Legal Education Commons^™

Nowhere To Run To, Nowhere To Hide, Praveen Kosuri, Lynnise Pantin

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As the COVID-19 global pandemic ravaged the United States, exacerbating the country’s existing racial disparities, Black and brown small business owners navigated unprecedented obstacles to stay afloat. Adding even more hardship and challenges, the United States also engaged in a nationwide racial reckoning in the wake of the murder of George Floyd resulting in wide-scale protests in the same neighborhoods that initially saw a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 and harming many of the same Black and brown business owners. These business owners had to operate in an environment in which they experienced recurring trauma, mental anguish and uncertainty, along with …

Disabled Perspectives On Legal Education: Reckoning And Reform, Lilith A. Siegel, Karen Tani

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This is an Introduction to a Journal of Legal Education symposium on "Disabled Law Students and the Future of Legal Education." The symposium's focal point is a set of first-person essays by disabled lawyers. Writing thirty years after the inclusive promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but also amidst powerful evidence (via the pandemic) of the devaluation of people with disabilities, contributors reflect on their experiences in law school and the legal profession. The symposium pairs these essays with commentary from some of the nation’s leading scholars of disability law. The overarching goals of the symposium are to help …

The Search For Clarity In An Attorney's Duty To Google, Michael Thomas Murphy

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Attorneys have a professional duty to investigate relevant facts about the matters on which they work. There is no specific rule or statute requiring that an attorney perform an internet search as part of this investigation. Yet attorneys have been found by judges to violate a “Duty to Google” when they have failed to conduct an internet search for relevant information about, for example, a claim, their own client, and even potential jurors in a trial.

So much information is now available to attorneys so easily in electronic search results, it is time to wonder where, when, and how much …

Sustaining Lawyers, Seema Saifee

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Many lawyers are drawn to a career in social justice, in part, to help others and, in part, to fulfill their own path to wellness. Advocacy that sustains personal well-being, however, also poses considerable obstacles to well-being. Some of these obstacles are inherent to social justice work but some are embedded within organizational culture. These cultural norms impair the health of advocates, harm the communities with whom they work, and portend far-reaching consequences for the future of progressive struggles for freedom. Drawing on the author's personal experience, this Essay identifies three cultural norms, described as pathologies, that are rarely discussed …

Criminal Legal Education, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

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The protests of 2020 have jumpstarted conversations about criminal justice reform in the public and professoriate. Although there have been longstanding demands for reformation and reimagining of the criminal justice system, recent calls have taken on a new urgency. Greater public awareness of racial bias, increasing visual evidence of state-sanctioned killings, and the televised policing of peaceful dissent have forced the public to reckon with a penal state whose brutality was comfortably tolerated. Scholars are publishing op-eds, policy proposals, and articles with rapidity, pointing to different factors and actors that produce the need for reform. However, one input has gone …

Innovation And Tradition: A Survey Of Intellectual Property And Technology Legal Clinics, Cynthia L. Dahl, Victoria F. Phillips

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For artists, nonprofits, community organizations and small-business clients of limited means, securing intellectual property rights and getting counseling involving patent, copyright and trademark law are critical to their success and growth. These clients need expert IP and technology legal assistance, but very often cannot afford services in the legal marketplace. In addition, legal services and state bar pro bono programs have generally been ill-equipped to assist in these more specialized areas. An expanding community of IP and Technology clinics has emerged across the country to meet these needs. But while law review articles have described and examined other sectors of …

A Dose Of Color, A Dose Of Reality: Contextualizing Intentional Tort Actions With Black Documentaries, Regina Austin

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This article describes the way documentary films can provide important cultural context in the assessment of tort claims. This kind of contextual analysis exposes the social conditions that drive legal disputes. For example, in the case of Klayman v. Obama, Larry Klayman claimed that Black Lives Matter, among other defendants, was liable for various intentional torts (including intentional infliction of emotional distress) by fomenting hostility toward the police in black communities. The court dismissed the case but declined to hold Klayman liable for sanctions. One documentary film, I Am Not Your Negro, locates Klayman’s claims in a historical …

Interest Groups In The Teaching Of Legal History, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

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One reason legal history is more interesting than it was several decades ago is the increased role of interest groups in our accounts of legal change. Diverse movements including law and society, critical legal theory, comparative law, and public choice theory have promoted this development, even among writers who are not predominantly historians. Nonetheless, in my own survey course in American legal history I often push back. Taken too far, interest group theorizing becomes an easy shortcut for assessing legal movements and developments without fully understanding the ideas behind them.

Intellectual history in the United States went into decline because …

Losing My Religion: The Place Of Social Justice In Clinical Legal Education, Praveen Kosuri

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Many law school clinics presume a “social justice” mission—that is, representation of the indigent and under-represented about poverty law issues—as the only legitimate goal for clinic clients and matters. This article contends that social justice should not be presumed, but rather should be considered an option—among many—to include in a clinic’s pedagogy. If increased experiential learning opportunities for students are a real objective, and clinics are the pinnacle of those opportunities, then broadening the portfolio of clinical offerings to include those that are not focused on social justice should be a valid proposition. The modern clinical legal education movement that …

Redefining Human Rights Lawyering Through The Lens Of Critical Theory: Lessons For Pedagogy And Practice, Carol Bettinger-Lopez, Davida Finger, Meetali Jain, Jonel Newman, Sarah Paoletti, Deborah M. Weissman

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No abstract provided.

What Will Our Future Look Like And How Will We Respond?, Michael A. Fitts

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No abstract provided.

Clinical Legal Education At A Generational Crossroads: X Marks The Spot, Praveen Kosuri

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Clinical legal education is at a crossroads. Three distinct generations – Baby Boomers, Generation-Xers, and Millennials – with incredibly varied life experiences and expectations will determine the path forward by the way they relate to each other. This essay discusses the current state of clinical legal education as created and led by the Baby Boomers who were typically movement lawyers from the 1960s and 1970s. Written from the perspective of a Gen-Xer, the essay challenges the norms of social justice and law reform as the primary drivers behind clinical education and argues for a greater ideological neutrality in determining the …

Interview With Alan M. Lerner, Lake Srinivasan, Alan M. Lerner, Legal Oral History Project, University Of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Legal Oral History Project

For transcript, click the Download button above. For video index, click the link below.

Alan M. Lerner (L '65) was a practice professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1993 until his death in 2010. He practiced and taught mainly in the areas of civil rights and family law.

The Paradox Of Silence: Some Questions About Silence As Resistance, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.

Access To Justice And Civil Forfeiture Reform: Providing Lawyers For The Poor And Recapturing Forfeited Assets For Impoverished Comrnunities, Louis S. Rulli

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No abstract provided.

Why Pro Bono In Law Schools, Howard Lesnick

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No abstract provided.

Being A Teacher, Of Lawyers: Discerning The Theory Of My Practice, Howard Lesnick

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No abstract provided.

Sapphire Bound!, Regina Austin

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No abstract provided.

Artists, Workers, And The Law Of Work: Keynote Address, Howard Lesnick

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No abstract provided.

Resistance Tactics For Tokens, Regina Austin

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No abstract provided.