Legal Education Commons^™

Southeastern Association Of Law Libraries Annual Meeting, Beth Adelman, Constance Ard, Jan Baker, John Beatty, Erika Beck, Jennifer Behrens, Billie J. Blaine, Pamela Bluh, Elizabeth D. Bradsher, Pam Brannon, Kevin Butterfield, Charlene Cain, Sean Chen, Terrye Conroy, Jessica De Perio Wittman, Marin Dell, James M. Donovan, Maureen A. Eggert, Robb Farmer, Elizabeth Farrell, Vicen Feliu, Sarah Glassmeyer, Suzanne R. Graham, Ismael Gullon, Edward T. Harte, Christine Heaton, James Heller, Sally Irvin, Kate Irwin-Smiler, Faye Jones, David Lehmann, Andrew Lentini, Terry Long, Shannon L. Malcolm, Terrance Manion, Roxanne Marmion, Katherine Marsh, Sarah Mauldin, Rebekah Maxwell, Pamela R. Melton, Marian Parker, Merryl Penson, Gordon Russell, James C. Smith, Dick Spinelli, Kay Todd, Robert T. Trotter, Carol A. Watson, Julie Webster-Matthews, Laura Weidig, Sarah K. Wiant, Patrick Wiseman

Jessica de Perio Wittman

The 2009 SEAALL Annual Meeting was held in Athens Georgia, April 16-18, 2009.

Keynote Address: Remarks At The Workshop On Tapping Into The World Of Electronic Legal Knowledge , Muna Ndulo

Muna B Ndulo

Professor Muna Ndulo of Cornell Law School presented the keynote address at the 2007 Starr Workshop, “Tapping into the World of Electronic Legal Knowledge.” The workshop took place at Cornell Law School October 7-10, 2007 and was co-sponsored by the Starr Foundation, New York University Law Library, and Cornell Law Library. Professor Ndulo addresses the topic of new information technologies and their importance to legal research and teaching.

Improving Legal Writing: A Life-Long Learning Process And Continuing Professional Challenge, Kathleen Elliott Vinson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

You've Got Rhythm: Curriculum Planning And Teaching Rhythm At Work In The Legal Writing Classroom, Debra Moss Curtis

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fostering A Respect For Our Students, Our Specialty, And The Legal Profession: Introducing Ethics And Professionalism Into The Legal Writing Curriculum, Melissa H. Weresh

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pride And Prejudice: Lessons Legal Writers Can Learn From Literature, Michele G. Falkow

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

"I See And I Remember; I Do And Understand": Teaching Fundamental Structure In Legal Writing Through The Use Of Samples, Judith B. Tracy

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Students As (Re)Visionaries: Or, Revision, Revision, Revision, Susan M. Taylor

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Increased Importance Of Legal Writing In The Era Of “The Vanishing Trial”, Edward D. Re

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hot Topics In Legal Writing Curricular Development, Tanya Pierce

Tanya Pierce

No abstract provided.

Beyond Admissions: Racial Equality In Law Schools, Sharon E. Rush

Sharon E. Rush

Beginning with a discussion of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, this article discusses the meaning of “integration.” In McLaurin, the University of Oklahoma was forced to abandon its segregation policy and not separate black students from their white classmates in all settings (not just the classroom). The McLaurin decision raised the fundamental questions: "What is integration?" and "How is integration related to racial equality?" Significantly, the McLaurin Court clarifies that equality is premised on integration and that integration means more than just having a presence in an institution. The case …

Southeastern Association Of Law Libraries Annual Meeting, Beth Adelman, Constance Ard, Jan Baker, John Beatty, Erika Beck, Jennifer Behrens, Billie J. Blaine, Pamela Bluh, Elizabeth D. Bradsher, Pam Brannon, Kevin Butterfield, Charlene Cain, Sean Chen, Terrye Conroy, Jessica De Perio Wittman, Marin Dell, James M. Donovan, Maureen A. Eggert, Robb Farmer, Elizabeth Farrell, Vicen Feliu, Sarah Glassmeyer, Suzanne R. Graham, Ismael Gullon, Edward T. Harte, Christine Heaton, James Heller, Sally Irvin, Kate Irwin-Smiler, Faye Jones, David Lehmann, Andrew Lentini, Terry Long, Shannon L. Malcolm, Terrance Manion, Roxanne Marmion, Katherine Marsh, Sarah Mauldin, Rebekah Maxwell, Pamela R. Melton, Marian Parker, Merryl Penson, Gordon Russell, James C. Smith, Dick Spinelli, Kay Todd, Robert T. Trotter, Carol A. Watson, Julie Webster-Matthews, Laura Weidig, Sarah K. Wiant, Patrick Wiseman

Patrick Wiseman

The 2009 SEAALL Annual Meeting was held in Athens Georgia, April 16-18, 2009.

A Tale Of One Cali Lesson: Librarians Share A New Approach, Terrance K. Manion, Ronald E. Wheeler

Terrance K Manion

No abstract provided.

Choosing The Top Candidate: Best Practices In Academic Law Library Hiring, Ronald Wheeler, Nancy Johnson, Terrance Manion

Terrance K Manion

The authors discuss successful hiring practices in academic law libraries. Their discussion details each step of the hiring process, from vacancy to offer, and explores strategies for implementing the steps successfully. The processes examined include: reviewing the vacancy, assessing the library needs, forming an effective search committee, writing a winning job description, checking references, conducting an interview, and making an offer. The authors assert that a successful hire will influence every aspect of your library and, as such, a library needs to devote considerable attention and resources to librarian searches.

In The Mind's Eye: Visual Lessons For Law Students, Brian A. Glassman

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article shows how to use works of art to demonstrate essential components of effective legal writing. Part I discusses the learning theory under pinning the use of visual lessons. Part II describes the lessons themselves. Part III explains the benefits--both direct and indirect--that result from using visual lessons to teach law and summarizes student responses to the use of these lessons in first-year legal writing. The conclusion suggests ways in which this technique might be extended and adapted to teach not only legal writing but also other law school courses.

Book Review: “The Good Lawyer: Seeking Quality In The Practice Of Law”, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

In their first collaboration, The Happy Lawyer, the writing team of Nancy Levit and Doug Linder tackled a crucially important subject: how to have a happy life in the law. As part of that project, they interviewed more than two hundred lawyers about what makes them happy in their jobs. Levit and Linder noticed that happy lawyers nearly always talked about doing good work. Curious about the connection, the authors turned to recent research in neuroscience and learned, not to their surprise, that a key to a happy life is, indeed, the sense of doing good work. It is …

Helping International Students Avoid The Plagiarism Minefield: Suggestions From A Second Language Teacher And Writer, Diane B. Kraft

Law Faculty Popular Media

In this column for Perspectives: Teaching and Writing, Professor Diane B. Kraft provides suggestions to address the problem of plagiarism by international law students.

Alan Watson's Controversial Contribution To Legal Scholarship, Gary Francione

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Experiential Legal Writing: The New Approach To Practicing Like A Lawyer, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Law students engage in various types of “experiential” learning activities while in school, such as clinics and externships, but they graduate without the experience necessary to practice law. This is traceable to a glaring deficiency at most law schools: a writing program that is comprehensive, properly sequenced, and integrated across and throughout the law school curriculum.

First, most graduates have never drafted the documents they will encounter in law practice. Additionally, they have not drafted and re-drafted such documents while also participating in real-world simulations as they would in actual practice. Instead, students graduate having drafted an appellate brief, a …

Not Your Parents' Law Library: A Tale Of Two Academic Law Libraries, Julian Aiken, Femi Cadmus, Fred Shapiro

Femi Cadmus

As academic law libraries continue to face the inevitability of a rapidly changing landscape which includes a new breed of digital users with sophisticated technological needs, it remains to be seen what libraries will look like in years to come. It is certain that libraries as we know them today will have changed, but to what extent? An ability to remain adaptable and to anticipate the evolving needs of users in a dynamic environment will continue to be key for libraries to remain relevant, and even to survive, in the 21st century; vital to this endeavor will also be an …

Meeting The Challenges Of Instructing International Law Graduate Students In Legal Research, Nina E. Scholtz, Femi Cadmus

Femi Cadmus

Teaching international LL.M. students legal research offers its own peculiar challenges. The brevity of the LL.M. program and the limited time available for thoroughly introducing basic research concepts have made it particularly difficult, but the innovative and creative methods of instruction highlighted in this article have provided good solutions.

Stop Me If You’Ve Heard This Before: Transitions In Teaching Legal Research, Patricia Morgan

UF Law Faculty Publications

Law schools are being called upon to produce more “practice ready” graduates. To that end, the University of Florida added a librarian-taught first-year Legal Research course to its curriculum. As a result of the course addition, there was an impact on the existing Advanced Legal Research (ALR) course. For the first time, the ALR students had already received legal research instruction. This required adjustments in this higher level course.

Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

No abstract provided.

Whose Article Is It Anyway? Student Editors And The Law Review Process, Josephine R. Potuto

Josephine R Potuto

Law professors publish in law reviews, not peer-reviewed journals. They are edited by law students. The editing process can be both irritating and exasperating. From experiences lived and those shared by colleagues across the country, I provide concrete examples of where law student editors go wrong, and also explain why.

Inventing The New Classroom, Jennifer Mart-Rice, Debra Denslaw, Susan Boland, Jesse Bowman

Jennifer Mart-Rice

No abstract provided.

A Proposal To The Aba: Integrating Legal Writing And Experiential Learning Into A Required, Six-Semester Curriculum That Trains Students In Core Competencies, 'Soft Skills,' And Real-World Judgment, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Experiential learning is not the answer to the problems facing legal education. Simulations, externships, and clinics are vital aspects of a real-world legal education, but they cannot alone produce competent graduates. The better approach is to create a required, six-semester experiential legal writing curriculum where students draft and re-draft the most common litigation documents and engage in simulations, including client interviews, mediation, depositions, settlement negotiations, and oral arguments in the order that they would in actual practice. In so doing, law schools can provide the time and context within which students can truly learn to think like lawyers, do what …

Technology And Client Communications: Preparing Law Students And New Lawyers To Make Choices That Comply With The Ethical Duties Of Confidentiality, Competence, And Communication, Kristin J. Hazelwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

That the use of technology has radically changed the legal profession is beyond dispute. Through technology, lawyers can now represent clients in faraway states and countries, and they can represent even local clients through a “virtual law office.” Gone are the times in which the lawyer’s choices for communicating with clients primarily involve preparing formal business letters to convey advice, holding in-person client meetings in the office, or conducting telephone calls with clients on landlines from the confines of the lawyer’s office. Not only do lawyers have choices about how to communicate with their clients, but they also frequently choose …

Judicial Influence And The United States Federal District Courts: A Case Study, Justin R. Hickerson

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Proposal To The Aba: One Required Legal Writing Course For All Six Semesters Of Law School, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

If you decide to run a marathon, but stop training after the eighth week of a sixteen-week training schedule, you will not finish. Why? Your muscles atrophied, and your stamina declined. If you stop writing after the second or third semester of law school, you will not become a good legal writer. Why? Your skills atrophied. You did not develop mental memory—just like the marathon runner did not develop muscle memory.

Why did the marathon runner stop? Maybe life got in the way, or training became too hard. But it’s the difficult moments—the grind—that separates the marathon runner from the …

New Frontiers In Legal Research Education: Implementing Alternative Methods Of Legal Research Instruction – One Year Later, Stephanie Miller, Caroline Osborne, Alyson Drake, Franklin Runge

Stephanie C. Miller

No abstract provided.