyers, usually those in legal practice or sitting on the bench, have been more pragmatically oriented. Problems arise when these two groups begin to talk differently from each other. In a way, the field of law has developed into at least two different legal professions, and, not surprisingly, scholars and practitioners have experienced tension because of this situation. …

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 …

Feeling At Home: Law, Cognitive Science, And Narrative, Lea B. Vaughn

Lea B Vaughn

What is the “how and why” of law’s affinity for narrative? In order to explain why the use of stories is such an effective teaching and presentation strategy in the law, this paper will consider theories and accounts from cognitive as well as evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and, briefly, cultural anthropology. This account seeks to address “how” narrative helps us learn and use the law as well as “why” we are so compelled to use stories in teaching and in practice.

Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to “grab” someone’s attention. Emotionally charged events are more likely …

Studying And Teaching "Law As Rhetoric": A Place To Stand, Linda L. Berger

Linda L. Berger

This article proposes that law students may find a better fit within the legal culture of argument if they are introduced to rhetorical alternatives to counter narrowly formalist and realist perspectives on how the law works and how judges decide cases. The article makes a two-part argument: first, introducing law students to rhetorical alternatives allows them to envision their role as lawyers as constructive, effective, and imaginative while grounded in law, language, and reason. Second, offering rhetorical alternatives allows law professors to enrich their own study and teaching and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the law school classroom …

Levinas, Law Schools And The Poor: They Stand Over Us, Marie A. Failinger

Marie A. Failinger

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has written about the ethics of the Face and our responsibility to the Other who is standing over us, demanding that we respond to his need and his welcome. This essay, which is written in Levinasan style, challenges the complacency of most American law schools in response to the plight of the poor. It proposes ways in which the law school curriculum, space and programs can be re-configured to bring the poor into community with legal educators and students.

The Potential Contribution Of Adr To An Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students For Real World Lawyering, John Lande, Jean R. Sternlight

John Lande

This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes. Recognizing these substantial barriers, it proposes a modest and feasible menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can achieve without investing substantial additional resources. The proposals are not intended as a comprehensive package to be implemented on an all-or-nothing basis but as a set of options to be selected by individual faculty …

The Rhetoric Of Catharsis And Change: Law School Autobiography As A Nonfiction Law And Literature Subgenre, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Carlo A. Pedrioli

To date, little scholarship, if any, has addressed the autobiographies of law students, which have appeared in law review articles and books since at least the late 1970s. This shortcoming of law and literature scholarship in the nonfiction genre of autobiography is problematic. In the interest of understanding diverse perspectives in the legal community, legal scholars with autobiographical interests ought to give attention to the autobiographies of different individuals in this community, including the law students who will be the future members of the profession. Also, this shortcoming leaves a gap in the narrative discourse of the law since lawyers …

Do “Sea Turtles” Creep Faster Than “Soft-Shell Turtles”: A Quantitative Study Of Academic Performance Of Law Faculty In Premier Chinese Law Schools, Wei Zhang

Wei Zhang

No abstract provided.

Happy Law Students, Happy Lawyers, Nancy Levit, Douglas Linder

Nancy Levit

This article draws on research into the science of happiness and asks a series of interrelated questions: Whether law schools can make law students happier? Whether making happier law students will translate into making them happier lawyers, and the accompanying question of whether making law students happier would create better lawyers? After covering the limitations of genetic determinants of happiness and happiness set-points, the article addresses those qualities that happiness research indicates are paramount in creating satisfaction: control, connections, creative challenge (or flow), and comparisons (preferably downward). Those qualities are then applied to legal education, while addressing the larger philosophical …

Economic Analysis Of Law In North America, Europe And Israel, Oren Gazal-Ayal

Oren Gazal-Ayal

What explains the popularity of law and economics (L&E) in some academic communities and the scarcity of such scholarship in others? Many explanations have been given for the centrality of economic analysis in American legal thought and its marginality in Europe. This article examines what drives scholars to select L&E as a topic for research. It does so by implementing the methodology of many papers in the field – by assuming that regulation and incentives matter. Legal scholars face very different academic incentives in different parts of the world. In some countries, the academic standards for appointment, promotion and tenure …

Calling For Stories, Nancy Levit, Allen Rostron

Nancy Levit

Storytelling is a fundamental part of legal practice, teaching, and thought. Telling stories as a method of practicing law reaches back to the days of the classical Greek orators. Before legal education became an academic matter, the apprenticeship system for training lawyers consisted of mentoring and telling war stories. As the law and literature movement evolved, it sorted itself into three strands: law in literature, law as literature, and storytelling. The storytelling branch blossomed.

Over the last few decades, storytelling became a subject of enormous interest and controversy within the world of legal scholarship. Law review articles appeared in the …

Building A Curriculum Framework: Law, Lawyers And Society, Alex Steel, Glen Jeffreys

Alex Steel

This report describes the development a model for sustainable curriculum development and re-invigoration in the School of Law, using LAWS 6210 Law, Lawyers and Society as a case study. In many approaches to curriculum review, there is an assumption that the rationale for the course is already determined and the review process is merely about deciding which teaching materials, or mode of teaching, are the best methods by which to achieve the aims. However, the approach described in this report allows each participant to share their understanding of what the course meant to them, therefore providing a much richer understanding …

Criterion Rubric For Research Essays, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

A detailed criterion rubric for legal research essays.

An Explicit Connection Between Faith And Justice In Catholic Legal Education: Why Rock The Boat?, Amelia J. Uelmen

Amelia J Uelmen

No abstract provided.

Applying New Rhetoric To Legal Discourse: The Ebb And Flow Of Reader And Writer, Text And Context, Linda L. Berger

Linda L. Berger

No abstract provided.