Law Commons^™

Why Judy Norman Acted In Reasonable Self-Defense: An Abused Woman And A Sleeping Man, Marina Angel

Marina Angel

The reasonable man has been replaced by the reasonable person, but that person still functions within legal doctrines conceived by men and interpreted to fit the facts of men's lives. To understand why it is sometimes reasonable for an abused woman to kill her abuser while he is asleep or otherwise incapacitated, basic criminal law doctrines do not have to be changed. They do, however, have to be applied to the facts of abused women's lives.

The issue of exit – why didn’t she leave – must be explained. Concepts of time – immediate, imminent, and cyclical – must be …

La Formazione Professionale Continua Dell'avvocato A Confronto Con Il Modello Tedesco, Valerio Sangiovanni

Valerio Sangiovanni

No abstract provided.

"A Bulwark Against Anarchy": Affirmative Action, Emory Law School, And Southern Self-Help, William B. Turner

William B Turner

This article presents archival evidence about Pre-Start, Emory Law School’s affirmative action program from 1966 to 1972. It places that evidence into the context of current legal and scholarly debates about affirmative action in law school admissions and demonstrates that Pre-Start is an extremely important case study for anyone who wishes to think carefully about this important topic. I perform post-hoc strict scrutiny on Pre-Start, showing that it meets, not only the standard of the majority in Grutter v. Bollinger (539 U.S. 306 (2003)), but even the much more exacting standard of dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas. Because white supremacists are …

"A Bulwark Against Anarchy": Affirmative Action, Emory Law School, And Southern Self-Help, William B. Turner

William B Turner

This article presents archival evidence about Pre-Start, Emory Law School’s affirmative action program from 1966 to 1972. It places that evidence into the context of current legal and scholarly debates about affirmative action in law school admissions and demonstrates that Pre-Start is an extremely important case study for anyone who wishes to think carefully about this important topic. I perform post-hoc strict scrutiny on Pre-Start, showing that it meets, not only the standard of the majority in Grutter v. Bollinger (539 U.S. 306 (2003)), but even the much more exacting standard of dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas. Because white supremacists are …

Unpacking The Bar: Of Cut Scores, Competence And Crucibles, Gary S. Rosin

Gary S Rosin

Bar passage rates of first-takers vary widely among both the states and the law schools. State grading practices also vary widely, particularly as to minimum passing scores (“cut scores”) and whether they scale state exam components to the MultiState Bar Exam (“MBE”). The broad ranges of Bar passage rates and of state grading practices call into question the stewardship of the states over admission to the practice of law. This study uses generalized linear modeling, with a logit link function, to isolate the effect on the Bar passage rates of ABA-approved law schools of three factors: (i) the LSAT scores …

Unpacking The Bar: Of Cut Scores, Competence And Crucibles, Gary S. Rosin

Gary S Rosin

Bar passage rates of first-takers vary widely among both the states and the law schools. State grading practices also vary widely, particularly as to minimum passing scores (“cut scores”) and whether they scale state exam components to the MultiState Bar Exam (“MBE”). The broad ranges of Bar passage rates and of state grading practices call into question the stewardship of the states over admission to the practice of law. This study uses generalized linear modeling, with a logit link function, to isolate the effect on the Bar passage rates of ABA-approved law schools of three factors: (i) the LSAT scores …

Evaluating Goals And Methods Of A Skills Curriculum: Challenges And Opportunities For Law Schools, Harriet N. Katz

Harriet N Katz

Law schools have compelling reasons to begin a process of thoroughly reviewing their skills curriculum. A new ABA Standard for Accreditation, revised in 2005 to mandate skills education for every law student, is now being applied at law school re-accreditation reviews. In addition, EDUCATING LAWYERS, a report by the Carnegie Foundation, and BEST PRACTICES FOR LEGAL EDUCATION, an analysis by law professors, both published in 2007 and distributed nationally, draw critical attention to the methods and goals of law schools’ educational program throughout the curriculum. All three of these important publications emphasize preparing students for practice as competent and ethical …

Successful Stories And Stories Of Success: Reflections On The History Of The Law And Economics Movement, Nimrod H. Aviad

Nimrod Haim Aviad

This paper joins a handful of attempts to understand the Law & Economics movement’s success in American legal academia. Adopting an historical perspective, the paper analyzes for the first time the movement’s own stories of success, developed and maintained by the movement’s own members, and considers them as a possible blue-print for success in contemporary legal academia. By following these stories of success, one comes to understand the keen ability of the movement’s economists and lawyer-economists to identify those patterns of academic practice which would eventually grant them the paramount academic capital that they have enjoyed over the last thirty …

Legal Education In The Age Of Cognitive Science And Advanced Classroom Technology, Deborah J Merritt

Deborah J Merritt

Cognitive scientists have made major advances in mapping the process of learning, but legal educators know little about this work. Similarly, law professors have engaged only modestly with new learning technologies like PowerPoint, classroom response systems, podcasts, and web-based instruction. This article addresses these gaps by examining recent research in cognitive science, demonstrating how those insights apply to a sample technology (PowerPoint), and exploring the broader implications of both cognitive science and new classroom technologies for legal education. The article focuses on three fields of cognitive science inquiry: the importance of right brain learning, the limits of working memory, and …

Law Students Who Learn Differently: A Narrative Case Study Of Three Law Students With Attention Deficit Disorder (Add), Leah M. Christensen

Leah M Christensen

Abstract: More law students than ever before begin law school having been diagnosed with a learning disability. As legal educators, do we have an obligation to expand our teaching methodologies beyond the typical law student? What teaching methodologies work most effectively for law students with learning disabilities? The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of law students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) about their law school experience. The case study yielded four themes relating to the social, learning and achievement domains of the students. First, law students with ADD experienced feelings of isolation in law school; second, …

Navigating The Article Selection Process: An Empirical Study Of Those With All The Power--Student Editors, Leah M. Christensen, Julie A. Oseid

Leah M Christensen

Abstract: Anyone who enters the legal academy knows the pressure for new law professors to publish or perish. The use of student editors as the “gatekeepers” of legal scholarship is a distinctive feature of the legal academy. Yet, even with student editors holding the keys to academic success, few empirical studies have explored what factors student editors consider most important when making article selection decisions. The study reported in this Article attempts to shed light on this process and provide suggestions for new law professors as they navigate the law review article submission process. The present study examines how law …

Liberal Bias In The Legal Academy: Overstated And Undervalued, Michael Vitiello

Michael Vitiello

Abstract of Liberal Bias in the Legal Academy: Overstated and Undervalued According to the right, universities are hotbeds of radicalism. Critics of universities like David Horowitz have tried to push their agenda through legislation. Until recently, law schools drew little attention. That changed with the publication of a study that appeared in the Georgetown Law Journal; the right now cites the study as evidence that law schools too lean too far to the left. This article examines the debate. First, it examines the Georgetown study and concludes that the study overstates the extent to which law faculties are dominated by …

Community Lawyering In The Juvenile Cellblock: Creative Uses Of Legal Problem Solving To Reconcile Competing Narratives On Prosecutorial Abuse, Juvenile Criminality, And Public Safety, David Dominguez

David Dominguez

Community Lawyering in the Juvenile Cellblock: Creative Uses of Legal Problem Solving to Reconcile Competing Narratives on Prosecutorial Abuse, Juvenile Criminality, and Public Safety challenges systemic deficiencies in juvenile detention practices from the perspective of Community Lawyering. Community Lawyering in these circumstances achieves two goals. First, it offers legal assistance to the incarcerated child in order to vindicate legal interests protected by the United States Constitution and state statute. Secondly, through creative use of law students’ problem solving skills, Community Lawyering works with others in the community to realize the vision of a collaborative system of juvenile justice, one that …

Teaching In Reverse: A Positive Approach To Analytical Errors In 1l Writing, Lesley S. Kagan, Susan E. Provenzano

Lesley S Kagan

In this manuscript, we explore student-centered teaching methods that embrace student error as part of the learning process. Specifically, we advocate an error-as-growth philosophy, urging legal writing professors to address 1L analytical errors early in the semester, give the students a clear understanding of where they are likely to go astray and teach the students strategies for avoiding error during, rather than after, the writing process. We document the common analytical errors in our students’ writing assignments, review cognitive psychology and composition theories that might explain these errors, and design a curriculum that “teaches in reverse” – that is, moves …

What Helps Law Professors Develop As Teachers? - An Empirical Study, Sophie M. Sparrow, Gerald F. Hess

Sophie M Sparrow

The overall goal of this article is to provide concrete suggestions for how law schools can improve teaching and enrich law student learning. In doing so, it reviews and analyzes the data collected from two national surveys about the kinds of faculty development activities that are most effective in improving law professors’ teaching. One survey was designed to quantify how many law teachers engaged in twenty-two types of teaching development activities over the previous five years and to assess the effectiveness of each of those activities. The other survey focused on the effectiveness of a national conference on teaching and …

Teaching In Reverse: A Positive Approach To Analytical Errors In1l Writing, Lesley S. Kagan, Susan E. Provenzano

Lesley S Kagan

In this manuscript, "Teaching in Reverse: A Positive Approach to Analytical Errors in 1L Writing," we explore student-centered teaching methods that embrace student error as part of the learning process. Specifically, we advocate an error-as-growth philosophy, urging legal writing professors to address 1L analytical errors early in the semester, give the students a clear understanding of where they are likely to go astray and teach the students strategies for avoiding error during, rather than after, the writing process. We document the common analytical errors in our students’ writing assignments, review cognitive psychology and composition theories that might explain these errors, …

The De-Evolution Of American Legal Ethics, Jennifer Schultz Reed

Jennifer Schultz Reed

That since Legal Ethics became a mandatory course in all ABA accredited law schools in 1974, there has been little, if any, perceptible change in the ethics of the legal profession. The absence of significant discernable impact is due to several factors: the failure to define what the profession means and intends by the concept of legal ethics; the inability of law schools to find coherent and successful ways to teach this subject; and the fact that the public generally continues to regard lawyers with little respect and to equate the misdeeds of some with the conduct of most. In …

Bridging The Gaps: How Cross-Disciplinary Training With Mbas Can Improve Professional Education, Prepare Students For Private Practice, And Enhance University Life, Seth Freeman

Seth Freeman

What can law schools do to address the criticisms in the Carnegie Foundation’s January 2007 report on legal education? That report found that law schools are not teaching students how to be competent lawyers. One particularly promising answer is cross-disciplinary training with MBAs, which leading law schools such as NYU, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard have embraced in recent years. In this article, I explore the value of such courses, and discuss a cross-disciplinary course that I successfully debuted in the Fall of 2006 at NYU entitled, “Negotiating Complex Transactions with Executives and Lawyers.” More generally, I argue …

Student Body Diversity: A View From The Trenches, Gail S. Stephenson

Gail S. Stephenson

Although educators have stressed the value of classroom diversity for 150 years, American law schools are becoming less diverse. Total minority enrollment in ABA-approved law schools was down for the academic year 2005-2006, and the number of African Americans enrolled has reached its lowest point since 1990-1991. The ABA revised Standard 211 (renumbered 212) to require law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action” their commitment to diversity. This revision has been quite controversial, drawing opposition from those who do not believe that diversity is important.

The author, who teaches at a historically black law school with a fairly even mix …

A Primer For New Civil Law Clinic Students, Steve Berenson

Steve Berenson

Abstract Many law students’ initial experiences in live-client clinics are likely to be unfamiliar and unsettling. It may be reassuring to such students to know that generations of students before them have encountered a remarkably similar array of issues. Moreover, the new clinic students’ experiences will take place within a context that has been shaped significantly by a series of choices, conflicts, and controversies that have marked the common history and development of the civil legal aid and clinical legal education movements in America. The goal of this primer is to familiarize such students with this common ancestry and the …

"The Paradox Of Legal Expertise: A Study Of Experts And Novices Reading The Law", Leah M. Christensen

Leah M Christensen

Abstract: What strategies do lawyers and judges use to read the law? The study described in this article examined the way in which 10 legal experts (8 lawyers and 2 judges) and 10 novices (law students in the top 50% of their class) read a judicial opinion. Whereas the experts read efficiently (taking less overall time), the beginning law students read less efficiently. Where the experts read the text flexibly, moving back and forth between different parts of the opinion, the novices read inflexibly. The experts connected to the purpose of their reading more consistently than the novices and drew …

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 …

China's Future Lawyers: Some Differences In Education And Outlook, Patricia Ross Mccubbin, Malinda L. Seymore, Andrea Anne Curcio, Llewellyn Joseph Gibbons

Patricia Ross McCubbin

In this short essay, four U.S. professors who recently served as Fulbright Lecturers in Law in China share important observations about China's future lawyers. The authors discuss key differences in the legal education systems of the two countries, noting that the most significant difference is the lack of Chinese training in the critical legal analysis so familiar to U.S.-trained lawyers. The authors also discuss Chinese law students' limited knowledge of the U.S. legal system and U.S. culture generally. This essay seeks to help members of the U.S. legal community understand the different skill sets and information that Chinese lawyers may …

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 …

Educación Jurídica: Ejercicio Político Desde La Técnica, Jorge Gonzalez-Jacome

Jorge Gonzalez-Jacome

Los estudiantes de primer semestre de una facultad de derecho se diferencian radicalmente de los que se encuentran en los últimos semestres, no sólo por la experiencia de cinco años más de carrera y conocimiento, sino también por la falta de fe de estos últimos y la esperanza de los primeros. La actitud de la falta de fe se refiere a una persona que está altamente capacitada para la labor mecánica del derecho, pero sin mucha esperanza de que a través del ejercicio del derecho pueda hacer una transformación social. Es un gran técnico del derecho. Por su parte el …