Legal Education Commons^™

Profiling Minority Law Librarians: An Update, Dwight B. King, Rhea Ballard-Thrower, Grace M. Mills

Dwight B. King

This is a 2007 update of a survey of minority law librarians first conducted in 1992. It offers a recent profile of our minority colleagues, enabling one to see how things have changed - or remained the same - over the course of fifteen years.

"A Day In My Law Library Life," Circa 1997, Dwight B. King, Frank G. Houdek

Dwight B. King

Contributors describe their lives as law librarians by recounting what they did during a single day at their jobs. Given the wide range of positions and libraries represented by the authors, the pieces collectively represent a snapshot - and a historical record - of the law library profession in 1997.

User Surveys: Libraries Ask, "Hey, How Am I Doing?", Dwight B. King

Dwight B. King

Mr. King offers suggestions on how to create and use surveys effectively to assess the quality of a library.

Profiling Minority Law Librarians: An Update, Dwight B. King, Rhea Ballard-Thrower, Grace M. Mills

Dwight B. King

This is a 2007 update of a survey of minority law librarians first conducted in 1992. It offers a recent profile of our minority colleagues, enabling one to see how things have changed - or remained the same - over the course of fifteen years.

Profiling Minority Law Librarians: A Report On The 1992-93 Survey, Dwight B. King, Rhea A-L Ballard, Helena Lai, Grace M. Mills

Dwight B. King

The authors present a demographic and professional profile of AALL minority law librarian members based upon responses to a detailed survey that elicited information about work experience and skills, professional activities and participation, and career aspirations. The results lead the authors to suggest some recruitment strategies to increase diversity in law librarianship and the level of minority participation in AALL.

"A Day In My Law Library Life," Circa 1997, Dwight B. King, Frank G. Houdek

Dwight B. King

Contributors describe their lives as law librarians by recounting what they did during a single day at their jobs. Given the wide range of positions and libraries represented by the authors, the pieces collectively represent a snapshot - and a historical record - of the law library profession in 1997.

Improving Law School For Trans And Gender Nonconforming Students: Suggestions For Faculty, Gabriel Arkles

Gabriel Arkles

Creating accessible, nondiscriminatory, and effective law school experiences for trans and gender nonconforming students requires commitment and willingness to change. Many everyday classroom practices and longstanding university policies created with the best of intentions can harm trans and gender nonconforming students because they are based on inaccurate assumptions about gender. Partly because of these policies and practices, relatively few openly trans and gender nonconforming people hold positions — especially the most powerful and prestigious positions — as faculty, staff, or students in law schools. Fortunately, more and more trans and gender nonconforming people are entering law schools and many cisgender …

Institutionalizing Legal Innovation: The (Re)Emergence Of The Law Lab, Martha F. Davis

Martha F. Davis

As the terrain for legal education shifts, law schools are looking across disciplines for new approaches to legal education, with a number of law schools recently establishing “law labs.” This article examines this new law lab movement, with a particular focus on the subset of legal innovation labs. Law labs were originally proposed as part of the legal realist-era law clinic movement, and there are many parallels between law labs and traditional clinics. For example, both law labs and clinics borrow terminology and specific methodologies from the sciences, particularly medicine, and both arise in reaction to the entrenched case method …

The French Legal Studies Curriculum: Its History And Relevance As A Model For Reform, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

This article attempts to describe and analyze those events which fostered the historical metamorphosis of the French legal studies curriculum. The predominance of a broad academic approach to law and the concomitant absence of a narrow "trade school" mentality in the French law schools might be attributed to the general organization of higher education in France. One of the primary contentions of this article is that the fundamental character of French legal education, which emphasizes the educating of jurists as opposed to the training of lawyers, is the product of a set of factors which are deeply rooted in French …

Introduction: The Internationalization Of Law And Legal Practice, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

The Eason-Weinmann Colloquium entitled "The Internationalization of Law and Legal Practice," held in March 1988, addressed the challenges posed to conventional legal practice and rules of law by the evolution of the international marketplace. In light of the increasingly international character of commercial transactions, could or should disputes in transnational business ventures be adjudicated exclusively within national processes and according to domestic strictures? Does the character of these transactions portend the creation of a new genre of lawyering? Are current academic curricula adapted to the molding of this new breed of lawyers? Is a functional international bar possible? Do we …

Balzacian Legality: A Proposal For Natural Law Juridicial Standards Of Legality, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Thomas Carbonneau

The task of the present article is twofold. First, it represents an attempt to make an original English language contribution to the continuing interdisciplinary inquiry, begun in France, into the presence of law in Balzac's The Human Comedy, by focusing upon themes and novels that have not been the subject of previous individual study. Second, it seeks to contribute to an area of growing interest to legal scholars in the United States – the study of law and literature – by providing an example of the insights one French novelist with legal training and experience had into questions that forever …

Learning From Experience: An Introduction To The Journal Of Experiential Learning, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Commitment to experiential learning begins with the dean, yet this has not been the typical questioning in candidate interview processes. Important are indicators of past performance, examples of interpersonal skills, creativity, and knowledge of current challenges facing the profession, legal education and the individual school. Often over-looked, however, is what else the candidate brings to the table in terms of their approach to legal pedagogy, past experiences that may provide other important insights into what may subconsciously influence the candidate’s particular approach to one or more issues. It can be difficult to glean this from the typical thirty to forty-five …

Law School Based Incubators And Access To Justice – Perspectives From Deans, Patricia E. Salkin, Ellen Suni, Niels Schaumann, Mary Lu Bilek

Patricia E. Salkin

At the end of February 2015, law professors, law deans, incubator staff and attorneys, and self-selected others gathered at California Western School of Law for the Second Annual Conference on Law School Incubators and Residency Programs. The incubators that are the subject of this article tend to focus on transition to law practice and access to justice, and some are also working to incorporate technology for the practice of law as a means of enhancing access to justice. As more law schools decide to host, sponsor or offer an incubator, and following our panel discussion at the February 2015 incubator …

Encouraging Engaged Scholarship: Perspectives From An Associate Dean For Research, Sonia Katyal

Sonia Katyal

No abstract provided.

Commentary, Critical Legal Theory In Intellectual Property And Information Law Scholarship, Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal Spring Symposium, Sonia K. Katyal, Peter Goodrich

Sonia Katyal

The very definition and scope of CLS (critical legal studies) is itself subject to debate. Some scholars characterize CLS as scholarship that employs a particular methodology—more of a “means” than an “end.” On the other hand, some scholars contend that CLS scholarship demonstrates a collective commitment to a political end goal—an emancipation of sorts —through the identification of, and resistance to, exploitative power structures that are reinforced through law and legal institutions. After a brief golden age, CLS scholarship was infamously marginalized in legal academia and its sub-disciplines. But CLS themes now appear to be making a resurgence—at least in …

Teaching Cost-Effective Research Skills: Tips For Effective And Efficient Legal Research, Rebecca Mattson, Theresa K. Tarves

Theresa Tarves

Being a cost-effective researcher is not necessarily just about the legal research resources available where an attorney practices. Budgetary concerns are prevalent across all legal markets, from solos and public interest to large law firms. As the legal field struggles with clients who want greater efficiencies from their attorneys and alternative fee arrangements, many of which state that attorneys will not bill clients for legal research database fees, it is becoming more important than ever to teach law students and attorneys how to use alternative resources effectively and efficiently.

Why Can't I Just Use Lexis Or Westlaw? Promoting Lesser Known Legal Research Platforms To Law Students, Theresa K. Tarves

Theresa Tarves

It can be difficult to convince law students to try new resources outside of Westlaw and Lexis, especially when these two resources seemingly have it all from a law student’s perspective. How do we expose law students to lesser known legal research resources so that they can be well-informed researchers who do not become dependent on only a few resources to carry them through their entire legal careers?

Teaching Cost-Effective Research Skills: Tips For Effective And Efficient Legal Research, Rebecca Mattson, Theresa K. Tarves

Rebecca A. Mattson

Being a cost-effective researcher is not necessarily just about the legal research resources available where an attorney practices. Budgetary concerns are prevalent across all legal markets, from solos and public interest to large law firms. As the legal field struggles with clients who want greater efficiencies from their attorneys and alternative fee arrangements, many of which state that attorneys will not bill clients for legal research database fees, it is becoming more important than ever to teach law students and attorneys how to use alternative resources effectively and efficiently.

Disrupting Law School: How Distuptive Innovation Will Revolutionize The Legal World, Michele R. Pistone, Michael B. Horn

Michele R. Pistone

No abstract provided.

The Pitfalls Of Empirical Research: Studying Faculty Publication Studies, David H. Kaye, Ira Mark Ellman

David Kaye

This article critiques empirical studies by attorneys in the hopes that they will be held to the minimal standards of research competence that are to be found in other academic fields which rely on empirical studies. Because law-trained scholars are notoriously weak at empirical research, this article identifies some of the methodological considerations that should inform empirical research. These fall into four broad categories: (1) problems of conceptualization, (2) problems of measurement, (3) problems of data presentation and analysis, and (4) problems of inference. This article examines all of these considerations in the context of an empirical survey done by …

Thinking Like A Statistician: The Report Of The American Statistical Association Committee On Training In Statistics In Selected Professions, David H. Kaye

David Kaye

In 1983, a subcommittee of the American Statistical Association composed of legal educators and one judge issued a report describing existing programs for educating law students in statistics and offering recommendations for improving these programs. This article summarizes that report.

Annual Report Of The Indiana University Maurer School Of Law Digital Repository, 2014/15, Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

A brief annual report documenting the use and growth of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Jerome Hall Law Library, Digital Repository. Highlights include lists of the most downloaded documents and a complete statistical analysis of all uploads and downloads.

The Indiana University Maurer School Of Law Digital Repository: A Snapshot Of The First Two Years (2011/12 & 2012/13), Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

A snapshot of the first two years of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law Library Digital Repository. Highlights include lists of the most downloaded documents and a complete statistical analysis of all uploads and downloads. To be published on an annual basis in the future.

Before They Even Start: Hope And Incoming 1ls, Barbara Brunner

Barbara Brunner

Newly-accepted law school 1Ls often express interest in how they should spend the summer before starting their fall courses in order to be best prepared for success in their first semester. This desire to have a "leg up" on law school success leads those of us teaching first-year courses to think more deeply about what constitutes a "good preparation" for the unique experiences that new law students will face, and what skills are really necessary to increase their possibilities of success, especially in the first semester. Over the past few years, I have compiled a list of activities which I …

From Rome To The Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, And Roman Law In Early Twentieth Century America, Timothy G. Kearley

Timothy G. Kearley

Zen And The Art Of Multitasking: Mindfulness For Law Librarians, Filippa M. Anzalone

Filippa Marullo Anzalone

Professor Anzalone explains what mindfulness is and how it can help law librarians thrive in their professional and personal lives. The demands on law librarians are tremendous, and the constant juggling of job responsibilities often leads to depression and burnout. A mindfulness practice can offer relief and perhaps even bring joy to harried law librarians.

Some Musings On Teaching Legal Research, Filippa M. Anzalone

Filippa Marullo Anzalone

No abstract provided.

Not Another Constitutional Law Course: A Proposal To Teach A Course On The Constitution, Thomas E. Baker

Thomas E. Baker

Professors Baker and Viator discuss the shortcomings of the current law school constitutional law curriculum. They lament the emphasis on current Supreme Court cases to the almost complete exclusion of the actual text of the Constitution and writings of the intellectual and philosophical history from which it sprang. The professors then lay out a syllabus for their proposed three credit constitutional law class.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Find Me The Perfect (Decanal) Match, William B.T. Mock

William B.T. Mock

I have been asked to address the question, “How do you know which deanship is the right one?” Since I am the only panel member never to have served as the dean of a law school, this naturally involves some speculation on my part. I have interviewed for some decanal positions, and have even had my name forwarded to university presidents more than once, but I have never found the right fit premised by the panel's topic. As a result, a little further into this essay, speculation even ventures into fiction or, as law professors like to call it, a …

A Law Student’S Responsibility For A Liberal Education, Thomas E. Baker

Thomas E. Baker

No abstract provided.