Law Commons^™

The St. Thomas Effect: Law School Mission And The Formation Of Professional Identity, Jennifer Wright

Jennifer Wright

The legal profession has long been criticized for declining standards of professionalism. Recent studies have pointed to the crucial role of legal education in forming the professional identity of lawyers. Law schools must take seriously their duty to intentionally and thoughtfully shape their students’ sense of what it means to be a lawyer and of how their professional identities will align and coexist with their other personal and ethical commitments. In this article, I examine a case study of one law school, the University of St. Thomas School of Law, whose self-proclaimed raison d’etre is to produce a “different kind …

Modern Disparities In Legal Education: Emancipation From Racial Neutrality, David Mears

David Mears

Abstract

Wealth, leadership and political power within any democratic society requires the highest caliber of a quality legal education. The Black experience is not necessarily a unique one within legal education but rather an excellent example of either poor to substandard quality disseminated unequally among racial and socioeconomic stereotypes based upon expected outcomes of probable success or failure. It is often said, “Speak and so it will happen” – many within the halls of academia work hard to openly predict failure yet seemingly do very little to foster success internally within the academic procedures and processes based on the customer …

Broadening Scholarship: Embracing Law Reform And Justice, Douglas L. Colbert

Douglas L. Colbert

No abstract provided.

Connecting Theory And Reality: Teaching Gideon And Indigent Defendants' Non-Right To Counsel At Bail, Douglas L. Colbert

Douglas L. Colbert

In my article, I critique criminal procedure textbooks' and law professors' limited treatment of the constitutional right to counsel at the bail stage. While explaining that casebook authors usually praise the Supreme Court's landmark decisions in Gideon v. Wainwright and Argersinger v. Hamlin for guaranteeing trial counsel to indigent state defendants, I suggest that they shed minimal light on Gideon's irrelevance to most state defendants when they first appear before a judicial officer. Reviewing leading criminal procedure casebooks, I demonstrate that it is the rare text which informs law students that accused defendants should not expect to find a defense …

A Critique Of The Aals Hiring Process, Allen R. Kamp

Allen R. Kamp

The article citiques the process of hiring professors in legal academia.

Service Learning And Legal Education: A Sense Of Duty, Dana Harrington Conner, Nathaniel C. Nichols, Thomas J. Reed

Nathaniel C. Nichols

No abstract provided.

Service Learning And Legal Education: A Sense Of Duty, Dana Harrington Conner, Nathaniel C. Nichols, Thomas J. Reed

Thomas J Reed

No abstract provided.

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades: Law School Through The Lens Of Hope, Faith A. Knotts, Allison D. Martin, Kevin L. Rand

R. George Wright Professor

Law students need hope. The Carnegie Foundation’s recent report about legal education, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, has urged legal educators to begin a revitalization and reawakening in the law school environment. Legal educators can accomplish this goal by engendering hope in their students. Research by Dr. C. R. Snyder, the father of hope theory, and his progeny has shown that hope improves academic performance and psychological well-being among undergraduate students. This article applies hope theory to law students and concludes that instilling hope can and should be an aim of every legal educator.

Part I of …

Blueprint For Teaching Skills In Practicum And Seminar Courses Using Technology, Andrea L. Johnson

Andrea L Johnson

Abstract: “Blueprint for Teaching Skills in Practicum and Seminar Courses Using Technology” By Professor Andrea L. Johnson, alj@cwsl.edu California Western School of Law 225 Cedar St. San Diego, CA 92101 (619) 525-1474 This article focuses on how to teach skills in practicum and seminar courses using technology. The author conducted a Classroom Assessment Study (“Study”) with 126 students in Business Planning and Telecommunications between 2006-2008. Classroom Assessment is a concept in higher education that uses feedback from students about how they learn from different teaching methods to help them learn skills more effectively. The Study deconstructs the classroom experience using …

Pro Bono Publico As A Conscience Good, Deborah A. Schmedemann

Deborah Schmedemann

Pro bono work performed by American lawyers serves a critical role in the American civil justice system. This paper seeks to explain pro bono through the lens of social science research into volunteering, in particular the economic concept of a conscience good. The paper presents the results of an empirical study involving over 1,100 law students and lawyers. The results include data on lawyers’ motivations to perform pro bono, the impact of various pro bono rules and invitations to perform pro bono, the satisfactions of pro bono work, emotions triggered by pro bono work and pro bono clients, and the …

Into The Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion In Federal Sentencing, Mary K. Ramirez

mary k ramirez

Into the Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion in Federal Sentencing

Recent changes in federal sentencing have shifted discretionary decision-making back to federal district court judges, while appellate courts review challenged sentences for reasonableness. Each judge brings considerable legal experience and qualifications to the bench, however, cultural experiences cannot necessarily prepare judges for the range of persons or situations they will address on the bench. Social psychologists who have studied social cognition have determined that the human brain creates categories and associations resulting in implicit biases and associations that are often unconscious or subconscious. Moreover, research suggests that such biases may …

Curriculum Reform In Context, 1870-2008: Understanding And Overcoming The Limitations Of Contemporary Legal Education, William A. Langer

William A Langer

Curriculum Reform in Context, 1870-2008: Understanding and Overcoming the Limitations of Contemporary Legal Education

William Langer

In 2006, the law schools at Harvard and Stanford announced plans to implement innovative reforms to their traditional legal curricula. While the two law schools’ reform programs are quite different from one another, they both proceed on the premise that legal education has not kept pace with the changes that have taken place in the law, the legal profession, and the global economy over the last several decades, and that the traditional form of legal education, centered around the “case method,” has long been …

Into The Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion In Federal Sentencing, Mary K. Ramirez

mary k ramirez

Into the Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion in Federal Sentencing

Recent changes in federal sentencing have shifted discretionary decision-making back to federal district court judges, while appellate courts review challenged sentences for reasonableness. Each judge brings considerable legal experience and qualifications to the bench, however, cultural experiences cannot necessarily prepare judges for the range of persons or situations they will address on the bench. Social psychologists who have studied social cognition have determined that the human brain creates categories and associations resulting in implicit biases and associations that are often unconscious or subconscious. Moreover, research suggests that such biases may …

The New Boys: Women With Disabilities And The Legal Profession, Carrie G. Basas

Carrie G Basas

This essay fuses the fields of law, feminist theory, and cultural studies to examine the status of women attorneys with disabilities. It is the first study of its kind in the United States. The author conducted an empirical, qualitative, and ethnographic study of women attorneys with disabilities in the United States. Thirty-eight attorneys participated and their narratives form the basis for critical analysis of disability animus and discrimination in the legal profession. The results show an alarming trend toward disabled women attorneys self-accommodating in the workplace, rather than enforcing their employment rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Relying on …

"The Lord Speaks Through Me": Moving Beyond Conventional Law School Pedagogy And The Reasons For Doing So, Robert C. Schehr

Robert C. Schehr

ABSTRACT Maintenance of status quo law school curricular design and delivery, along with the continued marginalization of live client clinic programs, and the discordant objectives of law schools as compared to the expectations of Bar passage, serve to stifle the role of juridic practitioners in the service of justice. Decades of careful scholarship regarding the problems associated with the quality of legal education have repeatedly called for curricular revisions that should enhance the knowledge and skill base of graduates, develop their level of preparedness to actually serve in the profession, and demonstrate care for students. And while there has been …

Predicting Law School Success: A Study Of Goal Orientations, Academic Achievement And The Declining Self-Efficacy Of Our Law Students, Leah M. Christensen

Leah M Christensen

This study asked 157 law students to respond to a survey about their learning goals and motivations for learning in law school. The student responses were correlated to different academic variables, including class rank, LSAT scores, undergraduate GPA. Further, the study explored whether any relationships existed between goal orientations (mastery or performance) and law school success (class rank). The results were illuminating: despite the performance-based curriculum of law school, the most successful students were mastery oriented learners. In contrast, there was no statistical correlation between performance-oriented learning and law school success. Further, the LSAT score was the weakest predictor of …

Gender And The Chinese Legal Profession In Historical Perspective: From Heaven And Earth To Rule Of Woman?, Mary Szto

Mary Szto

This article first discusses the current phenomenon of women judges and male lawyers in China. Many women have joined the ranks of the Chinese judiciary because this is considered a stable job conducive to caring for one’s family, as opposed to being a lawyer, which requires business travel and heavy client entertaining. I then trace this phenomenon to ancient views of Heaven, earth, gender and law in China. In this yin/yang framework, men had primary responsibility for providing sustenance for both this life and the life to come and women were relegated to the “inner chambers”. Also, law was secondary …

Professional Skills And Values In Legal Education: The Gps Model, Gerald F. Hess

Gerald F Hess

Over the last four decades, a series of studies by the bar and the academy assessed the strengths and weaknesses of legal education and advocated that law schools aim to better prepare students for the profession – the Cramton Report, MacCrate Report, Carnegie Report, and Best Practices Project. Surveys of practicing lawyers in Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, and Arizona identified the professional skills and values important to success in the practice of law. This article briefly summarizes the recommendations of those reports and the survey results. It then offers one model of educating law students in professional skills and values. It …

"Props" In The Law School Classroom: A Calendar For The Civil Procedure Course, Charles Rees

Charles A Rees

If, as Shakespeare said, "all the world's a stage," how can we instructors bring more drama to the law school classroom? In particular, how can "props" be used in a course, such as Civil Procedure, to improve learning and have fun? In my Civil Procedure course the "props" include characters from literature--Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet's graveyard scene with Yorick's skull, Alice in Wonderland meeting Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and a new superhero ("Leatherman"). I also use games-spelling bee, yo-yo, "Clue" boardgame, and crossword puzzle. There are articles of clothing--suitcase full of shoes, toga, and flip-flops; and costumes--Nixon mask, wigs, and motorcycle helmet. …

An Interdisciplinary Framework For Understanding And Cultivating Law Student Enthusiasm, Emily Zimmerman

Emily Zimmerman

Anecdotal evidence abounds about the loss of enthusiasm experienced by law students. Law review articles too note this loss of enthusiasm and the demoralization of law students that occurs during their time in law school. However, although the loss of law student enthusiasm is frequently noted, little has been done to systematically analyze law student enthusiasm. Existing literature does not provide a definition of “law student enthusiasm” or a foundation of theory and research for understanding law student enthusiasm and its significance in legal education.

In an effort to fill the gap in our understanding of law student enthusiasm, this …

An Interdisciplinary Framework For Understanding And Cultivating Law Student Enthusiasm, Emily Zimmerman

Emily Zimmerman

Anecdotal evidence abounds about the loss of enthusiasm experienced by law students. Law review articles too note this loss of enthusiasm and the demoralization of law students that occurs during their time in law school. However, although the loss of law student enthusiasm is frequently noted, little has been done to systematically analyze law student enthusiasm. Existing literature does not provide a definition of “law student enthusiasm” or a foundation of theory and research for understanding law student enthusiasm and its significance in legal education. In an effort to fill the gap in our understanding of law student enthusiasm, this …

Sailing Against The Wind: How A Pre-Admission Program Can Prepare At-Risk Students For Success In The Journey Through Law School And Beyond, Julie M. Spanbauer, Sonia Bychkov Green, Maureen Straub Kordesh

Julie M. Spanbauer

ABSTRACT This article provides a scholarly analysis of an innovative and recently created summer special admissions program designed to provide an opportunity for “at-risk” students. This new program, the “Summer College to Assess Legal Education Skills” (SCALES), was created to provide access and opportunity to students who otherwise would not be admitted to law school because their law school indicators fall below the minimum requirements for admission. Thus, the students enrolled in the program include immigrants, minorities, and nontraditional returning students, many of whom represent the first generation in a family to earn a college degree. To the delight and …

"The Lord Speaks Through Me": Moving Beyond Conventional Law School Pedagogy And The Reasons For Doing So, Robert C. Schehr

Robert C. Schehr

No abstract provided.

A Curriculum Design For Living In The 21st Century: Multicultural Curriculum In The Law Sschool, Christie Christie

Christie A Christie

This paper will formulate a multicultural curriculum for law schools, focusing on the first year curriculum and class size. It will also draw heavily on the work of James A. Banks, who was cited frequently in the articles that did address multicultural education in law schools. Banks’ book, Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies, discusses the factors to be integrated into a multicultural curriculum—ethnicity, racial, cultural and language diversity. (Banks, 2003, p. 8). The book is essentially a handbook on implementing a multicultural curriculum, with an emphasis on ethnic identity. While this paper addresses multicultural education with a focus on curriculum, …

Mind The Gaps: Teaching Students To Address Flaws In Their Analysis, Christopher R. Trudeau

Christopher R Trudeau

A main problem for law students is that they make too many logical assumptions – or logical leaps, as I call them – in their analysis. Generally, students tend to do two things. First, students leave gaps in their law; that is, students fail to fully develop the law, define key terms, and use analogy to past cases to help bolster their arguments. Second, some students leave gaps in their application – they assume the reader knows the facts, so they don’t explain things to the reader.This presentation explores various techniques used to teach students to find and fill gaps …

Rankings: A Dramatization Of The Incentives Created By Ranking Law Schools, Jeff Sovern

Jeff Sovern

Rankings: A Dramatization of the Incentives Created by Ranking Law Schools Sellers in a competitive market shift resources from attributes buyers don't care about to attributes buyers do care about. In markets in which buyers rely on imperfect signals for quality, sellers move resources away from improving the quality of their product to enhancing the illusion of quality. For example, before freshness dating, when consumers tested the freshness of bread by squeezing it, bakers reportedly added chemicals to bread to preserve its softness longer, thereby creating the illusion of freshness. Similarly, law school rankings encourage schools to shift resources away …

“The Longest Journey, With A First Step”: Bringing Coherence To Sovereignty And Jurisdictional Issues In Global Employee Benefits Law, Paul Secunda

Paul M. Secunda

One of the most neglected areas of employee benefits law in the United States today is the extraterritorial application of ERISA to U.S. employees in other countries. Additionally, the courts and legislature have not spent the necessary time to discuss ERISA coverage issues for foreign employees, both legal and illegal and both working for foreign government and non-government employers, in the United States. These are increasingly crucial areas of U.S. employee benefits law as the globalization of the world's workplaces continues apace.

After surveying the tangled web of ERISA law in this context, the article proposes two statutory fixes and …

Understanding The Socratic Method In Law School Teaching After The Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers: Preparation For The Legal Profession, Joseph A. Dickinson

Joseph A Dickinson

For many committed law school teachers, the traditional Socratic pedagogy they practice is the irreducible core of legal education. For others its continued practice is a scandal and,more damning, an impediment to learning the practice of law. The Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers: chose not to take a position in this debate, while framing it, thus leaving its call for reform ungrounded.

Rankings: A Dramatization Of The Incentives Created By Ranking Law Schools, Jeff Sovern

Jeff Sovern

Rankings: A Dramatization of the Incentives Created by Ranking Law Schools Sellers in a competitive market shift resources from attributes buyers don't care about to attributes buyers do care about. In markets in which buyers rely on imperfect signals for quality, sellers move resources away from improving the quality of their product to enhancing the illusion of quality. For example, before freshness dating, when consumers tested the freshness of bread by squeezing it, bakers reportedly added chemicals to bread to preserve its softness longer, thereby creating the illusion of freshness. Similarly, law school rankings encourage schools to shift resources away …

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

Robert M Lloyd

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