Legal Education Commons^™

Harry Edward's Nostalgia, Paul D. Reingold

Articles

Until fairly recently, the work of people who thought and wrote about the law in its broadest cultural sense, and the work of those who thought and wrote about the law as it was practiced, did not intersect very much. The broad cultural issues tended to be the province of philosophers or political theorists or other academic social critics, while traditional legal scholarship - as it appeared in law school journals - remained firmly rooted in lawyers' questions. This is not to suggest that legal academics wrote nothing but practice manuals, but it is true that until the last twenty …

The Scholar As Advocate, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

Academic freedom in this country has been so closely identified with faculty autonomy that the two terms are often used interchangeably, especially by faculty members who are resisting restraints on their freedom to do as they please. While there may be some dispute as to whether or how far academic freedom protects the autonomy of universities or of students, the autonomy of faculty members seems to lie close to the core of the traditional American conception of academic freedom. As elaborated by the American Association of University Professors, this conception of academic freedom calls for protecting individual faculty members from …

Deconstructing Los Angeles Or A Secret Fax From Magritte Regarding Postliterate Legal Reasoning: A Critique Of Legal Education, C. Garrison Lepow

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article asks readers to imagine the shapes and colors of legal issues; it examines how people communicate and develop ideas through moving, metamorphosing images, especially computer graphics, and why methodology affects the eventual product of thought. Like dance, legal issues are described better through action than through words. Therefore, this Article challenges the principles of verbal reasoning upon which our legal system is based.

The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education And The Legal Profession, Harry T. Edwards

Michigan Law Review

This article is my response to Professor Priest and all other legal academicians who disdain law teaching as an endeavor in pursuit of professional education. My view is that if law schools continue to stray from their principal mission of professional scholarship and training, the disjunction between legal education and the legal profession will grow and society will be the worse for it. My arguments are quite straightforward, and probably not wholly original. Nevertheless, they surely merit repetition.

On Retiring From A Deanship, John W. Reed

Other Publications

The reason for the italicized "from" in the title of my remarks is to distinguish it from the comments that I made at our meeting in Tucson four years ago, under the title "On Retiring to a Deanship." For those of you who were not there, I should mention that five years ago, as I was about to reach retirement age at the University of Michigan Law School-what the late William L. Prosser used to call the age of mandatory senility-Wayne State University in Detroit asked me to serve as its dean for a term of five years. Lobbied by …

The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

Articles

American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $40,000 from college and law school have become the norm, and debts of $50,000, $60,000, and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a considerably faster pace than the starting salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the starting salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …

Debts, Job Choices, And Financial Burden: Educational Debts At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

Books

American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $35,000 from college and law school have become the norm and debts of $40,000, $50,000 and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a vastly faster pace than the initial salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the initial salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …

Persuasion, Joseph William Singer

Michigan Law Review

Lawyers spend a lot of time attempting to persuade other people. They persuade judges to promulgate rules of law that favor their clients. They persuade their law partners to adopt their interpretation of existing law or to adopt their strategy for litigation. They persuade clients to accept the dictates of the law. They persuade adversaries in settlement negotiations and their clients' business associates in contract negotiations. They persuade legislatures to fund legal services for the poor, to adopt or to reject law reforms.

Law professors spend most of their time teaching - or at least practicing - the art of …

Finding Yourself In Law School, Joel Jay Finer

Cleveland State Law Review

Congratulations on your acceptance and your decision to enter law school. Some might say after reading this commentary that it was more appropriate for a commencement address. But stop to think. Commencement means beginning. This is your commencement, the beginning of your legal career. And if the values to which I refer are not somewhere in your thoughts during your law school education, when you can begin to see how your technical skills can be put to use in service of whatever justice goals you personally find most meaningful, it may be more difficult to make the connections later on. …

Educational Debts And The Worsening Position Of Small-Firm, Government, And Legal-Services Lawyers, David L. Chambers

Articles

Law school operating costs are up. Tuitions are up. The debts of law students are up. What is happening to the students who have borrowed large sums? Are their debts affecting their decisions about the jobs to seek? Once in practice, are they significantly affecting the standard of living they can afford to maintain? What, in particular, is the effect of debts on those who enter-or contemplate entering-small firms, government, legal services, and "public interest" work where salaries are lower than in most other settings in which lawyers work? In the preceding essay, Jack Kramer has performed another extremely valuable …

Dealing With The Limits Of Vision: The Planning Process And The Education Of Lawyers, Lawrence Lederman, Jay Levenson

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

New Dean Talks About Training Public Perception Of Lawyers

Morris Arnold (1985)

No abstract provided.

Fairness In Teaching Advocacy, Charles W. Joiner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The questions I address are these: Is fairness related to advocacy? Is fairness a concept that law teachers should address in their teaching, in particular in courses involving advocacy? By "courses involving advocacy" I mean courses that teach both law and practice techniques involving the direct protection of the rights of clients, particularly in the courts-for example, civil and criminal procedure and evidence.

The Nobel Prize For Law, Alfred F. Conard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

There is no Nobel prize for law. This lack is not in itself a cause for concern, since the discipline of law is replete with its own rewards. But some cause for concern inheres in the implication that law provides very few examples of the kinds of contributions to humanity that merit Nobel prizes.

Is Thinking Like A Lawyer Enough?, Sallyanne Payton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Every year that I attend meetings of the Law School's Committee of Visitors I ask members of the committee how the school might improve the training that we give to our graduates. Every year until this one the lawyers who have responded to this question have given a standard answer: the young lawyers are smart, they say, smarter in many respects than their seniors, but they don't know how to write well. This response usually leads to a discussion of the proper place of skills training in the law school curriculum; lawyers and professors engage in a little jousting over …

Two Views Of The Question: Are Law Schools Doing Their Job?, Terrance Sandalow, Robert B. Mckay

Other Publications

You have all heard the criticisms of lawyers, which I need not rehearse to this audience. Critics range from Aristotle, Jesus, Shakespeare, and Samuel Johnson to Jimmy Carter and Derek Bok; the cast of characters goes on and on. The criticism I like best, although in a way it is the most cutting of all, is what Samuel Johnson is alleged to have said about two centuries ago: "I do not like to speak ill of any man behind his back but I do believe he is a lawyer." It is always easy to bring people together, nonlawyers at least, …

The Invisible Discourse Of The Law: Reflections On Legal Literacy And General Education, James Boyd White

Articles

My subject today is "legal literacy," but to put it that way requires immediate clarification, for that phrase has a wide range of possible meanings with many of which we shall have nothing to do. At one end of its spectrum of significance, for example, "legal literacy" means full competence in legal discourse, both as reader and as writer. This kind of literacy is the object of a professional education, and it requires not only a period of formal schooling but years of practice as well. Indeed, as is also the case with other real languages, the ideal of perfect …

Litigation Abuse And The Law Schools, John W. Reed

Articles

At the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in July, 1983, one session was devoted to a discussion of "Excessive Discovery: A Symptom of Litigation Abuse." (Without knowing, I would guess that a similar title appeared on just about every judicial conference program this year-and last year, and the one before that.) Frank Rothman, President of MGM/United Artists, addressed the subject from the point of view of a corporate client, and his remarks are printed in this issue, beginning at page 342. Judges and trial lawyers expressed their views. And I was asked to comment on the extent to which the law …

Preface: On Natural Resources As An Area Of The Law, David H. Getches

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of A Life In Law, James R. Elkins

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lawyers And Professionalism: A Further Psychiatric Perspective On Legal Education, Andrew S. Watson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In recent years, clinical teaching methods have played an increasingly significant role in the education of this nation's lawyers. With the consequential accumulation of data pertaining to various institutional experiences, it is now worthwhile to explore, from a clinician's perspective, some of the psychodynamics of this educational process as it appears to affect a student's future professional behavior. In addition to such an examination, this article will delineate methods for dealing with the stresses of a lawyer's professional life, suggesting ways in which the attorney may satisfy his goals as well as those of his client. It is hoped that …

Specialization, Certification, And Exclusion In The Law Profession, John W. Reed

Other Publications

This essay is the published text of an informal address delivered on April 19, 1974 in conjunction with the University of Oklahoma College of Law's Enrichment Program.

The Law School's Role In Post-J.D. Specialty Education, Guy O. Kornblum

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As members of a profession which is largely self-policing, attorneys must find ways to protect the public by identifying the areas of practice that require special expertise and by ensuring that those who hold themselves out as specialists possess the necessary expertise. Simply because one claims a specialty or even practices a specialty does not mean that he has the requisite competence to practice in the field. Because one is presently competent in a specialty does not mean that he will continue to practice and maintain his competence and keep abreast of new techniques and developments. Certainly the profession should …

Lawyer Supply And Demand In Kentucky Over The Next Decade, Alvin L. Goldman

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Projecting future needs is a painstaking and hazardous affair. Avoiding such pain, however, is even more hazardous. There is good reason to attempt to project the next decade's need for, and potential supply of, new lawyers in Kentucky. Adequate legal services are an important ingredient in orderly economic growth and an essential element in preserving a free society. On the other hand, an over-abundance of lawyers can depress the economics of the profession to the point at which its ability to sustain desired standards of ethical conduct and to attract a high caliber of new talent are both threatened. Moreover, …

Ann Arbor And Legal Aid, James J. White

Articles

Since the leasing of its office in August 1965, the Washtenaw County Legal Aid Society has been open nearly 50 hours per week and has been staffed exclusively by second and third-year law students from the University of Michigan Law School. The bulk of the practice has been in family law--divorce, support, custody--but there have been a substantial number of creditor-debtor cases, a handful of misdemeanor defense cases, and a large batch of miscellaneous cases.

Legal Education For Certified Specialization, Philip E. Heckerling

Cleveland State Law Review

The purpose of this paper is to offer a partial solution to the public's loss of confidence in lawyers, suggesting that by means of post-graduate education conducted under the auspices of the various law schools, professional specialization in the law will be encouraged through certification, with the end result that lawyers and the public will both benefit psychologically and economically.

The Law School Of The University Of Michigan: 1859 - 1959, Elizabeth Gaspar Brown

Articles

On October 3, 1959, the law school of the University of Michigan will have completed a hundred years of functioning existence. A century earlier, on October 3, 1859, James Valentine Campbell delivered an address On the Study of the Law at the Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, officially opening the law department.

Legal Education: Past, Present, Future, E. Blythe Stason

Articles

For this Law School Centennial issue of the Journal, I am undertaking to offer, first, a retrospective view of legal education of the past generation, and, second, a speculative preview of the years that lie ahead. This is a task of no slight challenge, for legal education is a truly complex activity in a rapidly changing world. To present an evaluation of the past as well as a prediction for the future within the compass of a short article necessarily involves both brevity and careful selection of the features of the subject to be examined. Moreover, since I am principally …

Remarks By The President Of The Association Of American Law Schools, Harold Shepherd

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Superiority Of Lawyers, Bernard C. Gavit

Bernard Campbell Gavit (1933-1951)

No abstract provided.