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Full-Text Articles in Legal Profession

Retaining Color, Veronica Root Apr 2014

Retaining Color, Veronica Root

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

It is no secret that large law firms are struggling in their efforts to retain attorneys of color. This is despite two decades of aggressive tracking of demographic rates, mandates from clients to improve demographic diversity, and the implementation of a variety of diversity efforts within large law firms. In part, law firm retention efforts are stymied by the reality that elite, large law firms require some level of attrition to function properly under the predominant business model. This reality, however, does not explain why firms have so much difficulty retaining attorneys of color — in particular black and Hispanic …


Overstating The Satisfaction Of Lawyers, David L. Chambers Apr 2014

Overstating The Satisfaction Of Lawyers, David L. Chambers

Articles

Recent literature commonly reports US lawyers as disheartened and discontented, but more than two dozen statistically based studies report that the great majority of lawyers put themselves on the satisfied side of scales of job satisfaction. The claim of this article is that, in three ways, these statistically based studies convey an overly rosy impression of lawyers’ attitudes: first, that many of those who put themselves above midpoints on satisfaction scales are barely more positive than negative about their careers and often have profound ambivalence about their work; second, that surveys conducted at a single point in time necessarily fail …


Frost For Lawyers: 'The Best Thing That We're Put Here For's To See', Sherman J. Clark Apr 2014

Frost For Lawyers: 'The Best Thing That We're Put Here For's To See', Sherman J. Clark

Michigan Law Review

Why should lawyers read Frost? First of all, of course, it can bring great pleasure. As Robert Pinsky put it, poetry brings pleasures “both intellectual and bodily” and can provide “a satisfaction central to life.” And this is particularly true of Frost, whose poems are both accessible and enjoyable. This does not mean that there are no challenges in his poems. Frost does make us work. Indeed, as I hope to explore in this Essay, the work he asks us to do is essential to what we can learn from his poems. But this work is itself engaging and invigorating …


Letting Go Of Old Ideas, William D. Henderson Apr 2014

Letting Go Of Old Ideas, William D. Henderson

Michigan Law Review

Two recently published books make the claim that the legal profession has changed (Steven Harper’s The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis) or is changing (Richard Susskind’s Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future). The books are interesting because they discuss the types of changes that are broad, sweeping, and dramatic. In suitable lawyer fashion, both books are unfailingly analytical. They both also argue that the old order is collapsing. The Lawyer Bubble is backward looking and laments the legacy we have squandered, while Tomorrow’s Lawyers is future oriented and offers fairly specific prescriptive advice, particularly to those lawyers entering …


Review Of Failing Law Schools, Richard O. Lempert Mar 2014

Review Of Failing Law Schools, Richard O. Lempert

Reviews

Brian Tamanaha's book Failing Law Schools is neither sociology nor a synthesis of social science research. Rather it is social commentary rooted in Tamanaha’s experience as a law professor, the literature on legal education, and barely analyzed data on law school costs and student outcomes. Tamanaha cannot be blamed for the absence of sophisticated research on matters that cry out for empirical investigation nor for having to rely on data sources that at best capture only a few bivariate relationships, but these limitations make his causal analyses and proposed solutions less than compelling. Still the book is not without its …


Aspire: You Can Go Anywhere, University Of Michigan Law School Jan 2014

Aspire: You Can Go Anywhere, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

Pamphlet with information about the University of Michigan Law School alumni careers.


Clinical Collaborations: Going Global To Advance Social Entrepreneurship, Deborah Burand, Susan R. Jones, Jonathan Ng, Alicia E. Plerhoples Jan 2014

Clinical Collaborations: Going Global To Advance Social Entrepreneurship, Deborah Burand, Susan R. Jones, Jonathan Ng, Alicia E. Plerhoples

Articles

In the summer of 2012, transactional law clinics from three U.S. law schools: George Washington University; Georgetown University; and the University of Michigan launched a collaboration to serve a common client — Ashoka, a global nonprofit organization that supports close to 3,000 social entrepreneurs across 76 countries. While clinic collaborations within universities happen occasionally, clinic collaborations across universities are unusual. This essay focuses on the motivations, operations, lessons, and next steps of this cross-university, clinical collaboration aimed at advancing social entrepreneurship globally. Specifically, this essay examines why the collaboration was launched, how the collaboration is structured, what the collaboration offers …


Training The New Litigator: Some Assembly Required, Leonard M. Niehoff Jan 2014

Training The New Litigator: Some Assembly Required, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

The financial crisis of 2008 brought the legal profession to a crossroads. Indeed, it brought the profession to so many crossroads that we awoke to find ourselves in a surreal cityscape that seemed to consist of nothing but dangerous intersections. Law firms faced tough decisions about which way to go: Should we get smaller, or stay the course, or take advantage of the buyer's market for new and lateral hires? Should we jettison struggling clients or stand beside them? Should we cut budgets for business development, or do we need them now more than ever? Should we pursue some practice …


Teaching Legal History Through Legal Skills., Howard Bromberg Jan 2014

Teaching Legal History Through Legal Skills., Howard Bromberg

Book Chapters

I revolve my legal history courses around one methodology: teaching legal history by means of legal skills. I draw on my experience teaching legal practice and clinical skills courses to assign briefs and oral arguments as a means for law students to immerse themselves in historical topics. Without distracting from other approaches, I framed this innovation as teaching legal history not to budding historians but to budding lawyers.