Legal Education Commons^™

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

The New Affirmative Action After Fisher V. University Of Texas: Defining Educational Diversity Through The Sixth Amendment's Cross-Section Requirement, Adam Lamparello, Cynthia Swann

Adam Lamparello

Skin color and diversity are not synonymous, and race provides no basis upon which to stereotype individuals or groups, regardless of whether the reasons are malevolent or benign.

Affirmative action policies in higher education should focus on the things that individuals have overcome, not the traits that individuals—and groups—cannot change. Currently, the opposite is true, as such policies typically equate racial diversity with educational diversity, thereby precluding consideration of factors such as family and personal background, life experience, and the overcoming of adversity that would result in true educational diversity. This is not to say that race is irrelevant, …

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

, The Law School Of The Future: How The Synergies Of Convergence Will Transform The Very Notion Of “Law Schools” During The 21st Century From “Places” To “Platforms”, Jeffrey A. Van Detta

Jeffrey A. Van Detta

This article discusses the disruptive change in American (and trans-national) legal education that the convergence of technology and economics is bringing to legal education. It posits, and then defends, the following assertion about "law schools of the future":

“Law schools will no longer be ‘places’ in the sense of a single faculty located on a physical campus. In the future, law schools will consist of an array of technologies and instructional techniques brought to bear, in convergence, on particular educational needs and problems.”

This paper elaborates on that prediction, discussing the ways in which technology will positively impact legal education, …

The End Of Law Schools, Ray W. Campbell

Ray W Campbell

What would legal education look like if it were designed from the ground up for a world in which legal services have undergone profound and irreversible change? Law schools as we know them are doomed. They continue to offer an educational model originally designed to prepare lawyers to practice in common law courts of a bygone era. That model fails to prepare lawyers for today’s highly specialized practices, and it fails to provide targeted training for the emerging legal services fields other than traditional lawyering.

This article proposes a new ideology of legal education to meet the needs of modern …

Experiential Education And Our Divided Campuses: What Delivers Practice Value To Big Law Associates, Government Attorneys, And Public Interest Lawyers?, Margaret E. Reuter, Joanne Ingham

Margaret E. Reuter

How will law schools meet the challenge of expanding their education in lawyering skills as demanded from critics and now required by the ABA? This article examines the details of the experiential coursework (clinic, field placement, and skills courses) of 2,142 attorneys. It reveals that experiential courses have not been comparably pursued or valued by former law students as they headed to careers in different settings and types of law practice. Public interest lawyers took many of these types of courses, at intensive levels, and valued them highly. In marked contrast, corporate lawyers in large firms took far fewer. When …

The End Of Law Schools, Ray Worthy Campbell

Ray W Campbell

Law schools as we know them are doomed. They continue to offer an educational model originally designed to prepare lawyers to practice in common law courts of a bygone era. That model fails to prepare lawyers for today’s highly specialized practices, and it fails to provide targeted training for the emerging legal services fields other than traditional lawyering.

This article proposes a new ideology of legal education to meet the needs of modern society. Unlike other reform proposals, it looks not to tweaking the training of traditional lawyers, but to rethinking legal education in light of a changing legal services …

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

Ian Gallacher

No abstract provided.

"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

Law schools are designed to teach students about the doctrine of law and to help them prepare their skills to practice law. There are some practical aspects of law practice, though, that are rarely if ever discussed in law school. Perhaps this is because of an assumption that law firms will make these issues clear to the students they hire as associates, or perhaps it is because of a belief that such information has no place in the curriculum of an academic institution. Whatever the reason, this is information law students should have as they begin to think about where …

Nigger Manifesto: Ideological And Intellectual Discrimination Inside The Academy, Ellis Washington

Ellis Washington

Draft – 22 March 2014

Nigger Manifesto

Ideological Racism inside the American Academy

By Ellis Washington, J.D.

Abstract

I was born for War. For over 30 years I have worked indefatigably, I have labored assiduously to build a relevant resume; a unique curriculum vitae as an iconoclastic law scholar zealous for natural law, natural rights, and the original intent of the constitutional Framers—a Black conservative intellectual born in the ghettos of Detroit, abandoned by his father at 18 months, who came of age during the Detroit Race Riots of 1967… an American original. My task, to expressly transcend the ubiquitous …

Back To The Future: The Constitution Requires Reasonableness And Particularity—Introducing The “Seize But Don’T Search” Doctrine, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Issuing one-hundred or fewer opinions per year, the United States Supreme Court cannot keep pace with opinions that match technological advancement. As a result, in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, the Court needs to announce a broader principle that protects privacy in the digital age. That principle, what we call “seize but don’t search,” recognizes that the constitutional touchstone for all searches is reasonableness.

When do present-day circumstances—the evolution in the Government’s surveillance capabilities, citizens’ phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court thirty-four years …

Promoting Equitable Law School Admissions Through Legal Challenges To The Lsat, Al Alston

Al Alston

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Reimagining Merit As Achievement, Aaron N. Taylor

AARON N TAYLOR

Higher education plays a central role in the apportionment of opportunities within the American meritocracy. Unfortunately, narrow conceptions of merit limit the extent to which higher education broadens racial and socioeconomic opportunity. This article proposes an admissions framework that transcends these limited notions of merit. This “Achievement Framework” would reward applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who have achieved beyond what could have reasonably been expected. Neither race nor ethnicity is considered as part of the framework; however, its nuanced and contextual structure would ensure that racial and ethnic diversity is encouraged in ways that traditional class-conscious preferences do not. The overarching …

Feeling At Home: Law, Cognitive Science, And Narrative, Lea B. Vaughn

Lea B Vaughn

What is the “how and why” of law’s affinity for narrative? In order to explain why the use of stories is such an effective teaching and presentation strategy in the law, this paper will consider theories and accounts from cognitive as well as evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and, briefly, cultural anthropology. This account seeks to address “how” narrative helps us learn and use the law as well as “why” we are so compelled to use stories in teaching and in practice.

Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to “grab” someone’s attention. Emotionally charged events are more likely …

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

Deborah M. Weissman

In recent years, human rights clinics have mushroomed across United States law schools, specializing in work ranging from direct representation of asylum seekers in U.S. courts, to international litigation, to project-based advocacy that includes fact-finding visits and production of reports documenting human rights violations throughout the world. Increasingly, those human rights clinics have begun to address human rights within the United States, and not just in places beyond our borders. At the same time, domestic poverty law clinics are increasingly looking to human rights norms in framing some of their advocacy, which often takes the forms of direct legal services, …

Studying And Teaching "Law As Rhetoric": A Place To Stand, Linda L. Berger

Linda L. Berger

This article proposes that law students may find a better fit within the legal culture of argument if they are introduced to rhetorical alternatives to counter narrowly formalist and realist perspectives on how the law works and how judges decide cases. The article makes a two-part argument: first, introducing law students to rhetorical alternatives allows them to envision their role as lawyers as constructive, effective, and imaginative while grounded in law, language, and reason. Second, offering rhetorical alternatives allows law professors to enrich their own study and teaching and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the law school classroom …

Levinas, Law Schools And The Poor: They Stand Over Us, Marie A. Failinger

Marie A. Failinger

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has written about the ethics of the Face and our responsibility to the Other who is standing over us, demanding that we respond to his need and his welcome. This essay, which is written in Levinasan style, challenges the complacency of most American law schools in response to the plight of the poor. It proposes ways in which the law school curriculum, space and programs can be re-configured to bring the poor into community with legal educators and students.

Gender Matters: Making The Case For Trans Inclusion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The transgender communities are producing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. For community members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, has an immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groups who have attempted to make sense of the world through description, interrogation, and, ultimately, a program for transformation. The transgender project also has universalizing elements because, existing within the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular gender articulation. It is through this articulation that we define ourselves in relation to the gender we were assigned at birth, the gender we choose, the gender …

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …