Law Commons^™

‘Best Practices’: What’S The Point?, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

In a separate article - Best Practices on “Best Practices”: Legal Education and Beyond - Professor Robbins formulated a paradigm for “best practices” and applied it to the book, Best Practices for Legal Education. Professor Robbins concluded that the book did not meet any of the criteria necessary to constitute best practices and, further, that using the concept of best practices when thinking and writing about legal education is misleading and inappropriate. The primary author of the book, Roy Stuckey, responded, claiming that “best” can mean something other than best, that the difference really doesn’t matter, and that the debate …

Best Practices On ‘Best Practices’: Legal Education And Beyond, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

“Best practices” has become one of the most common research and development techniques in the United States and throughout the international community. Originally employed in industry, the concept sought to identify superior means to achieve a goal through “benchmarking,” thereby allowing companies to obtain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. In recent decades, the use of best practices has become widely popularized, and is frequently utilized in the areas of administrative regulation, corporate governance, and academia. As the term has grown in popularity, however, so too has room for its abuse. In many instances, the term has been invoked to …

‘Best Practices’: What’S The Point?, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

In a separate article - Best Practices on “Best Practices”: Legal Education and Beyond - Professor Robbins formulated a paradigm for “best practices” and applied it to the book, Best Practices for Legal Education. Professor Robbins concluded that the book did not meet any of the criteria necessary to constitute best practices and, further, that using the concept of best practices when thinking and writing about legal education is misleading and inappropriate. The primary author of the book, Roy Stuckey, responded, claiming that “best” can mean something other than best, that the difference really doesn’t matter, and that the debate …

The Impact Of Active Learning On Law School Performance, Patricia W. Hatamyar, Todd P. Sullivan

Patricia W Hatamyar

“Active learning” – where law students actively participate in the learning process, rather than passively receive information from the “sage on the stage” – has become a cornerstone of the calls for reform in legal education. But academic support programs have been using active learning techniques for a long time. The legal academy generally, not just academic support professionals, should appreciate the effectiveness of active learning in improving students’ law school performance. This article is a both a quantitative and qualitative empirical study of a comprehensive Active Learning (“AL”) program at St. Thomas University School of Law. St. Thomas runs …

The Skepticism Of Critical Legal Studies And The Function Of Moral Discourse, Paul J. Gudel

Paul J. Gudel

Paul J. Gudel

California Western School of Law

ABSTRACT

“The Skepticism of Critical Legal Studies and the Function of Moral Discourse”

This article on the philosophy of law aims to expound and evaluate the jurisprudential movement known as Critical Legal Studies – now that the passage of some time allows us to take a less polemical look at what was regarded as a very radical movement. My exposition of CLS organizes its now somewhat familiar concepts (legal indeterminacy, fundamental contradiction, hierarchy, the attack on the public/private distinction) as all directed to one goal: allowing us to see our responsibility for …

Creac Scramble: An Active Self-Assessment Exercise, Meredith Aden

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Towards A New World Of Externships: Introduction To Papers From Externships 4 And 5, Alex Scherr, Harriet N. Katz

Scholarly Works

The scholarly literature on externships is growing and deepening, addressing concerns of importance to field placement programs and to clinicians in general. This Introduction places the issues raised by the subsequent four articles on externships into the context of current national debates about the externship method. These issues, which both extend and diverge from current thinking about externship pedagogy, include: 1) the impact of a harsh economic climate; 2) the educational potential of placements in corporate counsel offices; 3) the argument for compensating students in for-credit placements; and 4) the value of course design for teaching power dynamics in supervisory …

These Rules Are Made To Be Broken Down: Teaching Students The Art Of Deconstructing Rules Of Law, Jeremiah A. Ho

Jeremiah A Ho

ABSTRACT

THESE RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN DOWN: TEACHING STUDENTS THE ART OF DECONSTRUCTING RULES OF LAW

JEREMIAH A. HO

Despite its often contended (and oft-contentious) meanings, legal academics and educators still resort to the now-entrenched phrase,“think like a lawyer,” to describe the goal of law schools in educating their students. But even a brief deconstruction of the phrase brings its varied interpretations to light: What does it mean to “think like a lawyer”? It might easily imply an existing difference from thinking like a doctor, a banker, or a representative from another profession. But within the law, does …

Perfect Compromise Or Perfectly Compromised Tests: Law School Examinations That Mimic A Bar Examination’S Format?, Charles J. Senger

Charles J. Senger

Increased coverage, facial validity based on similarity to many bar examinations, and reduced scoring time all support combining bar examination type essay questions and Multistate Bar Examination multiple choice questions to form a typical three or four hour law school examination. Unfortunately, great care must be exercised or the resulting examination will be seriously flawed. In particular, six challenges must be met to produce a quality examination. Those six are: 1. Mismatches between the examination’s questions and scoring methods when compared to teaching, curriculum, or institutional goals; 2. Insufficient sample size; 3. Insufficient resources for drafting, pre-testing, and processing; 4. …

Outfoxed: Pierson V. Post And The Natural Law, Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Think back to first year property class. You are a bright-eyed 1L, and one of the first cases you read deals with hunting foxes on the beaches of Long Island, New York. The fact pattern seems obscure enough, but Pierson v. Post is the seminal case used to teach generations of law students about the acquisition of property. The interest in Pierson has recently been reinvigorated thanks to the uncovering of the original record of this case. Last year the Law and History Review dedicated an entire issue to this famous foxhunt. The holding in Pierson v. Post has been …

Big But Brittle: Economic Perspectives On The Future Of The Law Firm In The New Economy, Bernard A. Burk, David Mcgowan

Bernard A Burk

This Article addresses the deceptively simple questions why, up to the onset of the recent recession, law firms continued to grow at the rapid rate and in the unusual configuration that they have exhibited for over 40 years; and whether lawyers, clients, law students and law schools should expect familiar trends to reassert themselves as the economy improves. We show that the copious academic theorizing addressing these questions (focusing on such notions as diversification, asset specificity, “tournament” theory, and reputational and agency-cost concerns at the level of the firm as a whole) has proved ineffective at explaining or predicting actual …

Religious Rules: The Judeo-Christian Nature Of The Aba Model Rules And What It Means For The Legal Profession, Sarah Montana Hart

Sarah Montana Hart

This article argues that the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct are not only biased in favor of Judeo-Christian biblical values, but actually are religious rules based in the Bible. The religious nature of the Model Rules affects lawyers in several different ways. There must be awareness of and a conscious choice about the nature and effects that these rules have on law students, bar applicants, and practicing lawyers.

Engaging Law Students In Leadership, Faith Rivers James

Faith R Rivers James

The new challenge of legal education is preparing civic-minded lawyers to assume leadership roles in their communities, law firms, the legal profession, and in the public square. Defined as the process of influencing and persuading others to achieve a common purpose, leadership describes the lawyers’ task with individual and organizational clients; considered as a characteristic of people in positions of power, lawyers often assume the mantle of leading organizations. Whether defined as process or position, lawyering involves leadership in the private sector or in the public realm. This article considers the progressive structure of a comprehensive law & leadership program, …

Educating Lawyers To Meditate? From Exercises To Epistemology To Ethics: The Contemplative Practice In Law Movement As Legal Education Reform, Rhonda V. Magee

Rhonda V Magee

This Article argues that the contemplative practice in law movement assists in answering the call for reform of legal education and the development of professional identity highlighted by the Carnegie Foundation in its "Education Lawyers" analysis and others, presenting the outlines of the pathway to effective reform so far missing from the mainstream critique. The author argues that the contemplative practices movement does much more than merely specify skills missing from traditional legal education that are crucial to effective and sustainable lawyering, including the capacity for self-reflection, emotional intelligence, and moral discernment. Going further, it suggests a new approach to …

30 Ways For First Year Law Students To Achieve Success, Jennifer Bard

Jennifer Bard

Law School is a scary and mysterious place and incoming students often have very little idea what to expect. Students eventually catch on to the difference between legal and undergraduate educations: fact-pattern analysis versus memorization of facts. This article is based on a series of presentations I made under the auspices of Texas Tech University School of Law’s Hispanic Law Student Association (HLSA), which offers a boot camp for incoming students and a second round of orientation after the first semester. This article provides practical advice from a Torts Professor and a successful third-year law student on how to succeed …

Alternative Justifications For Law School Academic Support Programs: Self-Determination Theory, Autonomy Support, And Humanizing The Law School., Louis N. Schulze Jr.

Louis N. Schulze Jr.

This Article examines alternative justifications for law school academic support programs (hereinafter “ASPs”). By “alternative,” I mean justifications not having anything to do with bar passage rates or even demonstrable increases in academic performance, per se. My thesis is two-fold. First, I argue that ASPs help humanize the law school environment. By providing a source of encouragement and assistance in an environment too often devoid of significant positive support, ASPs can leave students feeling that their law school actually cares whether they succeed. For those in academia who believe that providing a more humane law school environment is an admirable …

How To Drink From A Firehose Without Drowning, Or Online Current Awareness Made Less Difficult, Edward M. Mcclure

Edward M McClure

Once upon a time, the law changed gently; actively keeping ahead of your students was unnecessary. Now you can have up to the minute information on your desktop. In fact, now you must have up to the minute information on your desktop, because your students are following “blawgs” and subscribing to “feeds” and reading “tweets”. While you are asking that elegant Socratic question, they are reading an appellate opinion that had not been published when class began. Some of your peers – and rivals – are doing the same. No matter how unnatural they seem, we must force ourselves to …

Assessing Ourselves: Confirming Assumptions And Improving Student Learning By Efficiently And Fearlessly Assessing Student Learning Outcomes., Lori Roberts

Lori A Roberts

The American Bar Association’s (ABA) proposed accreditation standards for law schools that would require faculty to not only assess individual student performance, but also to assess themselves as legal educators to ensure they are meeting their institutions’ goals of student learning, have stirred a debate among legal educators regarding the justification for assessment and a scramble to figure out how to comply. This article contends that assessment is justified as an ABA accreditation standard given the history of questionable quality and unaccountability in post secondary education, and the increasing reliance on accreditation as a form of consumer protection. Furthermore, cognitive …

The Good, The Law, And The Municipal Ideal - An Integrative Developmental View Of The Case Of The Speluncean Explorers And The Crisis Of Meaning In Western Jurisprudence, Sean S. Yang

Sean S Yang

For centuries, law had been understood as something sacred, transcendent, a set of righteous directives emanating from a divine authority. Less than three hundred years ago, something strange happened. A handful of humans began to think a new type of thought: they conceived the law as a self-contained system understandable on its own terms, its merit determined only by its consistency with "reason," the correctness and supremacy of which was self-evident. Less than one hundred years ago, something even stranger occurred: another handful of humans directed their attention to thought itself and began creating knowledge about knowledge, writing language about …

Teaching Negotiation To A Globally Diverse Audience: Ethics, Morality And Cultural Differences, David Allen Larson, Vanessa Seyman

David Allen Larson

"Teaching Negotiation to a Globally Diverse Audience: Ethics, Morality, and Cultural Differences" (by David Allen Larson and Vanessa Seyman) This is a short article discussing the challenges of teaching negotiation, and also the challenge of actually negotiating, in a globally diverse environment. Issues of ethics, morality and culture can surface quite quickly when teaching and negotiating in a multicultural environment. The article builds upon our recent experiences as participants in the Second Generation Global Negotiation conference held Istanbul, Turkey. The article provides examples of how cultural and language differences can impact both actual negotiations and negotiation teaching and provides suggestions …

¿Qué Abogado Debemos Formar?, Jose Luis Sardon

Jose Luis Sardon

Debemos formar abogados que sepan de Derecho y no sólo de leyes, pero además que comprendan el por qué y el para qué del Derecho —es decir, que tengan claros los fundamentos éticos, económicos e históricos de las instituciones jurídicas. Sólo así podremos contar con abogados preparados para desempeñarse apropiadamente en la economía global de nuestros días.

In The Name Of Watergate -- Returning Ferpa To Its Original Design, Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

The attached article, entitled "In the Name of Watergate: Returning FERPA to its Original Design" details the Watergate effect on federal privacy legislation, particularly the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Senator James L. Buckley, a one-term Senator from New York, served as the architect for what remains the most important education privacy law in existence. However, Senator Buckley recently discussed the reasons that this law should be "clarified" and returned to its original design. I wholeheartedly agree. In the digital era, we must zealously protect privacy with effective legislation that guards both the collection and release of personal …

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2010, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2010, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Peer Editing: A Comprehensive Pedagogical Approach To Maximize Assessment Opportunities, Integrate Collaborative Learning, And Achieve Desired Outcomes, Cassandra Hill

Cassandra L. Hill

This Article examines an underused teaching strategy—collaborative peer editing—through the lens of student learning outcomes and assessment measures. The American Bar Association (“ABA”) recently proposed sweeping changes to law school accreditation standards that focus less on input measures, such as the school’s facility, faculty size and budget, and more on output measures, such as the school’s bar passage and employment rates. This shift will require law schools—and law professors—to articulate student learning goals and assess their achievement. To do so, law professors must find efficient techniques to assess students’ performance. Peer editing presents such an opportunity.

This Article shows how …

Teaching The Ethical Values Governing Mediator Impartiality Using Short Lectures, Buzz Group Discussions, Video Clips, A Defining Features Matrix, Games, And An Exercise Based On Grievances Filed Against Florida Mediators, Paula M. Young Prof.

Paula Marie Young Prof.

Desegregating Legal Education, Peggy Cooper Davis

Georgia State University Law Review

This is a transcription of the 44th Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture given by Professor Peggy Cooper Davis of New York University School of Law.

Shaping Professional Knowledge: The Intended And Unintended Consequences Of Fellowship Funding In Law Schools, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Cynthia Epstein

The development of knowledge in any profession is determined by many factors including the cultural receptivity to new ideas within the field and in the larger society, the interests and visions of the professions’ leaders, and the availability of resources for recruitment of talent, resource development and dissemination of knowledge. This paper examines the impact of resources within the legal profession, and particularly regarding the role of resources in determining public interest career options. It draws from a larger study of the factors that facilitate and deter the choice of legal careers in the public interest. I find that fellowships …

Teaching Employment Discrimination, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I explore and discuss various methods for effectively teaching civil rights to this "post-racial" generation. Specifically, I examine the following four classroom challenges: (1) this generation's general lack of understanding about the historical context in which many civil rights laws-for purposes of this Essay, Title VII-arose; (2) the general lack of real-life work experience among many law students; (3) a growing decline in the racial and ethnic diversity of law school classes; and (4) the increasing complexities of discrimination in the workplace, including forms of discrimination such as proxy discrimination and demands for covering. 11 I analyze …

The Why Of It: Langdell's Generation Speaks To Today's Law Sudents, David S. Dehorse

David S. DeHorse

I belive this portrayal of the Case System of Legal Study will be invaluable to every student entering law school, and most of those who have completed their 1L year. Frankly, most practicing lawyers would probably benefit by a reading. I've been told it's a "good read." Hope you'll agree.