Legal Education Commons^™

Latina And Latino Critical Legal Theory: Latcrit Theory, Praxis And Community, Marc Tizoc Gonzaléz, Sarudzayi M. Matambanadzo, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

LatCrit theory is a relatively recent genre of critical “outsider jurisprudence” – a category of contemporary scholarship including critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, critical race feminism, Asian American legal scholarship and queer theory. This paper overviews LatCrit’s foundational propositions, key contributions, and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. The paper organizes this conversation highlighting Latcrit’s theory, community and praxis.

Foreword: The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting The Second Redemption In América Posfascista (Postfascist America) With Latcrit Scholarship, Community, And Praxis Amidst The Global Pandemic, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

As LatCrit reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary, we aspire for this symposium Foreword to remind its readers of LatCrit’s foundational propositions and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. Working for lasting social change from an antisubordination perspective enables us to see the myriad laws, regulations, policies, and practices that, by intent or effect, enforce the inferior social status of historically- and contemporarily-oppressed groups. In turn, working with a perspective and principle of antisubordination can inspire us to …

“The Lost Lawyer” Regained: The Abiding Values Of The Legal Profession, Robert Maccrate

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

The Moral Lawyer And The Machiavellian Nature Of Law Practice, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

In Western culture the name Niccolo Machiavelli has become Machiavellianism, a pejorative signifying the willingness to do anything to achieve desired ends. American lawyers do have limits, however, and are expected to operate according to an ethical code that is at least intended to prevent the worst abuses. The effectiveness of this ethical code has often been questioned, as have the questionable efforts of the organized bar to enforce its rules, but on the surface it differentiates law practice from hand-to-hand combat and military struggles. Even though I have sometimes used the concepts of the warrior lawyer, the general and …

A Primer On Higher Education In The 21st Century: The University As A Whole And Contributions Made By Law Schools, Ronald Griffin

Journal Publications

Citizens live within their unit's belief systems and superstitions. Truth is derived from family narratives, stories spun by old friends, outbursts from neighbours, barbers, religious figures, and priests. Certainty and comfort come from living in these spaces. But there is a wider world out there with characters doing things that conflict with routine. Higher education illuminates this realm. Legal education predicts what authorities will do about their antics and, while this is a laudable undertaking in the abstract, legal education should do more. It should arm the next generation with tools to cope with cultural ruptures, social confusion, dislocations, avatars, …

The Influence Of Juridical Cant On Edificatory Approaches In 21st-Century America, David Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reframes the debate over the "growing disjunction" between legal scholarship and legal practice. Law review articles continue to make the world a better place, the essay stipulates. But are judicial opinions becoming less useful to students and scholars? A rigorous analysis and concrete prescriptions follow.

Improving The Performance Of The Performance Test: The Key To Meaningful Bar Exam Reform, Ben Bratman

Articles

If there are going to be bar exams in the United States — and there are, for the foreseeable future — then the lingering question is how to improve them to better serve the goal of evaluating minimum competence. The bar exam is roundly and rightly criticized by academics and practitioners as disconnected from the actual functions that lawyers perform. The focus of the exam, critics say, is too much on knowledge and memorization of law. That focus is exacerbated by the recent addition of a seventh substantive subject, Civil Procedure, to the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE).

The path to …

Experiential Education As Critical Pedagogy: Enhancing The Law School Experience, Spearit, Stephanie Ledesma

Articles

This article examines the shift to greater experiential education in law school through the lens of critical pedagogy. At its base, critical pedagogy is about devising more equitable methods of teaching, helping students develop consciousness of freedom, and helping them connect knowledge to power. The insights of critical pedagogy are valuable for a fuller understanding of experiential education and its potential to affect students in profound ways, particularly as a means of empowerment. Although this is an understudied area of pedagogical scholarship, power relations are at the heart of legal education. Critical pedagogy offers a frame for considering how experiential …

Cooperation In Legal Education And Legal Reform, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This contribution to the symposium Special Report on Kosovo After the ICJ Opinion focuses on legal education and its role in the legal reform necessary to any state that is transitioning to a new system of government. It does so by considering first the importance of legal education as a U.S. export to transition countries. This necessarily requires a reciprocal consideration of the importance to U.S. law schools of considering the external, international effect of implementing changes in the traditional structure of U.S. legal education, and about how teaching methods both distinguish differing legal systems and require cross-system consideration of …

Two And A Half Ethical Theories: Re-Examining The Foundations Of The Carnegie Report, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the past three years, the American Bar Association, several major state bar associations, the Association of American Law Schools, the New York Times, law students, and many legal educators have called for fundamental changes in the way we educate new lawyers. Some critics have suggested that legal education faces a crisis that will be exacerbated by rising tuitions, declining enrollments, and a precipitous drop in the demand for new lawyers. Most of those calling for change have relied on the critical analysis of modem legal education presented in a 2007 report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement …

Promoting The Rule Of Law: Cooperation And Competition In The Eu-Us Relationship, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Both the United States and the European Union fund programs designed to develop the rule of law in transition countries. Despite significant expenditures in this area, however, neither has developed either a clear definition of what is meant by the rule of law or a catalogue of programs that can result in coordination of rule of law efforts. This article is the result of a presentation at a May 2010 policy conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, at which U.S. and EU government officials, scholars, and practitioners discussed the concept of rule of law and efforts to …

Globalization And Corporate Social Responsibility: Challenges For The Academy, Future Lawyers, And Corporate Law, Faith Stevelman

Articles & Chapters

Changes in information technology, in combination with changing popular and political opinion (including concern over climate change) are moving the subject of corporate social responsibility ('CSR') to the forefront of policy reform, consumer and investor behavior, and graduate business education. Nevertheless, up to the present, CSR has not thrived within law schools’ curricula, or mainstream graduate or undergraduate programs. First, the subject is too synthetic to fit neatly within the core, established framework of academic subject areas (e.g. history, economics, sociology and management), or law schools’ conventional teaching of corporate, securities, employment, administrative, or environmental law. CSR is relevant to …

The Role Of Foreign Languages In Educating Lawyers For Transnational Challenges, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

In a world in which every other country seems intent on teaching English to their youth, and in which the United States educational system does not place a high priority on teaching foreign languages, the American law student, dean and professor may doubt if foreign language knowledge is anything more than marginally helpful to law graduates. Similarly, educators at the primary school level may not be likely to assess foreign language education as warranting a greater allocation of scarce public resources.

The usefulness of foreign languages to the United States lawyer gradually has been gaining increased recognition in the profession, …

The Chaotic Pseudotext, Paul F. Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Values, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Comparative Legal Research, Some Remarks On "Looking Out Of The Cave", Hessel E. Yntema

Michigan Law Review

Despite this risk and without limiting discussion of comparative legal research to a Platonic theory of knowledge-to which I for one would not accede-the text prompts first the inquiry, unavoidable in a constructive discussion of the matter, whether contemporary legal study in the United States is concerned with shadows in an intellectual cave-or in other words, whether it is true, as I was told years ago, partly perhaps in jest, by a late distinguished member of the Supreme Court, then Attorney General, when, encountering me on a visit to the Department of Justice, he kindly asked what I was looking …