Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Sameer M. Ashar, Benjamin H. Barton, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Articles

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

Listening To Our Students: Fostering Resilience And Engagement To Promote Culture Change In Legal Education, Ann N. Sinsheimer, Omid Fotuhi

Articles

In this Article, we describe a dynamic program of research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law that uses mindset to promote resilience and engagement in law students. For the last three years, we have used tailored, well-timed, psychological interventions to help students bring adaptive mindsets to the challenges they face in law school. The act of listening to our students has been the first step in designing interventions to improve their experience, and it has become a kind of intervention in itself. Through this work, we have learned that simply asking our law students about their experiences and …

Innovation Tournament, Wendy Moore, Allison Reeve, Andre Davison, Martin Korn, Erik Adams

Presentations

Innovation tournaments are opportunities to leverage the expertise of a group to come up with solutions that can address a particular challenge. First implemented within corporations to generate creative input among employees, innovation tournaments have now crossed into other sectors, such as academia, the tech world, and the AALL Annual Meeting & Conference. Simply put, innovation is change that adds value, and AALL members are doing this every day—this is an opportunity to showcase their ideas.

For the culmination of the tournament, finalists will present their innovation plans to the audience, which will include a special panel of judges. At …

Tidying-Up Your Digital Life: Knowledgement Management In Law School & Beyond, Amy Taylor

Presentations

Taylor delivered a session full of tips and tricks for gathering information and keeping it all organized in the age of info-overload. Portions of the session focused on apps, cloud storage, label systems, customizing news alerts and developing your own trusted method for intake and synthesis. Specific applications that were discussed in greater detail included Evernote, Pocket, OneNote and AirTable. Attendee's walked away with ideas about how to best manage their own busy inboxes, news and articles by off-loading working memory anxiety's to a personal system that fits their professional life needs.

An Invitation Regarding Law And Legal Education, And Imagining The Future, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This Essay consists of an invitation to participate in conversations about the future of legal education in ways that integrate rather than distinguish several threads of concern and revision that have emerged over the last decade. Conversations about the future of legal education necessarily include conversations about the future of law practice, legal services, and law itself. Some of those start with the somewhat stale questions: What are US law professors doing, what should they be doing, and why? Those questions are still relevant and important, but they are no longer the only relevant questions, and they are not the …

Is It Time To Welcome Our Robot Overlords?, Carol A. Watson, Kris Niedringhaus

Presentations

You've probably heard of ROSS Intelligence, Kira Systems, or Lex Machina but what about Premonition, Docubot, or the Do Not Pay chatbot? Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the practice of law. Or does it? Skeptics predicted a legal apocalypse while optimists predict positive outcomes. Either way, it's a revolution. Find out more about how AI is, and will, impact the legal industry. Topics will include defining artificial intelligence, the history of AI’s development, as well as big law’s approach to AI, ethics implications, and how AI is currently being used in the legal environment. We’ll also discuss whether …

Decision Making Models In 2/2 Time: Two Speakers, Two Models (Maybe), Sharon Bradley, Tim Tarvin

Presentations

Our students have to learn so many new skills to be successful in law school and law practice. Legal research, client interviewing, and case analysis just for starters. Our teaching methods have to engage our students while preparing them to “think like a lawyer.” We also have the responsibility to familiarize students in evaluating the “benefits and risks associated with relevant technology” and to develop efficient practices and processes. The speakers will look at decision making models that are practical and useable.

One speaker will discuss his experiences in a clinical setting using decision trees, teaching his students to visualize …

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Pdfs, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these sessions focused on how-to skills for using Adobe Acrobat in the legal profession.

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Word, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these sessions focused on how-to skills for using Microsoft Word in the legal profession.

The Legal Tech Audit: Focus On Excel, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

In addition to discussing the legal tech audit, these two sessions focused on how-to skills for using Microsoft Excel in the legal profession.

Tech Skills For Staff: Excel & Pdfs, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

This informal instruction session covered Microsoft Excel and Adobe Acrobat Pro. Staff were encouraged to bring their own computers and follow along as each program was explored. Practical tips for using both programs were shared and discussed.

Law Firm Internships And The Making Of Future Lawyers: An Empirical Study In Singapore, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines the findings of an empirical study of law students from the Singapore Management University on their internship experiences at private law firms. As internships are frequently undertaken by law students, it is necessary for stakeholders to understand their impact on the values and ideals of law students in relation to the law and legal practice. This article seeks to increase the consciousness of law school educators, lawyers, and the professional bar about how law firm internships are contributing to the making of future lawyers, so as to facilitate the reflection by these parties as to their roles …

The Role Of Foreign Languages In Educating Lawyers For Transnational Challenges, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

In a world in which every other country seems intent on teaching English to their youth, and in which the United States educational system does not place a high priority on teaching foreign languages, the American law student, dean and professor may doubt if foreign language knowledge is anything more than marginally helpful to law graduates. Similarly, educators at the primary school level may not be likely to assess foreign language education as warranting a greater allocation of scarce public resources.

The usefulness of foreign languages to the United States lawyer gradually has been gaining increased recognition in the profession, …