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Full-Text Articles in Law

Law School As A Culture Of Conversation: Re-Imagining Legal Education As A Process Of Conversion To The Demands Of Authentic Conversation, Gregory A. Kalscheur S.J. Dec 2011

Law School As A Culture Of Conversation: Re-Imagining Legal Education As A Process Of Conversion To The Demands Of Authentic Conversation, Gregory A. Kalscheur S.J.

Gregory A. Kalscheur, S.J.

Conventional wisdom holds that the principal task of a law school is to teach law students to "think like lawyers." However, law school can be experienced as a form of narrow training that diminishes something central to the human person: the fundamental drive to question and to follow those questions wherever they lead. This Article will explore the ways in which the thought of two scholars, Bernard Lonergan and James Boyd White, can usefully inform our understanding of this crisis of meaning and value within the context of a conception of law as a social and cultural activity. First, this …


Rebellious Lawyering, Regnant Lawyering, And Street-Level Bureaucracy, Paul R. Tremblay Nov 2011

Rebellious Lawyering, Regnant Lawyering, And Street-Level Bureaucracy, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

This Article explores the professional responsibilities of progressive lawyers representing the poor and disadvantaged. The author argues that lawyers representing the poor are generally good, energetic lawyers committed to social justice and lessening the pain of poverty. Subsequently, the defects found in poverty lawyering are structural, institutional, political, economic, and ethical. Therefore, the author posits that the mission of teachers and practitioners should be to develop practice patterns and proposals that account for the street-level experiences of legal services lawyers on the front lines. By examining the notions of rebellious and regnant lawyering, the author seeks to illuminate how these …


Beyond The Ada: How Clinics Can Assist Law Students With “Non-Visible” Disabilities To Bridge The Accommodations Gap Between Classroom And Practice, Alexis Anderson, Norah Wylie Oct 2011

Beyond The Ada: How Clinics Can Assist Law Students With “Non-Visible” Disabilities To Bridge The Accommodations Gap Between Classroom And Practice, Alexis Anderson, Norah Wylie

Norah Wylie

This article examines how best to educate law students with disabilities so that they can successfully transition from classroom to practice. At the very time that the importance of experiential learning is being trumpeted as critical to the preparation of all law students for practice, all too little attention has been given to the role of clinical education in helping students with non-visible disabilities succeed in their chosen careers. Increasingly, law students are seeking accommodations for a range of mental health, cognitive, and learning disabilities. Law schools have become more adept at providing accommodations in academic classes to qualified students …


Through The Looking Glass Of Eminent Domain: Exploring The "Arbitrary And Capricious" Test And Substantive Rationality Review Of Governmental Decisions, Zygmunt J.B. Plater Oct 2011

Through The Looking Glass Of Eminent Domain: Exploring The "Arbitrary And Capricious" Test And Substantive Rationality Review Of Governmental Decisions, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

The day-to-day realities of different systems of government can be discerned in the way they handle, in theory and practice, clashes between the individual and the collective will. The structure of contemporary American democracy is no exception. It is comprised of a variegated assortment of judicial formulae for balancing the interests of the individual and the state, most of these formulae tracing back with differing degrees of directness to textual bases in the first nine amendments to the federal Constitution or their state constitutional equivalents. One of these basic structural balancings, encountered early on by every student of American law …


Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater Oct 2011

Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

In this Essay, the proposition the author draws from the narrative of the endangered species litigation is derivatively Aristotelian – that we must consciously, actively, and explicitly integrate an informed consideration of human politics into what we teach and do in environmental law. The proposition is not that we should steep ourselves in party politics, although there are interesting observations aplenty that could be made on the direct consequences that the two major parties (and occassionally their wistful smaller incarnations) have on the evolution of environmental law. The proposition offered here operates at two different levels: practical politics and political …


Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan Aug 2011

Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In his 1910 book, How We Think, John Dewey proclaimed that “the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquainting the attitude of suspended conclusion. . .” This Article explores that insight and describes its meaning and significance in the enterprise of thinking generally and its importance in law school education specifically. It posits that the law would be best served if lawyers think like thinkers and adopt an attitude of suspended conclusion in their problem solving affairs. Only when conclusion is suspended is there space for the exploration of the subject at hand. The …


Further Reflections On The Role Of Religion In Lawyering And In Life, Samuel J. Levine Feb 2011

Further Reflections On The Role Of Religion In Lawyering And In Life, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

No abstract provided.


Further Reflections On The Role Of Religion In Lawyering And In Life, Samuel J. Levine Feb 2011

Further Reflections On The Role Of Religion In Lawyering And In Life, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

No abstract provided.


New Ways To Teach Drafting And Drafting Ethics, Lisa Penland, David I.C. Thomson, Susan Duncan, Karen J. Sneddon, Susan M. Chesler Jan 2011

New Ways To Teach Drafting And Drafting Ethics, Lisa Penland, David I.C. Thomson, Susan Duncan, Karen J. Sneddon, Susan M. Chesler

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As foreign as it can seem to not be in a physical classroom with bodies sitting in the chairs listening, it is a very different way of teaching but it can be very effective. If you go through this process of developing and dividing outcomes, dividing modules, and selecting the right technology, it can work. And that is kind of a scary thought to some people. Perhaps not people who have come to this section today or to this conference about What's Next, but for many of our colleagues, this is kind of a scary thought – that you might …


Unpacking The Apprenticeship Of Professional Identity And Purpose: Insights From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, Carole Silver, Amy Garver, Lindsay Watkins Jan 2011

Unpacking The Apprenticeship Of Professional Identity And Purpose: Insights From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, Carole Silver, Amy Garver, Lindsay Watkins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Drawing on data from the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, this paper investigates the ways in which law students develop a sense of professional identity and purpose, the third apprenticeship identified by the Carnegie Foundation in its report, Educating Lawyers. The data offer only a first step toward unpacking how students learn about professional identity and purpose. Generally, the findings point to the importance of law school classes for effective learning about legal ethics, and to the role of clinical legal education as a means for deepening the effectiveness of lessons about ethics, professional identity and purpose.