Law Commons^™

Not Everyone Works For Biglaw: A Response To Neil J. Dilloff, Louis N. Schulze Jr., Lawrence Friedman

Faculty Publications

In a law review article entitled "The Changing Cultures and Economics of Large Law Firm Practice and Their Impact on Legal Education," DLA Piper partner Neil J. Dilloff details recent changes in the way that BigLaw does business. He then suggests a number of improvements in legal education ostensibly compelled by the new economic realities of large firm practice. While many of Attorney Dilloff's suggestions make very good sense, several problems exist. In this short essay, we take the position that law schools should not pattern current reforms solely on the needs of BigLaw. Instead, we suggest that reforming legal …

Time For A Top-Tier Law School In Arkansas, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

A simple change in state law could improve the quality of legal education in Arkansas and the quality of legal services available to our consumers - and save significant amounts of taxpayers' money. With an Afterword on academic freedom. Also available from Advance Arkansas Institute website.

The Content Of Consumer Law Classes Ii, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

This paper reports on a 2010 survey of law professors teaching consumer protection, and follows up on a similar 2008 survey, which appeared in Jeff Sovern, The Content of Consumer Law Classes, 12 J. CONSUMER & COMMERCIAL L. 48 (No. 1 2008), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1139894. The 2010 survey found more uniformity in topic selection than the 2008 survey. All thirteen professors who taught survey courses reported that they taught common law fraud, UDAP statutes, the Truth in Lending Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, while all but one covered the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Federal Trade …

The Excitement Of Interdictory Ideas: A Response To Professor Anders Walker, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

The very first time that I taught criminal law, I would occasionally tell my six-year-old son, Thomas, about selected cases and situations that I had come across. Thomas enjoyed these discussions—more than I would have guessed: he was captivated by the horror of Dudley & Stephens, he was uncomfortably intrigued by shaming punishments, he was appropriately outraged at all manner of outcomes that seemed to him too harsh or too lenient. But most of all, he wanted to test his own burgeoning intuitions about right and wrong, good and evil, the permitted and the forbidden, against my "criminal law stories." …

The Potential Contribution Of Adr To An Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students For Real World Lawyering, John M. Lande, Jean R. Sternlight

Faculty Publications

This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes and proposes a modest menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can largely achieve without investing substantial additional resources.This Article emphasizes the special contributions that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can provide to legal education more generally. ADR instruction is an important corrective to a curriculum that routinely conveys the erroneous implication that …

Balancing Law Student Privacy Interests And Progressive Pedagogy: Dispelling The Myth That Ferpa Prohibits Cutting-Edge Academic Support Methodologies, Louis N. Schulze Jr.

Faculty Publications

Controversy exists over whether the Family Education Records Privacy Act prohibits certain progressive law school academic support methodologies. This Article analyzes these claims, using the text of the statute, the related regulations, case law from the Supreme Court of the United States and other federal courts, and statements from the Department of Education. The thesis of this Article is that most academic support methods are perfectly lawful and that FERPA and progressive pedagogy can peaceably coexist.

The Content Of Consumer Law Classes, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

Attendees at the University of Houston Law Center Conference titled Teaching Consumer Law: The Who, What, Where, Why, When and How were surveyed to determine what topics they covered in consumer law classes. Twenty-five responses were received, representing fourteen survey classes, five clinics, and six miscellaneous responses. The responses indicated considerable diversity in the topics covered. No topic was covered by more than 21 professors and each of the 32 topics listed on the survey instrument was discussed by at least four professors. Under the circumstances, it seems difficult to claim that consumer protection classes have a canon agreed upon …

I'D Just As Soon Flunk You As Look At You?: The Evolution To Humanizing In A Large Classroom, Justine A. Dunlap

Faculty Publications

Initially, this article sets forth my own progress in becoming a teacher who incorporates humanizing principles. Next, the article analyzes some of the theory behind the humanizing legal education principles. The article will then present some specific teaching techniques for those interested in adding a humanizing dimension to their teaching, focusing primarily on the large classroom setting. The article will also note the barriers to adopting humanizing techniques, as well as possible ways to overcome those barriers.

Turning Stones Of Hope Into Boulders Of Resistance: The First And Last Task Of Social Justice Curriculum, Scholarship, And Practice, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

The most important and intangible aspect of teaching and practicing social justice law is retaining the hope that our efforts can translate into progressive results. At times, professors’ approaches to the subject of social justice tend toward pessimism that can have unintended negative effects on students. Thus, this Article calls on social justice professors to explicitly teach hope and, moreover, to produce practical scholarship on pressing legal issues that will help students keep hope once they leave school. This Article begins by exploring the theme of hope in John O. Calmore’s scholarship and how it interrelates with his project of …

Freeriders And Diversity In The Legal Academy: A New Dirty Dozen List, Ediberto Román, Christopher B. Carbot

Faculty Publications

Latina and Latino student enrollment in U.S. law schools the last few decades has increased. This increase, however, has not resulted in a comparable increase in Latino and Latina law professors. To foster diversity in law school faculties and to increase Latina representation, the “Dirty Dozen List” was published. The List was comprised of the top twelve U.S. law schools located in high Latina populated areas but lacking a single Latina professor on the faculty. The List served to increase awareness of the lack of diversity at some of the nation’s top legal institutions, as well as “shame” these schools …

Developing Better Lawyers And Lawyering Practices: Introduction To The Symposium On Innovative Models Of Lawyering, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article provides an overview of a symposium sponsored by the University of Missouri Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution in 2007 that featured leading practitioners and scholars to analyze innovative models of lawyering, including Collaborative Law and other processes. The authors include David Hoffman, Nancy Welsh, Julie Macfarlane, Richard Shields, Pauline Tesler, Scott Peppet, Forrest ("Woody") Mosten, Jeanne Fahey, Kathy Bryan, Lawrence McLellan, and John Lande. The articles address issues including: teaching law students to "feel" like lawyers and not just "think" like them, using "conflict resolution advocacy" (which is not necessarily oriented to the courts), developing lawyers' …

The Case For A Flat-Earth Law School, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This essay suggests - usually politely - that the American legal academy has been overdoing its push for globalization, and, as a result, education in the basics has suffered. That's a pity because law school graduates need to know the basics to be successful not only in Smalltown USA, but also on a world stage.

Reflections On Law Schools And The Idea Of The University, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

Thomas Baker is one of the founding faculty members of the Florida International University College of Law and this article is based on a speech delivered in October of 2002 during the university's Annual Faculty Convocation. It details the composition of both the entering classes and the law faculty and discusses the law school's mission to provide opportunities for minorities to attain representation in the legal profession that is proportionate to their representation in the population. It explores the role of law schools in higher education and notes the FIU College of Law's efforts to incorporate important developments in the …

How Much Justice Can We Afford?: Defining The Courts' Roles And Deciding The Appropriate Number Of Trials, Settlement Signals, And Other Elements Needed To Administer Justice, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article discusses how the U.S. court system can function optimally given declining trial rates and the limited resources available. The question of how much justice we can afford is a challenge that becomes more difficult as budgets fall behind the increasing demand for and cost of court services. Presumably most analysts would agree that courts should try cases when appropriate - and help litigants find just resolutions without trial when it is not needed. The courts' ability to provide trials in some cases is possible only if the vast majority of other cases are not tried.This article provides background …

Advancing Public Interest Practitioner Research Skills In Legal Education, Randy J. Diamond

Faculty Publications

The information revolution has dramatically altered the legal research landscape, expanding the bounds of legal authority. Practitioner research requires more than traditional legal research. It also encompasses factual investigation, non-legal information, interdisciplinary and audience research. Many new lawyers are ill-prepared to research novel and unusual situations, to cope with unwritten laws and local customs, and to meet shifting authority expectations.

Should Antitrust Education Be Mandatory (For Law School Administrators)?, Thom Lambert, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this essay is merely to examine the pertinent antitrust issues. The essay proceeds on the assumption that the AALS policy, whose terms are precatory, speaks to what is in fact an agreement among law schools. As noted below, the policy itself contemplates that law school deans will seek waivers, in individual cases, extending the time periods for up to two months. Were the policy to be litigated, law schools might dispute the existence of an agreement. We believe, though, that the nature of the policy strongly suggests that it represents an agreement among law schools and that …

Culture Clash: Teaching Cultural Defenses In The Criminal Law Classroom, Susan S. Kuo

Faculty Publications

In the law school classroom, the Socratic method of legal analysis removes a dispute at issue in a given case from its sociocultural context and takes the cultural backgrounds of the parties into account only when they serve the legal argument. The language of the law commands law students to siphon off the emotional and cultural content because of the enduring belief that the law is neutral and impartial. Accordingly, cultural conflicts are deemed irrelevant to legal analysis because laws are unbiased and culture-blind. This detached outlook has been termed perpectivelessness to denote a neutral, odorless, colorless non-perspective.

This essay …

What Law Schools Can Learn From Billy Beane And The Oakland Athletics , Rafael Gely, Paul L. Caron

Faculty Publications

In Moneyball, Michael Lewis writes about a story with which he fell in love, a story about professional baseball and the people that play it. A surprising number of books and articles have been written by law professors who have had long love affairs with baseball. These books and articles are a two-way street, with baseball and law each informing and enriching the other. For example, law professors versed in antitrust, labor, property, tax, and tort law have brought their legal training to bear on particular aspects of baseball. Law professors also have mined their passion for baseball in extracting …

Reflection-In-Action: Lessons Learned From New Clinicians, Justine A. Dunlap, Peter A. Joy

Faculty Publications

Clinical legal education focuses on reflective learning, yet data collected from newer clinical faculty reveal that few schools offer training to assist new clinicians in understanding and incorporating reflective learning techniques as they make the transition from law practice to clinical law teaching. To the extent that training is offered to newer faculty, it may range from ad hoc guidance and informal mentoring to more deliberate programs, which may include periodic meetings devoted primarily to discussing clinical methodology, teaching techniques, and other issues important to newer clinical faculty. Although informal and unstructured approaches to training new clinical faculty may well …

Taking Back The Law School Classroom: Using Technology To Foster Active Student Learning , Rafael Gely, Paul L. Caron

Faculty Publications

Law schools (and indeed all of higher education) have witnessed an explosive growth in the use of technology in the classroom. Many law teachers now deploy a wide array of technological bells and whistles, including PowerPoint slides, Web-based course platforms, in-class Internet access, and the like. Students, in turn, increasingly come to class armed with laptop computers to harvest the fruits of the classroom experience. Yet in recent years there has been something of a backlash, with various law teachers arguing that this technology is interfering with, rather than improving, pedagogy in the classroom. According to the critics, the technology …

Damages: Using A Case Study To Teach Law, Dispute Resolution, And Lawyering , Melody Richardson Daily, Chris Guthrie, Leonard L. Riskin

Faculty Publications

Seven law school faculty members and one practicing attorney recently developed and taught a wholly new kind of law course based on an already published case study, Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, by Barry Werth, an investigative reporter who spent several years researching to write the book. Damages, an in-depth account of a medical malpractice case, presents the perspectives of the injured family, the defendant physician, the lawyers, and the three mediators. In this Symposium Introduction, the authors provide a summary of Werth's book, explain why they decided to create a course based on his …

Imagine: A Comment On "A Liberal Education In Law", Melody Richardson Daily

Faculty Publications

While I was impressed with Professor Parker's paper for many reasons, to me her single most striking assertion is this: "Practicing law--and learning law-is at heart an imaginative enterprise."' It is a sentence that should be carved above the entrance to every law school. Few practicing attorneys would disagree with Professor Parker's observation. After all, if imagination is the ability to deal creatively with reality, then imagination is essential for each of the ten fundamental lawyering skills listed in the MacCrate Report. For example, no lawyer can succeed in problem-solving without first engaging in the process of imagining multiple possible …

American Lawyers And International Competence, Charlotte Ku, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

Just over ten years ago, Germans tore down a wall that divided their country and the whole of Europe. Stepping through the hole in the Berlin Wall, they took the first steps towards the reunification of West and East Germany and the end of the Cold War. Today another wall is being torn down—that between purely domestic law and international law. Companies are engaged in international trade at ever increasing rates. Environmental degradation has proved to be a global problem that cannot be solved with uncoordinated local measures. Individuals worldwide are pressing their governments for the recognition of a common …

(Seven Principles For Good Practice In Legal Education): Principle 5: Good Practice Emphasizes Time On Task, R. Lawrence Dessem

Faculty Publications

Time plus energy equals learning. Efficient time-management skills are critical for students and professors alike. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty. How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis for high performance for all. The fifth principle for good practice in undergraduate education is almost a truism: good practice emphasizes time on task. In their original statement of the seven principles, Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson expressed this as a mathematical formula: “Time plus energy equals learning.” Time on …

Law And The Wisconsin Idea, Erika Lietzan, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Publications

We recall a summer of contentment when American law was suffused with optimism, a season ending a long winter of despair and disorder. For the first fifteen years of this century, many (and perhaps most) American lawyers were filled with confidence that America had healed the wounds of civil war and was healing those of class struggle. We could, and we would, overcome all obstacles to peace and prosperity, not only for our people but for all mankind. This, it was widely believed, would be our century. As early as 1879 Daniel Coit Gilman, the premier educator of his time, …

The Revolving Door Part I: A Federal Prosecutor Returns To School, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

Law teaching is hard work. To my trial lawyer friends who expressed envy at the easy life I must be enjoying, I often said they should imagine having to prepare and present five or six oral arguments a week, every week, for months on end. To the novice teacher presenting several courses for the first time, the task often feels just that daunting. As practicing lawyers, we flatter ourselves that we are "experts" in our fields, and thus that it would be a simple matter to step over to the local law school and, with minimal preparation, unburden ourselves of …

Judicial Knowledge, William B. Fisch

Faculty Publications

This paper reviews rules governing the use by judges in United States courts of their personal knowledge - as distinguished from that supplied by the parties in the adjudication of a civil case, whether of the particular facts out of which the dispute arises, or of general information with which the particular facts must be processed, or of law which is to be applied to the particular facts.

The Legal Profession, Legal Education, And Change, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

The accounts of how the legal profession has changed in recent years are as abundant as the changes themselves. The common message is clear: the magnitude of change is immense, and the pace is unprecedented.

Missouri Law Review Fellows Program Inaugurated, Dale A. Whitman

Faculty Publications

The Missouri Law Review has a distinguished history of service to the legal profession and the academic community. First published more than fifty years ago, the Review has printed many articles and student notes which have served to improve the administration of justice, while at the same time providing hundreds of second- and third-year law students with a uniquely valuable experience in legal analysis, scholarship, and editing. Membership on the Review has become an important credential, reflecting credit on the student members and enhancing their attractiveness to law firms seeking associates and judges seeking clerks.

Preface: Missouri Law Review--1913-1936-1986, Dale A. Whitman

Faculty Publications

The half-century from 1936 to 1986 has seen astonishing growth in the law and in legal education. Among countless illustrations are the enormous expansion of the law of products liability, the promulgation and adoption of numerous Model and Uniform Acts and Codes, and the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and of Evidence. In Missouri, procedural civil and criminal codes have been created, a new Constitution has been adopted, and the judiciary has recently abandoned the doctrine of contributory negligence in favor of a system of pure comparative fault, working a fundamental change in our common law of …