Digital Commons Network^™

Creating A Better, Fairer Criminal Justice System, David A. Harris, Created And Presented Jointly By Students From State Correctional Institution - Greene, Waynesburg, Pa, And University Of Pittsburgh School Of Law, Chief Editor: David A. Harris

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In the Fall 2022 semester, 14 law (Outside) students from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and 14 incarcerated (Inside) students at the State Correctional Institution at Greene, in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, took a full-semester class together called "Issues in Criminal Justice and the Law." The class, taught and facilitated by Professor David Harris, utilized the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program pedagogy, emphasizing dialogic learning and peer teaching. The semester culminated with a group project, with the topic selected by the students: "creating a better, fairer criminal justice system." Members of the class organized themselves into small groups, each working for …

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

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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 …

Dethroning Langdell, Beth H. Wilensky

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I come not to bury the case method. I come merely to dethrone it. While the case method’s monopolistic hold on the law school classroom has loosened somewhat in recent years, it is still the dominant approach to pedagogy in many law school classrooms—and especially in the first-year law student experience. That is also true of the case method’s traditional pedagogical partners, the Socratic method and the cold call: their dominance has declined somewhat, even while they still have remarkable staying power.

This Essay identifies one fault with our continued acquiescence to these pedagogical mainstays of law school classrooms: it …

Designing Interdisciplinary, Early Intervention Dispute Resolution Tools To Decrease Evictions And Increase Housing Stability, Christine N. Cimini

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This Article provides a unique glimpse into the development of an early-intervention, pre-court, interdisciplinary dispute resolution project intended to decrease evictions and increase housing stability for recipients of subsidized housing in Seattle. With a grant from the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), a coalition of non-profit organizations had the rare opportunity to design a dispute resolution system into existence. A dispute system design team was formed and began by examining the interconnected problems of housing instability, eviction, and houselessness. Despite thorough research on dispute system design and extensive meetings with stakeholders, the deign team encountered numerous challenges. This Article identifies the …

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

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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 …

Calls For Change: Seeing Cancel Culture From A Multi-Level Perspective, Tomar Pierson-Brown

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Transition Design offers a framework and employs an array of tools to engage with complexity. “Cancel culture” is a complex phenomenon that presents an opportunity for administrators in higher education to draw from the Transition Design approach in framing and responding to this trend. Faculty accused of or caught using racist, sexist, or homophobic speech are increasingly met with calls to lose their positions, titles, or other professional opportunities. Such calls for cancellation arise from discreet social networks organized around an identified lack of accountability for social transgressions carried out in the professional school environment. Much of the existing discourse …

Technology And The (Re)Construction Of Law, Christian Sundquist

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Innovative advancements in technology and artificial intelligence have created a unique opportunity to re-envision both legal education and the practice of law. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the technological disruption of both legal education and practice, as remote work, “Zoom” client meetings, virtual teaching, and online dispute resolution have become increasingly normalized. This essay explores how technological innovations in the coronavirus era are facilitating radical changes to our traditional adversarial system, the practice of law, and the very meaning of “legal knowledge.” It concludes with suggestions on how to reform legal education to better prepare our students for the emerging …

Latina And Latino Critical Legal Theory: Latcrit Theory, Praxis And Community, Marc Tizoc Gonzaléz, Sarudzayi M. Matambanadzo, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

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LatCrit theory is a relatively recent genre of critical “outsider jurisprudence” – a category of contemporary scholarship including critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, critical race feminism, Asian American legal scholarship and queer theory. This paper overviews LatCrit’s foundational propositions, key contributions, and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. The paper organizes this conversation highlighting Latcrit’s theory, community and praxis.

Distance Legal Education: Lessons From The *Virtual* Classroom, Jacqueline D. Lipton

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Abstract

In the 2018-2019 revision of the American Bar Association (ABA) Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, the ABA further relaxed the requirements relating to distance education in J.D. programs. However, outside of a handful of schools that have received permission to teach J.D. courses almost entirely online, most experiments in distance legal education have occurred in post-graduate (i.e. post-J.D.) programs: LL.M. degrees, and various graduate certificates and Master’s degrees in law-related subjects. These programs can be taught completely online without requiring special ABA permission.

This essay reflects on the author’s experiences over a number of …

(Systems) Thinking Like A Lawyer, Tomar Pierson-Brown

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This Article discusses systems thinking as an innovative approach to contextualizing legal advocacy. Systems thinking, a paradigm that emphasizes universal interconnectivity, provides a theoretical basis for parsing the structural environment in which law-related problems emerge and are addressed. From the array of conceptions about what it means to engage in systems thinking, this Article identifies four key tenets to this perspective: (1) every outcome is the product of some structure; (2) these structures are embedded within and connected to one another; (3) the structure producing an outcome can be discerned; and (4) these structures are resilient, but not fixed. This …

The Future Of Law Schools: Covid-19, Technology, And Social Justice, Christian Sundquist

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The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare not only the social and racial inequities in society, but also the pedagogical and access to justice inequities embedded in the traditional legal curriculum. The need to re-envision the future of legal education existed well before the current pandemic, spurred by the shifting nature of legal practice as well as demographic and technological change. This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on legal education, and posits that the combined forces of the pandemic, social justice awareness and technological disruption will forever transform the future of both legal education and practice.

Foreword: The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting The Second Redemption In América Posfascista (Postfascist America) With Latcrit Scholarship, Community, And Praxis Amidst The Global Pandemic, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

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As LatCrit reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary, we aspire for this symposium Foreword to remind its readers of LatCrit’s foundational propositions and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. Working for lasting social change from an antisubordination perspective enables us to see the myriad laws, regulations, policies, and practices that, by intent or effect, enforce the inferior social status of historically- and contemporarily-oppressed groups. In turn, working with a perspective and principle of antisubordination can inspire us to …

Beyond The "Practice Ready" Buzz: Sifting Through The Disruption Of The Legal Industry To Divine The Skills Needed By New Attorneys, Jason G. Dykstra

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A heightened velocity of change enveloped the legal profession over the last two decades. From big law to rural practitioners, the traditional law firm model proved ripe for disruption. This disruption is fueled by several discrete changes in how legal services are provided, including technological advances that allow for the automation of many routine tasks and the disaggregation of legal services; enhanced client sophistication and cost-consciousness; global competition from offshoring routine legal services; the rise of the domestic gig economy, creating a new wave of home-shoring legal services; and competition from non-traditional legal services providers. In the face of declining …

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

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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 …

Leading New Lawyers: Leadership And Legal Education, Michael J. Madison

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Lawyers may become leaders, but leaders also may become lawyers. The path to leadership can begin in law school. This short essay describes a leadership development course developed and implemented at a law school over the last four years.

Rick's Taxonomy, Mary Crossley

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This Essay uses the influential educational work Bloom’s Taxonomy as a jumping-off point for exploring how Rick Matasar’s scholarship relating to leadership in and the goals of legal education provides a guide for identifying, prioritizing and pursuing the core values and objectives of the legal education enterprise in a time of profound change. This Essay briefly describes Bloom’s Taxonomy and its status in the educational literature. Then it highlights two ways that Matasar’s leadership scholarship displays kinship to Bloom’s Taxonomy. His approach to describing a problem, analyzing its nature, and synthesizing and evaluating possible responses to the problem is …

Coming Of Age: Innovation Districts And The Role Of Law Schools, Jennifer S. Fan

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New urban models, dubbed “innovation districts” are gaining traction in entrepreneurial-focused areas across the United States. This article begins by defining what innovation districts are. It then examines the potential role that law schools, together with technology transfer offices, can play as innovation cultivators within such districts. Specifically, it looks at three potential models that law schools can consider when contemplating a relationship with the technology transfer office within a university. Integrating a clinic and technology transfer office within an innovation district does not come without its challenges, however. Accordingly, this article will suggest ways for transactional law clinics to …

Improving The Performance Of The Performance Test: The Key To Meaningful Bar Exam Reform, Ben Bratman

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If there are going to be bar exams in the United States — and there are, for the foreseeable future — then the lingering question is how to improve them to better serve the goal of evaluating minimum competence. The bar exam is roundly and rightly criticized by academics and practitioners as disconnected from the actual functions that lawyers perform. The focus of the exam, critics say, is too much on knowledge and memorization of law. That focus is exacerbated by the recent addition of a seventh substantive subject, Civil Procedure, to the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE).

The path to …

Teaching Emotional Intelligence To Law Students: Three Keys To Mastery, William S. Blatt

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No abstract provided.

Innovators, Esq.: Training The Next Generation Of Lawyer Social Entrepreneurs, Stephanie Dangel, Michael J. Madison

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Today’s law school graduates need to be entrepreneurial to succeed, but traditional legal education tends to produce lawyers who are “strange bedfellows” with entrepreneurs. This article begins by examining the innovative programs at many law schools that ameliorate this tension, including the programs offered by our Innovation Practice Institute (IPI) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Although these programs train law students to represent entrepreneurs and to be entrepreneurial in law-related careers, few (if any) law schools train law students to be “business” entrepreneurs. Drawing on our own experiences and the writings of Bill Drayton, the lawyer who …

Foreword Snx 2014: Challenges To Justice Education: South-North Perspectives, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

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“Towards an Education for Justice: South North Perspectives” was the theme of the XI LatCrit South North Exchange on Theory, Culture and Law, convened at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia in 2014. Scholars, students and activists from more than 10 countries encompassing the Global South and Global North engaged in a critical and animated exchange on the changing space of legal studies and how this change can be stirred towards acknowledging the need to integrate a concern for justice as part of legal education. The premise of the Conference was that the dominant model of legal education, …

'Experiential Education Through The Vis Moot' And 'Building On The Bergsten Legacy: The Vis Moot As A Platform For Legal Education', Ronald A. Brand

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Recent discussions of experiential education have at times considered the role of moot opportunities in legal education. Many, if not most, moot courts and related activities have been designed primarily as competitions. One moot, the Willem Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, is different in that it was designed, and has been consistently administered, as a tool for educating future lawyers. That education has included both skills training of the highest order and the development of a doctrinal understanding of important international legal instruments, especially those created and administered by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). This pair …

Preparing For Service: A Template For 21st Century Legal Education, Michael J. Madison

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Legal educators today grapple with the changing dynamics of legal employment markets; the evolution of technologies and business models driving changes to the legal profession; and the economics of operating – and attending – a law school. Accrediting organizations and practitioners pressure law schools to prepare new lawyers both to be ready to practice and to be ready for an ever-fluid career path. From the standpoint of law schools in general and any one law school in particular, constraints and limitations surround us. Adaptation through innovation is the order of the day.

How, when, and in what direction should innovation …

Scholarship With Purpose: The View From A Mission-Driven School, Christine N. Cimini

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This essay explores the ways that a law school’s unique culture impacts the role of the Associate Dean for Scholarship. Written by the first person to hold this position at Vermont Law School (VLS), this essay focuses specifically on how the Associate Dean for Scholarship supports VLS’s commitment “to developing a generation of leaders who use the power of the law to make a difference in our communities and the world.” This vision of the role, as implemented at VLS, includes: providing support to all faculty, regardless of status; supporting faculty who speak to broad audiences; and embracing a broad …

Critical Race Action: Queer Lessons And Seven Legacies From The One And Only Professor Bell, Francisco Valdes

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No abstract provided.

The Role Of Mindfulness In The Ongoing Evolution Of Legal Education, Scott L. Rogers

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No abstract provided.

Mindful Ethics - A Pedagogical And Practical Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, And Encouraging Civility, Jan L. Jacobowitz, Scott L. Rogers

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Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation-an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation's Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is …

Experiential Education As Critical Pedagogy: Enhancing The Law School Experience, Spearit, Stephanie Ledesma

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This article examines the shift to greater experiential education in law school through the lens of critical pedagogy. At its base, critical pedagogy is about devising more equitable methods of teaching, helping students develop consciousness of freedom, and helping them connect knowledge to power. The insights of critical pedagogy are valuable for a fuller understanding of experiential education and its potential to affect students in profound ways, particularly as a means of empowerment. Although this is an understudied area of pedagogical scholarship, power relations are at the heart of legal education. Critical pedagogy offers a frame for considering how experiential …

Visions Of The Future Of (Legal) Education, Michael J. Madison

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One law professor takes a stab at imagining an ideal law school of the future and describing how to get there. The Essay spells out a specific possible vision, taking into account changes to the demand for legal services and changes to the economics and composition of the legal profession. That thought experiment leads to a series of observations about values and vision in legal education in general and about what it might take to move any vision forward.

Cooperation In Legal Education And Legal Reform, Ronald A. Brand

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This contribution to the symposium Special Report on Kosovo After the ICJ Opinion focuses on legal education and its role in the legal reform necessary to any state that is transitioning to a new system of government. It does so by considering first the importance of legal education as a U.S. export to transition countries. This necessarily requires a reciprocal consideration of the importance to U.S. law schools of considering the external, international effect of implementing changes in the traditional structure of U.S. legal education, and about how teaching methods both distinguish differing legal systems and require cross-system consideration of …