Law Commons^™

‘Point And Click’ Versus Byod: Student Engagement Technologies As An Ethical Imperative For Teaching Law, Elizabeth A. Kirley

Elizabeth A Kirley

What conscientious law professor of first year, large format classes in torts, contracts, or criminal law has not pondered how to better engage students while easing their reluctance to speak out in class? While many students entering law schools are quite adept with student engagement technologies (SETs) from their undergraduate studies, some law faculty seem tied to the passive environment of lectures and PowerPoint presentations and hence reject SET methodologies as so much techno-wizardry. With the entry of web-based programs into the expanding field of SETs, and increasing empirical evidence that interactive learning improves grades, closes gender gaps, and helps …

Experiential Legal Writing: The New Approach To Practicing Like A Lawyer, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Law students engage in various types of “experiential” learning activities while in school, such as clinics and externships, but they graduate without the experience necessary to practice law. This is traceable to a glaring deficiency at most law schools: a writing program that is comprehensive, properly sequenced, and integrated across and throughout the law school curriculum.

First, most graduates have never drafted the documents they will encounter in law practice. Additionally, they have not drafted and re-drafted such documents while also participating in real-world simulations as they would in actual practice. Instead, students graduate having drafted an appellate brief, a …

Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

No abstract provided.

"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

Law schools are designed to teach students about the doctrine of law and to help them prepare their skills to practice law. There are some practical aspects of law practice, though, that are rarely if ever discussed in law school. Perhaps this is because of an assumption that law firms will make these issues clear to the students they hire as associates, or perhaps it is because of a belief that such information has no place in the curriculum of an academic institution. Whatever the reason, this is information law students should have as they begin to think about where …

The Structure And Evolution Of The Academic Discipline Of Law In The United States: Generation And Validation Of Course-Subject Co-Occurrence (Csco) Maps, Peter A. Hook

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This dissertation proposes, exemplifies, and validates the usage of course-subject co-occurrence (CSCO) data to generate topic maps of an academic discipline. CSCO is defined as course-subjects taught in the same academic year by the same teacher. This work is premised on the assumption that in the aggregate and for reasons of efficiency, faculty members teach course-subjects that are topically similar to one another. To exemplify and validate CSCO, more than 112,000 CSCO events were extracted from the annual directories of the American Association of Law Schools covering nearly eighty years of law school teaching in the United States. The CSCO …

A Proposal To The Aba: Integrating Legal Writing And Experiential Learning Into A Required, Six-Semester Curriculum That Trains Students In Core Competencies, 'Soft Skills,' And Real-World Judgment, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Experiential learning is not the answer to the problems facing legal education. Simulations, externships, and clinics are vital aspects of a real-world legal education, but they cannot alone produce competent graduates. The better approach is to create a required, six-semester experiential legal writing curriculum where students draft and re-draft the most common litigation documents and engage in simulations, including client interviews, mediation, depositions, settlement negotiations, and oral arguments in the order that they would in actual practice. In so doing, law schools can provide the time and context within which students can truly learn to think like lawyers, do what …

Nigger Manifesto: Ideological And Intellectual Discrimination Inside The Academy, Ellis Washington

Ellis Washington

Draft – 22 March 2014

Nigger Manifesto

Ideological Racism inside the American Academy

By Ellis Washington, J.D.

Abstract

I was born for War. For over 30 years I have worked indefatigably, I have labored assiduously to build a relevant resume; a unique curriculum vitae as an iconoclastic law scholar zealous for natural law, natural rights, and the original intent of the constitutional Framers—a Black conservative intellectual born in the ghettos of Detroit, abandoned by his father at 18 months, who came of age during the Detroit Race Riots of 1967… an American original. My task, to expressly transcend the ubiquitous …

A Proposal To The Aba: One Required Legal Writing Course For All Six Semesters Of Law School, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

If you decide to run a marathon, but stop training after the eighth week of a sixteen-week training schedule, you will not finish. Why? Your muscles atrophied, and your stamina declined. If you stop writing after the second or third semester of law school, you will not become a good legal writer. Why? Your skills atrophied. You did not develop mental memory—just like the marathon runner did not develop muscle memory.

Why did the marathon runner stop? Maybe life got in the way, or training became too hard. But it’s the difficult moments—the grind—that separates the marathon runner from the …

No Shoehorn Required: How A Required, Three- Year, Persuasion-Based Legal Writing Program Easily Fits Within The Broader Law School Curriculum, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

In this article, we incorporate our proposal into the broader curricular context, and argue for more separation, not more integration, among the analytical, practical, and experiential pillars of legal education. All three are indispensable—and independent—pillars of real-world legal education:[1] (1) the analytical focuses on critical thinking; (2) legal writing combines—and refines—thinking through practical skills training; and (3) experiential learning involves students in the practice of law. To help law students master all three, the curriculum should be designed in a largely sequential (although sometimes concurrent) order, to embrace, not blur, their substantive differences, and to approach inter-foundational collaboration with …

Back To The Future: The Constitution Requires Reasonableness And Particularity—Introducing The “Seize But Don’T Search” Doctrine, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Issuing one-hundred or fewer opinions per year, the United States Supreme Court cannot keep pace with opinions that match technological advancement. As a result, in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, the Court needs to announce a broader principle that protects privacy in the digital age. That principle, what we call “seize but don’t search,” recognizes that the constitutional touchstone for all searches is reasonableness.

When do present-day circumstances—the evolution in the Government’s surveillance capabilities, citizens’ phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court thirty-four years …

Promoting Equitable Law School Admissions Through Legal Challenges To The Lsat, Al Alston

Al Alston

No abstract provided.

Achieving The American Bar Association's Pedagogy Mandate: Empowerment In The Midst Of A Perfect Storm, Cara Cunningham Warren

Cara Cunningham Warren

The ongoing crisis in legal education has prompted calls for fundamental reform. In August 2014, the American Bar Association responded by implementing new law school accreditation standards that mark a "quantum shift” in our educational philosophy—a new pedagogy mandate that shifts our center from what is taught to what students learn.Of all reform measures, the mandate may be one of the best chances law schools and their graduates have in the face of the “Perform Storm” raging in legal education. Ironically, successful implementation remains an open question, in part because of the traditional nature of law schools and their resistance …