Law Commons^™

W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration 2022, Andrew Christensen, Michelle Cosby, Jennifer Mitchell, Christopher B. Seaman, Melanie D. Wilson

Library Events

On October 6, 2022, the Washington and Lee Law Library hosted the fourth W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration. The event was co-sponsored by the Frances Lewis Law Center and took place in the Law Library's main reading room from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

On display were dozens of scholarly articles, books, and chapters authored by the W&L Law faculty and student body between October 2019 and October 2022, with hundreds of additional works accessible online through the Scholarly Commons institutional repository.

Faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators mingled with law students over hors d'oeuvres and wine to peruse the formidable scholarly …

Student Wellness And Mental Wellbeing, Emily Bishop, Stevie Leahy

William & Mary Law School’s Conference for Excellence in Online Teaching Legal Research & Writing

This presentation will focus on centering the mental wellbeing of students for the 2020-21 academic year. The incoming cohort has unique stressors that are compounded by challenging current events - as educators, we are also challenged to engage and connect with these students in a virtual environment. This presentation will give practical strategies to engage with students that facilitate and foster mental health, with an eye to anchoring our tactics within a legal research and writing curriculum. The presentation aims to encourage healthy dialogue on how to de-stigmatize mental wellbeing and best support our students. This goal, more so now …

Online Self-Grading Assessments For Legal Research And Writing Courses, Eric P. Voigt

William & Mary Law School’s Conference for Excellence in Online Teaching Legal Research & Writing

Do you want to provide more formative assessment measures to students without overburdening your workload? Do you want to maximize your students' long-term retention of course material? If yes, then check out this chart "presentation." This chart identifies free and subscription-based resources covering legal research and writing topics. This chart discusses many on line resources with pre-built exercises and quizzes that provide instant feedback and explanations to students.

An Attorney's Guide To Business And Investigative Research, Carol A. Watson

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Carol A. Watson is the Director of Alexander Campbell King Law Library at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Introduction And Program Overview, Anne Burnett

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Anne E. Burnett, Program Chair; Foreign and International Law Librarian, J.D., M.L.I.S. Alexander Campbell King Law Library, University of Georgia, Athens led the introduction to the day's schedule of CLE presentations having organized and served the role as primary facilitator of the event.

Exposing The Imposter: Imposter Syndrome & Legal Writing Faculty, Sara L. Ochs

Events at Dickinson Law

Legal academics often report crippling feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, symptoms of a widespread trend labeled as “imposter syndrome.” Experts have defined this phenomenon as a “deep and sometimes paralyzing belief that we have been given something we didn’t earn and don’t deserve and that at some point we’ll be exposed.” Given the evident hierarchies in legal academia, these feelings are especially prominent among legal writing faculty, and even more so among those in untenured positions. Using empirical data acquired from law professors, this presentation will analyze the prevalence and causes of imposter syndrome among legal writing faculty and will …

Research Instruction At Yale Law School, Julie Graves Krishnaswami

Events at Dickinson Law

At Yale Law School, the Law Librarians take a holistic approach to providing legal research instruction. With that approach, we meet students where they are – academically and curricularly – through courses, reference consultations, guest lectures, and workshops. We provide elective research instruction in a variety of fora to meet the needs of our students. Our research courses are elective and are supplemented by workshops and guest lectures in clinical and doctrinal courses, and for student groups. Yale Law School students recognize the need for research instruction, and we have expanded our offerings to meet demand. The Law Library’s holistic …

Making Two Separates Equal: Combining Graduation Requirements And Research And Writing Skills, Ann Walsh Long

Events at Dickinson Law

ABA Standard 303 requires that a law school offer a curriculum that requires each student to satisfactorily complete at least one professional responsibility course, one upper-level writing course, and one or more experiential course(s) totaling at least six credit hours. While the same class cannot count toward more than one of these requirements, Interpretation 303-1 allows one course to count as "either as an upper-class writing requirement or as a simulation course provided the course meets all of the requirements of both types of courses and the law school permits a student to use the course to satisfy only one …

The Traditional Legal Analysis, Research, And Writing Course: Does Subject Synthesis Serve Students Best?, Anna Hemingway, Sherri Keene

Events at Dickinson Law

Most law schools’ first-year curriculums include a course on legal analysis, research, and writing. At many law schools, the synthesis of these subjects into one course is considered the best way to teach first-year law students basic lawyering skills. Recently, however, law schools have begun to separate the topics into stand-alone courses. This presentation will review the different models law schools are currently using and will explore additional opportunities to remix the individual topics with other first-year courses.

Incorporating Short Writing Exercises Into Traditional Exam Courses: How To Do It & How To Encourage Others To Do It Too!, Candace Centeno

Events at Dickinson Law

This presentation will discuss how to incorporate short writing exercises into a traditional exam class & how to encourage others to do the same. The presentation will first briefly discuss a sample writing exercise used in an upper level elective that also has a final examination; in sum, the writing exercise builds upon the email analysis instruction provided in the 1L Legal Writing Program. This short exercise provides an opportunity for the professor to help students refine their writing and organization & to see if the students are understanding basic concepts. The presentation will then explore ways to encourage other …

Mastering The Model Answer, Elizabeth Sherowski

Events at Dickinson Law

One way to encourage professors to assign written work across the law school curriculum is to assure them that providing feedback on the writing won't take up too much time. Giving students a post-assignment model answer is an effective way to save time on providing feedback, but most students don't know how to use model answers effectively, and many professors don't know how to draft an effective model answer. This presentation shows LRW professors how to share their pedagogical expertise with faculty across the curriculum to help their colleagues 1) devise pedagogically sound model answers and 2) train their students …

Connect 4: Student + Research + Writing + Theory, Nicole R. Chong

Events at Dickinson Law

We often see first-year law students failing to make connections between research, writing, and theory. First-year students tend to view their classes in separate silos. As students advance into the upper-level curriculum, the failed connections are exacerbated. Students are unable to connect what they learned in the first year of law school to the classes they are now taking in their last two years of law school. Additionally, upper-level faculty who assume that the students are making connections when they are not further compound this connection problem. The connection failure can result in a number of problems. How do we …

From The First Day Forward: Integrating Legal Research Into Law School Doctrinal Courses, Clanitra S. Nejdl

Events at Dickinson Law

This presentation focuses on the benefits of partnering with doctrinal professors to integrate legal research into law school doctrinal classes. The presenter will discuss best practices for the integration process. She will also share ideas and tips for developing meaningful collaborations with doctrinal faculty members and explain how she worked with Civil Procedure professors to integrate research into their classes.

Taking Collective Action To Integrate The Law School Curriculum, Sherri Thomas, Michelle Rigual

Events at Dickinson Law

Successfully dismantling the “separate but equal” paradigm to integrate Legal Research and Writing courses into the law school curriculum is a long-term proposition that is unlikely to succeed through a single campaign. At University of New Mexico, several negative hierarchical structures have stood in the way of curricular integration, including some surprising ones that arise from within the legal writing and research faculties. In this session, we’ll discuss these structures, the tools we are using to challenge them, and the successes we have experienced thus far.

The Foundational Skills And Methods That Unify All First-Year Courses, Scott Rempell

Events at Dickinson Law

Many perceive LRW courses as important for practice yet largely distinct from the core “doctrinal” courses that purport to teach students how to “think like a lawyer.” However, a remarkably consistent core of skills and methods of thought unify all first-year courses. If these core skills and methods are at the heart of all first-year courses, then the professors who should cover them in class have to acknowledge they exist and work together to teach them. In short, to break down barriers, LRW professors have to bring to the surface the framework underlying core law school learning objectives – a …

Opening Remarks, Catherine J. Lanctot

Villanova Law Review Norman J. Shachoy Symposium

Despite the significant demographic change in the gender composition of law faculty during the last 25 years, persistent questions of unequal treatment and unconscious bias continue to hamper the ability of female faculty to achieve full equality in law schools.

The symposium will examine a broad variety of issues relating to gender equity in law schools, such as:

• Teaching issues — whether excellent teaching is valued in law schools, whether women faculty have a disproportionate teaching load, whether women are disproportionately present/absent in particular substantive courses, whether women are evaluated differently by students
• Scholarly issues — whether areas of particular …

W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration 2019, Brant J. Hellwig, Christopher B. Seaman

Library Events

On October 15, 2019, the Washington and Lee Law Library hosted the third bi-annual W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration. The event was co-sponsored by the Frances Lewis Law Center and took place in the Law Library's main reading room from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

On display were dozens of scholarly articles, books, and chapters authored by the W&L Law faculty and student body during 2018 and 2019, with hundreds of additional works accessible online through the Scholarly Commons institutional repository.

Faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators mingled with law students over hors d'oeuvres and wine to peruse the formidable scholarly output …

Rule 1.1 Duty Of Competency And Internet Research, Sharon Bradley

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

Basically the world has changed and technology is the primary driver. The legal industry has changed and yet many lawyers still brag about their lack of technology skills. These skills are not advanced programming and software design. I am talking about the competent use of basic office applications. Service providers like RocketLawyer and LegalZoom prepare wills, contracts and articles of incorporation. It’s estimated that these providers are now at least an $8 billion industry. People that used to hire local attorneys are now using these services. Potential clients are also using online service to find and evaluate lawyers. The days …

Click Here: Externship Data Management Tools To Increase Productivity (And Promote Sanity), Jodi S. Balsam, Lauren N. Donald, Carolyn Young Larmore, Sarah Shalf

Externships (X) Conferences

The most significant challenge externship programs face is “insufficient administrative support,” followed closely by “other demands on the faculty’s time,” according to the CSALE survey. And the pressure is only getting worse. The increased record keeping requirements of Standard 304(c), increased student participation due to the ABA’s 6-credit experiential learning requirement and new paid externship positions, plus the ever-present pressure of tight budgets, together are driving the need to find innovative approaches to these mounting administrative burdens.

For many of us, the answer to these challenges is finding online data management tools that can manage vast amounts of data efficiently …

Improv & Internships: Using Improvisation Techniques To Teach Vital Lawyering Skills, Leah Young, Alison Lintal

Externships (X) Conferences

How students choose to collaborate and communicate can have a significant impact on the outcome of a workplace project as well as their legal career. Additionally, the importance of face-to-face communication, body posture, and learning to interpret body language cues is crucial for building professional relationships. Through these interactive exercises, students get the opportunity to practice responses in a setting that fosters student development and growth. Furthermore, improvisation provides the legal profession with tools that can be used to enhance communication, active listening, collaboration, agility, trust, authenticity, and resilience.

An important emphasis in externship courses is a focus on cultivation …

Seize The Data! Using Evidence From Externship Courses To Measure Law School Learning Outcomes, Christine Zellar Church, Robert L. Jones Jr., Kendall L. Kerew, Kelly S. Terry

Externships (X) Conferences

With the adoption of ABA Standards 302 and 315, law schools are now required to establish institutional learning outcomes for their graduates and measure whether their graduates are achieving competency in those outcomes. Given this mandate, all law schools will need to determine the best method to measure whether they are meeting these articulated outcomes. This session will focus on the role that clinical education and externships, specifically, can have in the assessment of institutional learning outcomes. The goal of the session is to provide attendees with guidance on the role that student performance data from externship courses can play …

Teaching The Tough Stuff: The Opportunities And Challenges In Teaching Implicit Bias, Diversity And Inclusion To Supervising Attorneys, Kinda Abdus-Saboor, Gillian Dutton, Rachel Reeves, Marjorie Silver

Externships (X) Conferences

We entrust supervising attorneys with the critical responsibility of providing law students with a meaningful experiential learning experience. Supervising attorneys ultimately control the nature of work students receive, the delivery of feedback, and the work environment that the student inhabits. Thus, it is vital that we equip our supervising attorneys with the basic skills necessary to navigate student supervision effectively. Among those basic skills is the ability to traverse the cross-cultural complexities inherent in working with students whose cultural identities may differ from the supervising attorney. Equally important are the cross-cultural issues that may arise among students and the clients …

Building The Whole Lawyer: Preparing Students For Entry-Level Success, Courtney Brooks, Jeff White, Nicole Killoran, Beth Locker

Externships (X) Conferences

What competencies best assure entry level success for new legal professionals? Survey feedback from more than 24,000 hiring professionals offers solid guidance. The survey was conducted by Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, an initiative of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System and published in 2016 as Foundations for Practice: The Whole Lawyer and The Character Quotient (FFP). The authors found “characteristics (such as integrity and trustworthiness, conscientiousness, and common sense) as well as professional competencies (such as listening attentively, speaking and writing, and arriving on time), were far more important in brand new lawyers than legal skills.”

So …

Unique Collaboration With Internal And External Partners, Laura Fernandez, Carrie Field

International Legal Education Abroad Conference

No abstract provided.

Llm Scholarship Trends, Andrew Horsfall

International Legal Education Abroad Conference

No abstract provided.

International Recruiting In A Virtual Age, Miki Hamstra, Julie Sculli

International Legal Education Abroad Conference

No abstract provided.

Supporting Professional Goals For International Students, Lesley Davis, Carrie Field, Melanija Radnovic

International Legal Education Abroad Conference

No abstract provided.

Best Practices In Structuring International Program Administration, Diane Pennys Edelman, Theresa Kaiser-Jarvis, Sara Mcfarlane Polly, Louis Thompson

International Legal Education Abroad Conference

No abstract provided.

Using Science To Build Better Learners: One School’S Successful Efforts To Raise Its Bar Passage Rates In An Era Of Decline, Louis Schulze

Distinguished Speaker Series

What measures can law schools take to improve student performance and bar passage? The answer is not what you think. Recent developments in the science of learning show that most law students learn wrong. In fact, ineffective methods of learning pervade all levels of education. We now know that widely accepted learning and study strategies that were once considered gospel are actually deeply flawed. Yet we still embrace and propagate those myths.

Meanwhile, bar passage rates and law student performance are plummeting. Everyone in legal education is asking, “What can we do?” But, “What can we do?” is the wrong …

Roundtable – Teaching Human Rights: Challenges And Best Practices, Shayna Plaut, Kristi Kenyon, Joel Pruce, William Simmons

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Over the past 20 years, courses addressing human rights have grown dramatically at both the undergraduate and graduate levels worldwide. Many of these courses are housed in specific disciplines, focus on specific issues, and require practical experience in the form of internships/practicums. Amid this growth there is a need to reflect on teaching human rights including the challenges, fears, and best practices.

Recognizing that education takes place inside and outside a classroom, this roundtable brings together scholars teaching human rights in a variety of settings to examine the current state of university human rights education. This includes a discussion of …