Law Commons^™

Lessons Of Change From Those Older And Wiser, Donald G. Gifford

Donald G Gifford

No abstract provided.

Using An Alumni Survey To Assess Whether Skills Teaching Aligns With Alumni Practice, Sheila F. Miller Ms.

Sheila F. Miller Ms.

This article addresses the implications of the results of a survey of alumni in which they identify the research and writing skills they use in practice. Comparisons are drawn to other similar survey results. The author draws conclusions regarding techniques to be used in teaching research and writing skills based on the survey results. This article should be helpful to those who are interested in pursuing data on their own alumni, a practice encouraged by the article. Moreover, the article should be helpful for those teaching research and writing because there are implications from the findings that may inform how …

Monopolies And The Constitution: A History Of Crony Capitalism, Steven G. Calabresi

Steven G Calabresi

This article explores the right of the people to be free from government granted monopolies or from what we would today call “Crony Capitalism.” We trace the constitutional history of this right from Tudor England down to present day state and federal constitutional law. We begin with Darcy v. Allen (also known as the Case of Monopolies decided in 1603) and the Statute of Monopolies of 1624, both of which prohibited English Kings and Queens from granting monopolies. We then show how the American colonists relied on English rights to be free from government granted monopolies during the Revolutionary War …

Lessons From Positive Psychology For Developing Advocacy Skills, Nancy Schultz

Nancy Schultz

Advocacy skills are crucial to law students and lawyers. One of the ways law students develop those skills is in the context of lawyering skills competitions. This article explores whether there is any psychological research that might offer more systematic guidance for advocacy coaches and instructors. Positive psychology does offer some principles that suggest useful approaches to coaching and teaching advocacy. Taken together with instinct and experience, these principles can help coaches and advocacy instructors be more effective in training young lawyers for litigation and dispute resolution practice.

What Do Kim Kardashian And Lance Armstrong Have In Common?: Celebrity Complaints In The Classroom, Amy K. Langenfeld

Amy K Langenfeld

Every day brings a report of a celebrity suing or being sued. The complaints initiating these suits are available online within hours. Regardless of the merits or outcomes of these complaints by or against celebrities, celebrity complaints are a rich source of samples for the law school classroom. As supplements to course materials in civil procedure or legal writing, celebrity complaints are likely to generate discussion for several reasons. First, they show a range of strategies and persuasive writing techniques. Second, they engage students because they are real world documents, and because they have a pop culture setting. Third, they …

Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This article is an exploration of some of the issues raised by the recent Carnegie Report on legal education, and contains a recommendation that law schools change the way they teach especially first year law students in order to make them more empathetically aware of the circumstances by which the court opinions they study arose and the effects those opinions will have on others. This recommendation is made not just because it will make students better people, but also because it will make them better lawyers; the article analyses in depth the dangers inherent in an overemphasis on the “logical” …

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2012, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2012, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Teaching Ethics In Criminal Justice To First Year Law Students: Or Efforts To Dislodge The Csi Effect, Susan Rutberg

Susan Rutberg

Teaching Ethics in Criminal Justice to First Year Law Students:

Or Efforts to Dislodge the CSI Effect[1]

Susan Rutberg[2]

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the implementation of an innovative first year course at Golden Gate University School of Law entitled “Lawyering Skills: Ethics in Criminal Justice.” The course, offered for the first time in the spring of 2011, was the product of curricular reform set in motion by the 2007 Carnegie Foundation Report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law. Golden Gate University has had a longtime focus both on practical legal education and ethical training. We devote a substantial …

A Critique Of Best Practices In Legal Education: Five Things All Faculty Should Know, Michael T. Gibson

Michael T. Gibson

Michael T. Gibson, A Critique of BEST PRACTICES IN LEGAL EDUCATION: Five Things All Faculty Should Know

Like the ABA’s MacCrate Report (1993) and the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Practice of Law (2007), Best Practices in Legal Education (2007) is a major collaborative effort to transform legal education. A six-year-long project of the Clinical Legal Education Association, Best Practices tries to state no less than the best practices that law professors should use to teach students. First, this article reveals a treasure which Best Practices buries: the six stages or levels by which people learn, and how …

Deceiving Law Students: Employment Statistics & Tort Liability, Angie D. Roberts-Huckaby

Angie D. Roberts-Huckaby

Controversy is rampant in American legal education. In less than a year, an unprecedented fourteen separate class action lawsuits have been filed against fourteen different law schools. The lawsuits each allege that the schools have disseminated postgraduate employment statistics in ways that are fraudulent and misleading. Students’ primary goal, when applying to law school, is to become lawyers. Law school is not an institution students attend merely to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Law school is a grueling three-year endurance race challenging student’s intellectual reasoning, emotional rationale, and financial security. Therefore, it is critical for students to choose the right school7 Law …

From Oxford To Williamsburg: The Evolution Of Legal Education And Law Libraries Across The Pond, James S. Heller

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Education Of Today’S China:Problems And Suggestions, Qilin Ma

Qilin Ma

China, as a country with a history of more than five thousand years, her legal education is non-independent and non-professional but the government’s conduct. Affected by her political and historical situations, Chinese legal education stresses its political function and theoretical teaching but neglect practicing skills and professional responsibilities training. How to realize the professionalization (not governmentalization) of legal education and how to bridge the gap of theory and practice are the main problems for current legal education in China. Chinese education administration agencies and legal educators are actively making efforts to reform legal education system, but the great progress has …

Law Student Laptop Use In Class For Non-Class Purposes: Temptation V. Incentives, Jeff Sovern

Jeff Sovern

LAW STUDENT LAPTOP USE DURING CLASS FOR NON-CLASS PURPOSES: TEMPTATION v. INCENTIVES Jeff Sovern St. John’s University School of Law This article reports on how law students use laptops, based on observations of 1072 laptop users (though there was considerable overlap among those users from one class to another) during 60 sessions of six law school courses. Some findings: • More than half the upper-year students seen using laptops employed them for non-class purposes more than half the time, raising serious questions about how much they learned from class. By contrast, first-semester Civil Procedure students used laptops for non-class purposes …

Lawyers And Their Books: The Augusta County Law Library Association, 1853-1883, Gregory Harkcom Stoner

Masters Theses

During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, law books of various types contained the vital information needed by Virginia’s practicing attorneys and judges. Access to these resources, however, was generally limited to personal collections and a handful of libraries. Despite numerous calls for the creation of libraries by theVirginiagovernment, state legislators took little action of note.

This study explores the history and origins of law libraries in Virginia by focusing on the formation and evolution of the Augusta County Law Library Association, one of the first libraries organized in Virginia under state legislation enacted in 1853 that authorized the creation of …

Book Review: Stacey Steele And Kathryn Taylor, Eds., Legal Education In Asia: Globalization, Change And Contexts, Carole Silver

Carole Silver

U.S. legal education is under fire from all sides. Travel outside of the U.S., however, and the U.S. often is a model for reform efforts, even the standard against which legal education programs in much of the rest of the world measure themselves. In Legal Education in Asia, Stacey Steele, Kathryn Taylor and their co-authors offer insight into globalization’s influence on legal education. They find that globalization has sharpened the peripheral vision of reformers by encouraging them to consider the approaches followed elsewhere to educating lawyers as well as the role lawyers play in society. Their analysis also identifies the …

Dean's Desk: Effective Legal Education Depends On Strong Partnerships, Hannah Buxbaum

Hannah Buxbaum (2011-2013 Interim)

No abstract provided.

Outcomes Assessment And Legal Research Pedagogy, Vicenç Feliú, Helen Frazer

Vicenç Feliú

This article explores application of a taxonomic approach in legal research pedagogy to outcomes assessment based on Prof. Paul Callister's adaptation of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives which integrates instructional design and learning activities compatible with formative assessment during the learning process and summative assessment at its conclusion. It reviews the development of outcomes assessment initiatives by legal educators and the development of outcomes assessment standards by the American Bar Association for the accreditation of law schools.

Once Upon A Legal Time-Lawyers As Storytellers, Jalae Ulicki

Jalae Ulicki

No abstract provided.

The Overlap Of Tax And Financial Aspects Of Real Estate Ventures, Bradley T. Borden

Bradley T. Borden

This article examines the effect partnership tax law has on financial aspects of real estate ventures. It introduces the relevance of the aggregate and entity views of tax partnerships (i.e., LLCs, LPs, and other partnerships) and demonstrates how those views can greatly affect financial projections for each of the members of a real estate venture. It also demonstrates how financial calculations can vary significantly depending upon how closely analysts track a tax partnership’s allocation method. Finally, the article serves as a primer for tax practitioners who are unfamiliar with the financial tools that are so prevalent in real estate analysis, …

The Skepticism Of Critical Legal Studies And 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 …

Law Student Laptop Use During Class For Non-Class Purposes: Temptation V. Incentives, Jeff Sovern

Jeff Sovern

ABSTRACT LAW STUDENT LAPTOP USE DURING CLASS FOR NON-CLASS PURPOSES: TEMPTATION v. INCENTIVES Jeff Sovern St. John’s University School of Law This article reports on how law students use laptops, based on observations of 1072 laptop users (though there was considerable overlap among those users from one class to another) during 60 sessions of six law school courses. Some findings: • More than half the upper-year students seen using laptops employed them for non-class purposes more than half the time, raising serious questions about how much they learned from class. By contrast, first-semester Civil Procedure students used laptops for non-class …

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 …

The Role Law Schools Should Play In Filling The Justice Gap, Karen Millard

Karen Millard

In the article, details about the current need for legal services in the United States are provided. For example, in 2010, nearly one in seven Americans lived below the poverty line, the highest proportion in nearly two decades. As the number of people living in poverty continues to increase, the number of people needing legal assistance also continues to grow. What is startling is that only about twenty percent of the legal needs of low-income people are being satisfied. One reason for this is that a total of less than one percent of the nation’s legal expenditures is given to …

Of Cops And Bumper Stickers: Notes Toward A Theory Of Selective Prosecution, Richard Delgado

Richard Delgado

The author, Professor Richard Delgado, takes as his point of departure a remark by the chair of the Colorado committee that voted academic sanctions against Ward Churchill. This essay explores the role of retaliatory motives in academic misconduct cases. In Churchill’s case, Colorado authorities delved deeply and painstakingly into Churchill’s publications only when it appeared that the state could not fire him from his tenured position for his inflammatory remarks on the victims of the 9/11 tragedy. What bearing should the investigation’s relation to the hue and cry that led to it have on its own legitimacy? Professor Delgado examines …

Rodrigo's Riposte: The Mismatch Theory Of Law School Admissions, Richard Delgado

Richard Delgado

The chronicle proceeds as a dialogue between the fictional alter ego, Rodrigo Crenshaw, and an older professor. After meeting in Rodrigo’s city, the two friends, joined later by “Giannina,” go out to dinner. Rodrigo, who is on his law school’s admissions committee, has been thinking about affirmative action. Prompted by his conservative colleague “Laz,” Rodrigo has formulated a several-pronged attack on Sander’s premise that “stairstep” admissions (and, later, law firm hiring) just hurts the cause of black lawyers. The professor presses Rodrigo to defend his views, and the arrival of Giannina requires him to articulate them even more. You will …

A Way Forward: Transparency At American Law Schools, Kyle P. Mcentee, Patrick J. Lynch

Kyle P McEntee

Law school has long been thought of as an investment in human capital inherently worth consuming. This is a dated view. Today, entering the legal profession through law school requires an increasingly significant financial investment. Yet very little information about the value of a legal education is available for prospective law students. In fact, much of the information tends to mislead rather than inform aspiring lawyers.

This Article surveys the available information with respect to one important segment of the value analysis: post-graduation employment outcomes. It then proposes a new standard for the presentation of post-graduation outcomes, "The LST Proposal." …

Learning Law While Walking The Dog: The Pedagogical Potential Of Podcasting, Kenneth Kristl

Kenneth T Kristl

The typical law school classroom for a doctrinal course utilizes a learning structure that limits opportunities for students to learn directly from the professor. Time constraints inherent in the need for coverage and the desire to keep the class engaged encourages movement through the material. Cognitivist learning theory views learning as involving the movement of information from sensory memory (perception) into short-term, working memory for analysis and organization, and then into long-term memory for storage. This process of information movement suggests that the typical law school classroom creates impediments to student learning. Distracted students who fail to capture the concept …

The Science Of Coaching Advocates: Is There Any?, Nancy Schultz

Nancy Schultz

This article investigates whether psychological research can assist coaches of advocacy teams in various contexts. It concludes that the principles of positive psychology and related fields, along with experience, can lead to effective coaching strategies that will help students develop lifelong advocacy skills

Team-Based Learning In Law, Margaret Sova Mccabe, Sophie Sparrow

Margaret Sova McCabe

Used for over thirty years in a wide variety of fields, Team-Based Learning is a powerful teaching strategy that improves student learning. Used effectively, it enables students to actively engage in applying legal concepts in every class -- without sacrificing coverage. Because this teaching strategy has been used in classes with over 200 students, it also provides an efficient and affordable way to provide significant learning. Based on the principles of instructional design, Team-Based Learning has built-in student accountability, promotes independent student preparation, and fosters professional skills. This article provides an overview of Team-Based Learning, reasons to adopt this teaching …