Legal Education Commons^™

Opposition To Clinics Tests Attorney-Client Privilege; Students Working On Pro Bono Cases Leave Schools Vulnerable To Confidentiality Challenges, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This National Law Journal article draws attention to past attempts by government and private parties to pierce the protections of the attorney client relationship, specifically confidentiality, when it comes to the representation of clients by law school clinics. Several law school clinics and innocence projects have defended themselves against actions by prosecuting attorney offices and opposing parties who have attempted to obtain information that is traditionally protected by state and federal confidentiality rules. Law school clinics, public interest organizations, innocence projects, government agencies and Public Defender organizations can better protect themselves from future attempts by opposing parties to invade the …

Exporting Legal Education: Lessons Learned From Efforts In Transition Countries, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

A convergence of inward and outward-looking processes in US law schools creates both risk and potential reward in the development of legal education. As law faculties engage in the current process of changing the traditional law school curriculum, they should carefully coordinate a desire for internal goals with an understanding of external impact, realizing that this process is likely to affect not just US law schools, but legal education across the globe. Changes in the curriculum at US law schools should be responsive, not only to concerns about the legal marketplace in the United States, but also to the impact …

The Technology Of Law, Bernard J. Hibbitts

Articles

This paper argues that contemporary fascination with the law of technology (IP, cyberlaw, etc.) has led us to overlook the fundamental impact of the "technology of law," and offers suggestions for creating "neterate" lawyers more comfortable with and cognizant of technology itself. The author describes how the legal news service JURIST implements many of these suggestions and provides a unique learning experience for its law student staffers.

Learning By Doing: An Experience With Outcomes Assessment, Mary Crossley, Lu-In Wang

Articles

An emphasis on assessment and outcomes measures is a drum beat that is growing louder in American legal education. Prompted initially by the demands of regional university accreditation bodies, the attention paid to outcomes assessment is now growing with the forecast that the ABA will revise its accreditation standards to incorporate outcomes measures. For the past three years, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law has been developing a system for assessing the learning outcomes of its students. By describing our experience here at Pitt Law, with both its high and low points, we hope to suggest some helpful pointers …

Promoting The Rule Of Law: Cooperation And Competition In The Eu-Us Relationship, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Both the United States and the European Union fund programs designed to develop the rule of law in transition countries. Despite significant expenditures in this area, however, neither has developed either a clear definition of what is meant by the rule of law or a catalogue of programs that can result in coordination of rule of law efforts. This article is the result of a presentation at a May 2010 policy conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, at which U.S. and EU government officials, scholars, and practitioners discussed the concept of rule of law and efforts to …

Closing The Legislative Experience Gap: How A Legislative Law Clerk Program Will Benefit The Legal Profession And Congress, Dakota S. Rudesill

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Most federal law today is statutory or rooted in statutes, which are created through a complicated process best understood through work experience inside legislatures. This article demonstrates that America’s most influential lawyers are not getting it. My new empirical analysis of the work experience of the top 500 lawyers nationwide as ranked by Lawdragon.com finds that work experience in legislative bodies is dramatically less common among the profession’s leaders than is formative work experience in courts, government executive agencies, private practice, and academe. This article continues the empirical study of the professional experience of the legal profession’s elite published in …

Finding The Middle Ground In Collection Development: How Academic Law Libraries Can Shape Their Collections In Response To The Call For More Practice-Oriented Legal Education, Leslie A. Street, Amanda M. Runyon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To examine how academic law libraries can respond to the call for more practice-oriented legal education, the authors compared trends in collection management decisions regarding secondary sources at academic and law firm libraries along with law firm librarians’ perceptions of law school legal research training of new associates.

How Judicial Hostility Toward Environmental Claims And Intimidation Tactics By Lawyers Have Formed The Perfect Storm Against Environmental Clinics: What's The Big Deal About Students And Chickens Anyway?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since 1976, when the first environmental clinic was started at the University of Oregon’s law school, clinics have proliferated. Today, approximately one out of five law schools has an environmental clinic. With respect to clinics in general, the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers lists “nearly 1400 full-time faculty teaching clinical courses.” Yet far from being an uncontroverted part of the academic landscape, clinics—particularly environmental clinics—have endured political blowback from challenging the environmentally destructive behavior of major economic interests. The effectiveness of environmental clinics is no greater than established environmental organizations—perhaps less effective given the length of …

The Accidental Elder Law Professor, A. Kimberley Dayton

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses my somewhat unusual and erratic path to becoming an Elder Law professor. My story, told more or less in chronological order, is a first-person narrative of one woman’s journey to achieve, if not academic renown, then at least personal satisfaction in the realm of the legal academy. It does not aspire to convey ponderous wisdom about the best way to teach Elder Law or the importance of scholarly productivity as a measure of one’s legitimacy. On the contrary, I hope the Article will illustrate that, in the same way the field of Elder Law has grown and …

Top 10 Law School Home Pages Of 2009, Roger Skalbeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The website home page represents the virtual front door for any law school. It’s the place many prospective students start in the application process. Enrolled students, law school faculty and other employees often start with the home page to find classes, curricula and compensation plans. Home page content changes constantly. Deciding which home pages are good is often very subjective. Creating a ranking system for “good taste” is perhaps impossible.

The ranking report "Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2009" includes a tabulation of fourteen objective design criteria to analyze and rank 195 law school home pages. The intent …

Law School Classes With Twitter (!), Stephen Ellmann

Other Publications

NOW WITHOUT HESITATION

SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2010

Law school classes with Twitter (!)

This post originally appeared on http://nowwithouthesitation.blogspot.com/2010/05/law-school-classes-with-twitter.html

David Hoffman: Life, Letters And Lectures At The University Of Maryland 1821-1837, Bill Sleeman

Bill Sleeman

David Hoffman was a prominent pioneer in the establishment of university-based legal education. He helped to found the University of Maryland Law School in 1816 and was its first professor. His A Course of Legal Study (1817) and Legal Outlines (1829) played a critical role in the development of law school curricula and provided guidance to hundreds of antebellum law students and attorneys.

Fitting The Formula For Judicial Review: The Law-Fact Distinction In Immigration Law, Rebecca Sharpless

Rebecca Sharpless

The ill-defined law-fact distinction often stands as the gatekeeper to judicial review of an agency deportation order, restricting non-citizens facing deportation to raising only questions of law when appearing before an appellate court. The restriction on review most affects cases whose dispositions typically turn on the resolution of factual issues, including claims under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture and claims for discretionary relief from deportation like cancellation of removal. Convention Against Torture claims, for example, often involve extensive fact-finding on the part of the immigration judge regarding conditions in the applicant’s home country and the applicant’s personal circumstances. …

Professional Responsibility, James Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

The Law Professor As Counterterrorist Tactician, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

This essay responds to Professor Aziz Huq's provocative article, "The Signaling Function of Religious Speech in Domestic Counterterrorism." Professor Huq contends that current counterterrorist doctrine overemphasizes the use of religious speech as a "signal' for incipient terrorist violence. He argues that the costs of this approach for religious liberty are significant, and its reliability suspect. Professor Huq's assessment of costs, however, overlooks that current doctrine permits only initiation of an investigation on the basis of religous speech, while even Professor Huq's suggested reforms would require consideration of a potential investigative subject's speech if they were operationalized. His proposals might make …

Professionalism Videos, Mary Ann Robinson, Alison Kehner

Mary Ann Robinson

A series of short filmed vignettes to be used to teach law students about concepts of professionalism. They are intended to be used to help our students realize that their careers as lawyers commence in law school, and that they must begin to adopt and emulate standards of professionalism in law school that they will carry with them when they become legal professionals. Choices made now not only impact their professional reputations, but also establish patterns that can serve them for the better or for the worse in practice.

Introduction To Law, Law Study, And The Lawyer's Role, James Moliterno, Fredric Lederer

James E. Moliterno

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Paths, Creepy Crawly Creatures And Things That Go Bump In The Night: The Cautionary Tale Of A Fourth-Year Dean, Linda Ammons

Linda L. Ammons

This essay on the perils and pleasures to be found on the path of a law school dean was written for the 10th Leadership in Legal Education Symposium at the University of Toledo College of Law.

It's All About The People: Creating A "Community Of Memory" In Civil Procedure Ii, Part One, Jennifer E. Spreng

Jennifer E Spreng

In Fall 2008, a nascent classroom community emerged among my Civil Procedure students, teaching assistants and I. That term’s adventure eventually became the vital “past” for the fully formed community that would knit students of future classes together as one.

The genesis of this early classroom community was my ideal of “the good lawyer” as the small-firm or small-jurisdiction practitioner I had known as a seven-year solo practitioner in a town of 50,000 people. That ideal was a combination of “the rhythms of the law” that run throughout the specialties; a more respectful and less stratified model of professionalism, and …

Debunking The Socratic Method?: Not So Fast, My Friend!, Daniel J. Dye

Daniel Dye

No abstract provided.