Legal Education Commons^™

Change At The Speed Of Leadership, Lee Fisher

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born—that there is a genetic factor to leadership. . . That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.”

“Lawyers are in the anomalous position of serving as leaders but generally lacking leadership training and skills. Competency in lawyering skills often functions as a proxy for leadership skills, despite the evidence that leadership skills are distinct and may take years to develop. Our neglect of leadership skills is reaching crisis proportions because nearly half of all current law firm partners will retire within the next ten …

Sociolegal Research, The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, And Studying Diversity In Judicial Clerkships, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Xiangnong Wang

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) is an extraordinary asset for examining a vast array of topics related to the educational experiences of law students. By focusing on student-oriented surveys, LSSSE provides law schools and researchers an invaluable opportunity to delve into a wide range of issues dealing with the law student experience, including the career preferences and expectations of students throughout their law school years. In particular, there remains a wealth of opportunity for scholars interested in using LSSSE data to explore issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in legal education and the profession.

The American Bar …

Teaching American Legal History In A Law School, Peter D. Garlock

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Professor Peter Garlock describes his legal history course.

Would You Say That To Your Children? Enhancing Learning Through Improved Communication, Karin M. Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This paper discusses how an aging professor must change how she teaches in relation to how her relationship with her student changes. Sometimes professors see themselves in one way and do not realize that they are not perceived the same way they were years ago. The paper sets out advice for appearing less intimidating to students as they grow younger while we grow older.

From Reconstruction To Obama: Understanding Black Invisibility, Racism In Appalachia, And The Legal Community's Responsibility To Promote A Dialogue On Race At The Wvu College Of Law, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Note focuses on legal education in the United States and West Virginia in particular. Discussions on race, racism, and American law should take place in every legal classroom where race is relevant to the subject being discussed as a way to bridge gaps between communities. This is especially true for the West Virginia University College of Law ("College of Law"), which sits in the third whitest state in the country. The College of Law is the only law school in the state, and a majority of students at the College of Law are white and West Virginian. Thus, at …

Games In The Law School Classroom: Enhancing The Learning Experience, Karin M. Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Educators have always been concerned with devising ways to make education fun while engaging students in an activity that will be intellectually beneficial. This article explores the use of games in the legal writing classroom.

What's In A Name? A Gen Xer And Gen Yer Explore What It Means To Be Members Of Their Generations In The Workplace, Lauren M. Collins, Elizabeth A. Yates

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the NextGen Librarian's Survival Guide by Rachel Singer Gordon, the author cites several reasons this time is different than times before in librarianship. Those that are most relevant to law librarianship include:

• Flattening workplace hierarchies and participative management increase the input of newer librarians in workplace decision making

• New technologies require changing skills that affect attitudes toward the integration of those technologies into our daily work

• Outside pressures, such as the prevalence of the Internet, impose a need for librarians to continually prove our relevance and improve relations with younger patrons

• The much talked about …

Review: Voices Of American Law: Us Supreme Court Cases Meet The 21st Century, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Review of documentary series Voices of American Law (Thomas B. Metzloff & Sarah Wood, producers)

A Frank & Honest Talk: Aall’S Diversity Symposium Takes On Hard Questions Of Creating And Maintaining Diversity In The Legal Community, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

"Getting a Rise Out of Diversity: Celebrating the Challenge" took on hard questions of diversity, while keeping the spirit of New Orleans alive through celebration. With speakers who work to maintain diversity in legal practice and education every day, participants engaged in a lively discussion of what diversity actually is and how to create and sustain it.

I Didn't Take The Road Less Traveled, And What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, Brian A. Glassman

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The author describes his career path and the ways he has sought to combine his interests in law and art. The article concludes with ten survival tips to help others on their career journeys.

Thanks, But I'M Just Looking : Or Why I Don't Want To Be A Dean, Susan J. Becker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The author discusses the challenges facing law faculty who consider taking on the duties of law school administration.

Self-Reflection Within The Academy: The Absence Of Women In Constitutional Jurisprudence, Karin M. Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article will suggest that legal education has failed to represent the significant contributions of women in our American legal heritage within its curriculum. It urges that an acknowledgment of the feminine contribution must now be included within the curriculum of law schools in such a way that the contribution is incorporated within traditional substantive courses rather than select courses dealing with primarily "women's issues." Focusing on the Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, this article highlights the achievements and legal battles of women which were integral to the overall development of legal theory in our country. It discusses some of …

Innovative Teaching Methods And Practical Uses Of Literature In Legal Education, Karin M. Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Because I believe a breadth of reading enhances one's ability to think and write, throughout the years I have tried to encourage extra curricular and diversified reading to be done in conjunction with my Legal Writing class. Unfortunately, yet understandably, law students generally only do the required work, but not more. As a consequence, I have discovered, over time, that the "readers" in my classes continue to read while the "non-readers" never take the opportunity to discover what advantage there might be in taking my advice. Because no change has occurred in students' overall attitudes, I decided to make life …

Of Rat Time And Terminators, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

A version of rat time is being created within the legal profession as law schools pump 40,000 graduates a year into a saturated system. Understanding our present condition as a period of rat time can help us diagnose the problems of the legal profession, identify the future responsibilities of law schools and the profession, and create more effective solutions than the bandaids that have been proposed or applied thus far. This is particularly important because lawyers and law schools have lost their way. They are afraid to address their most troubling problems and to take the principled actions necessary for …

Freedom To Do What? Institutional Neutrality, Academic Freedom And Academic Responsibility, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Our topic is whether law schools should remain institutionally neutral, presumably concerning the fundamental political and moral issues that besiege our society. The answer depends on several competing considerations, including one's concept of the university as either ivory tower or critical force obligated to serve the society that sustains it. I opt in the direction of the university as social force while also accepting the validity of the passive mode and seeing the dispassionate search for knowledge as a means to serve important human needs. The abstract formulation of the university as institutionally neutral is in many ways illusory because …

The Justice Mission Of American Law Schools, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The scholar's dilemma, particularly those scholars in disciplines such as law that are irreversibly linked to the operation of power and implicit willingness to do violence if necessary, is that societies require shared consensus far more than truth. Negative truths about the scientifically unsupportable premises of our fundamental beliefs might interfere with the quality of the operating consensus, at least for those satisfied with their lot. The stark truth about opportunity, fairness, racial and gender bias, about who receives economic benefits and so forth would not be knowledge that “sets us free” but “sets us at each other's throats”. If …

Advice For The New Law Professor: A View From The Trenches, Susan J. Becker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

A decade ago, Professor Douglas Whaley published an essay that offers comfort and advice to those commencing the metamorphosis from practitioners, judicial clerks, and students into professors of law. The purpose of this article is twofold: to offer a confirmation from the trenches of many of Professor Whaley's observations and to supplement his suggestions with some of my own.

The Revolution In American Law Schools, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

There is a continuing revolution in American law schools that is transforming legal scholarship, teaching, and the structure of the curriculum. The revolution is altering the law schools' relationships with the legal profession and judiciary. The revolution has not been contained within the schools, in part because it is being stimulated by events and sources outside the law schools with the schools being reactive rather than proactive institutions. This article examines the ten primary forces behind the revolution in American law schools.

The Clinical Method Of Legal Instruction: Its Theory And Implementation, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article assists the process of understanding the clinical methodology by analyzing the following premises. 1. The method of instruction termed "clinical" differs from the Langdellian appellate casebook method in only one respect--the clinical method collects directly experienced legal processes involving a third party (the client) as its core of material studied by the law student while the casebook method utilizes collections of vicariously or indirectly experienced two-dimensional material as its core of learning material. 2. Issues of what specific educational goals are selected by the law teacher, and the techniques of instruction (Socratic, lecture, discussion, videotapes, etc.) are not …

Clinical Education At The Crossroads: The Need For Direction, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Commentary rests on five premises. The first is that it is both possible and necessary to understand clinical legal education as a general instructional method. The second is that all legal educators must be more willing to reexamine and clarify the purposes of legal education and to engage in discussion about the primary educational goals to be served. The third premise is that different educational methods possess distinct capabilities for the attainment of specific educational goals and that certain applications of the clinical method are manifestly superior vehicles to facilitate learning in the area of "professional responsibility." The fourth …