Law Commons^™

The Voice Of The Gods Is Crippling: Law School For Helicoptered Millennials, Katerina P. Lewinbuk, Taci Villarreal, Elena Bolonina

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

As millennials dominate law school classrooms, many professors are recognizing the importance of altering the traditional methods of teaching law. Millennials act, think, and learn differently. Numerous factors are linked to why this new generation of law students is distinctively different than previous generations. This article examines these factors and how they influence millennials’ learning styles. Alternative methods of teaching millennial law students are also discussed and proposed, along with a specific example of a tailored professional responsibility textbook and course to the modern law student.

Law Students And Cell Phone Use: Results Of A Six-School Survey, Hugh D. Spitzer, Robert M. Jarvis, Cindy I.T. Archer, Linda Galler, Jodi L. Wilson, Mark E. Wojcik

Articles

The sight of a law student using his or her cell phone now is so common that law professors do not give it a second thought. But what, exactly, is the student doing? Texting with friends? Shopping? Watching a movie? To try to find out, during the Fall 2019 semester we asked our six diverse law schools to take an online survey consisting of eighteen questions. To our knowledge, this is the first phone survey of law students.

This paper presents the results of the survey, exploring applications used (text, social media, email, etc.) and differences by audience (e.g., whether …

Ai Report: Humanity Is Doomed. Send Lawyers, Guns, And Money!, Ashley M. London

Law Faculty Publications

AI systems are powerful technologies being built and implemented by private corporations motivated by profit, not altruism. Change makers, such as attorneys and law students, must therefore be educated on the benefits, detriments, and pitfalls of the rapid spread, and often secret implementation of this technology. The implementation is secret because private corporations place proprietary AI systems inside of black boxes to conceal what is inside. If they did not, the popular myth that AI systems are unbiased machines crunching inherently objective data would be revealed as a falsehood. Algorithms created to run AI systems reflect the inherent human categorization …

Dean's Desk: Students Find Clerkships In Smaller Counties Rewarding, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

The students at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law come to Bloomington from all over the nation. During their summers, the temptation is for them to work in the country’s largest cities, often with the majority working in Indianapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York. Many others work in our innovative Stewart Fellows global internship program, where students are placed in countries throughout the world.

Fewer students, however, choose to work in Indiana’s smaller towns, and the hundreds of trial court judges working there often need help. Many trial courts have crowded dockets and limited staffing, particularly those in …

Spoiler Alert: When The Supreme Court Ruins Your Brief Problem Mid-Semester, Margaret Hannon

Articles

Partway through the winter 2019 semester,1 the Supreme Court ruined my favorite summary judgment brief problem while my students were working on it. I had decided to use the problem despite the Court granting cert and knowing it was just a matter of time before the Court issued its decision. In this Article, I share some of the lessons that I learned about the risks involved in using a brief problem based on a pending Supreme Court case. I conclude that, while I have not typically set out to base a problem on a pending Supreme Court case, doing so …

The Future Of Legal Education Reform, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

The article discusses the criticism raised against legal education including high cost, disconnection between law schools and profession, and lack of employment opportunities. It examines the role of the bar examinations and reflects that the model in place is dysfunctional. It suggests that modern law school should teach students not only legal analysis but also business aspect of law practice such as project management and creative resolutions of disputes.

Law School Grades And Their Effects: The University Of Michigan Law School Alumni Survey, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

This short paper is based on a study of graduates of the University of Michigan Law School that was initiated in 1966 and continues today. The paper draws upon information about graduates’ grades in law school as recorded in the law school’s records and combines it with data from surveys of the graduates conducted by mail five, fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five and forty-five years after graduation. Among the central findings reported are the following. (1) grades and gradepoint averages of Michigan law students rose hugely during the 1960s and 1970s, which can be explained in part by simple grade inflation but …

The Increasing Reliance On Educational Loans By University Of Michigan Law School Graduates, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

Among graduates of the University of Michigan Law School in the classes of 1970 through 1979, about half borrowed to pay for their college or legal education. By the early 1980s the portion who borrowed had risen to about 80 percent and has remained at that level through the classes of early twenty-first century. Even greater growth has occurred in the average debt of those who incurred debt. In actual dollars, average debts among those with debt have increased twenty-fold from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Even in CPI-adjusted dollars, average debts have tripled. By the classes of 2000-2001, …

Political Views Of Graduates Of University Of Michigan Law School, Classes Of 1952-2001, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

In 1966, the University of Michigan Law School initiated an annual survey its graduating classes five and fifteen years after graduation. In 1981, with the survey of the graduates of the class of 1976 after they had been out of law school 5 years and the graduates of the class of 1966 after they been out 15 years, the survey instrument added questions about graduates’ current political views and their recollection of their political views when they began law school. In all years since, graduates have been asked to place themselves on a 7-point scale from “extremely liberal (left)” to …

The Effects Of Educational Debts On Career Choices Of Graduates Of The University Of Michigan Law School, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

In 1966, the University of Michigan Law School began an annual survey of selected classes of its graduates. Beginning in the early 1980s, annual surveys of those five and fifteen years after law school included questions about educational debts incurred during college and law school as well as about career plans at the beginning and end of law school and actual job held in the years since law school. This paper, written in 2009, examines the possible effects of debts on career decisions and job choices made before, during and after law school by the graduating classes of 1976 through …

The University Of Michigan Law School Alumni Survey Project: Description, Scope And Limits, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

For 41 consecutive years, from 1966 through 2006, the University of Michigan Law School surveyed by mail its graduates after they had been out of law school for 15 years, asking questions about their lives since law school and particularly about their careers as lawyers. Beginning in 1973, the graduates five years out of law school were added to the survey and beginning in 1997, the classes twenty-five, thirty-five and forty-five years out were added as well. Across the years of surveying, 79 percent of the law school’s graduates in the classes of 1952 through 2001 responded to at least …

Satisfaction With Law School Among Graduates Of The University Of Michigan Law School, Classes Of 1952-2001, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

The University of Michigan Law School conducted mail surveys of selective classes of its alumni each year from 1966 and 2006. The survey was revived online in 2014 and has continued to the present. This memo relates to the surveys through 2006.

For many years, the survey instrument has included questions about graduates’ satisfaction with their law school experience “overall” as well as specific questions about their satisfaction with law school “intellectually,” “as career training” and “socially.” Strongly related to overall satisfaction with law school is the length of time that graduates have been out of law school – the …

The Changing Student Body At The University Of Michigan Law School, David L. Chambers

Bibliography of Research Using UMLS Alumni Survey Data

Most of the content of the memo that follows has been previously published in the article "Who We Were and Who We Are: How Michigan Law Students Have Changed Since the 1950s: Findings from 40 Years of Alumni Surveys." T. K. Adams, co-author. Law Quad. Notes 51, no. 1 (2009): 74-80, available through this website. This memo provides more detail about changing entry credentials and about the great expansion beginning in the 1970s in the numbers of women students and of racial/ethnic minority students. It also provides information not in the article about the patterns over time in students’ …

Connecting Prospective Law Students' Goals To The Competencies That Clients And Legal Employers Need To Achieve More Competent Graduates And Stronger Applicant Pools And Employment Outcomes, Neil W. Hamilton

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The author’s chapters in the 2018 professional responsibility hornbook, Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility, and the Legal Profession, discuss the new data available to help law faculties and students understand the competencies that clients and legal employers want. The foundation for many of these competencies—like ownership over continuous professional development and the relational competencies with clients and teams—is the student’s professional identity or moral core. But students need help to understand these connections.

We have seen some very useful new data over the last few months that will help build bridges among the three major stakeholders in legal education: the …

Incorporating Social Justice Into The 1l Legal Writing Course: A Tool For Empowering Students Of Color And Of Historically Marginalized Groups And Improving Learning, Sha-Shana Crichton

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The media reports of police shootings of unarmed Black men and women; unprovoked attacks on innocent Jews, Muslims, religious minority groups, and LGBTQ persons; and current pervasive, divisive, and misogynistic rhetoric all cause fear and anxiety in impacted communities and frustrate other concerned citizens. Law students, and especially law students of color and of historically marginalized groups, are often directly or indirectly impacted by these reports and discrimination in all its iterations. As a result, they are stressed because they are fearful and anxious. Research shows that stress impairs learning and cognition. Research also shows that beneficial changes are made …

The Hybrid Law Library Orientation: Video Creation, Face-To-Face Reconfiguration And Comparative Assessment, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

In Fall 2018 UGA Law Library changed the orientation process for incoming students. The 3-pronged approach (1) updated a libguide which served as home-base for the online orientation experience, (2) created a brand new video to deliver basic information to 1Ls in the form of a virtual tour, and (3) introduced a one-day outreach which included a resource fair, librarian meet-and-greet, and in-person library tours event to re-enforce the guide and video content. This program will share the reasons why we designed orientation this way, how we did it and assessed impact, and what our results were.

Transferability: Helping Students And Attorneys Apply What They Already Know To New Situations (Part 2), Edward R. Becker

Articles

Part 1 of this column (January 2019) described several ways that professors and supervisors can help young attorneys transfer their knowledge of legal skills and legal practice to new situations. The pedagogical techniques discussed in Part 1 look forward, helping novice lawyers make connections between what they learn today and how to put those lessons into play tomorrow. This month’s column changes direction. Successful knowledge transfer also looks to the past. When young lawyers and law students are introduced to what might first appear to be brand-new legal skills, their ability to quickly make sense of that new information is …

Transferability: Helping Students And Attorneys Apply What They Already Know To New Situations (Part 1), Edward R. Becker

Articles

Every fall, I work with my first year law students to begin developing their legal writing skills. They work hard learning how to analyze cases objectively, predict how a court might resolve a dispute, and convey their assessments to an experienced attorney. Their improvement from September to December is noticeable. They have only one semester of law school behind them and still have much to learn, but they’re on their way…In the second semester, we begin focusing on advocacy. The first assignment asks students to draft a pretrial brief. When I review the drafts, I’m struck by how many problems …

Foundations: Curriculum & Faculty, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

Michigan Law Faculty are the best of the best. As you look through these pages, you will see some of their accomplishments: They serve as senior advisers to policymakers and governments around the world, they argue important cases in courts of every level, and they produce superb research that addresses society's greatest problems.

Our faculty also take teaching very seriously. They are dedicated to using their research and experience to help create a curriculum that will challenge and transform you. Michigan Law's rich curriculum features foundational courses that evolve with the needs of the profession, a wide array of upper-level …

Fake News, Alternative Facts, And Disinformation: The Importance Of Teaching Media Literacy To Law Students, Marin Dell

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can Mindfulness Help Law Students With Stress, Focus, And Well-Being: An Empirical Study Of 1ls At A Midwestern Law School, Richard C. Reuben, Kennon M. Sheldon

Faculty Publications

Recent calls for law students, lawyers, judges, and others in the legal profession to try mindfulness training to reduce stress and enhance wellbeing beg the question of whether mindfulness will "work" for those in the uniquely rigorous environment of law. There is no empirical research on mindfulness effects for lawyers - unlike the medical field, where research has found beneficial effects of mindfulness training for doctors, nurses, and other health care providers. To fill this gap in the literature, we conducted an empirical study of forty-seven first year, first semester law students at the University of Missouri School of Law …

Mindfulness In Legal Ethics And Professionalism, Peter H. Huang

Publications

Mindfulness involves paying attention with curiosity in an intentional, open, and compassionate way to life as it unfolds moment to moment. Law students, lawyers, law professors, legal clients, and indeed all people can improve their lives through mindfulness. Mindfulness can lead to individual benefits and personal transformation. Mindfulness can also lead to societal benefits and social change. This invited symposium contribution exemplifies how mindfulness can facilitate the positive personal and professional development of law students by presenting excerpts of law students' answers discussing mindfulness to questions from the final examination of the course: Legal Ethics and Professionalism. Notably, none of …

Collaboration With Doctrinal Faculty To Introduce Creac, Beth Hirschfelder Wilensky

Articles

When legal writing professors introduce CREAC (or IRAC, TREAT, etc.), our examples necessarily use some area of substantive law to demonstrate how the pieces of legal analysis fit together. And when we ask students to try drafting a CREAC analysis, they also have to learn the relevant substantive law first. Students might be asked to analyze whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor or whether the elements of a tort claim are satisfied. But that means that students need to learn the relevant substantive doctrine while they are also grappling with the basics of CREAC. In the language …

Using Appellate Clinics To Focus On Legal Writing Skills, Timothy Pinto

Articles

Five years ago, I went to lunch with a colleague. I was teaching a legal writing course to 1L students, and he taught in a clinic in which 2L and 3L students were required to write short motions and briefs. Several of his students had taken my writing class as 1Ls, and he had a question for me. "What the heck are you teaching these students?" he asked as we sat down. He explained that several of his students were struggling with preparing simple motions. They were not laying out facts clearly. They were not identifying key legal rules. In …

Positive Legal Education: Flourishing Law Students And Thriving Law Schools, Debra S. Austin

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collaborating For Transformation, Marjorie A. Silver

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

Experiential Legal Education: How The University Of Kansas School Of Law Alumni Are Contributing To Teaching Professional Skills, Suzanne Valdez

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

Restoring Power: A Law School’S Response To A Superstorm, Melissa H. Luckman, Patricia R. Sturm

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

The Seven Principles For Good Practice In [Asynchronous Online] Legal Education, Kenneth R. Swift

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching The Art Of Effective Advocacy In The 21st Century: A Paradigm Shift, John O. Sonsteng, Samuel Heacox, Hannah Holloran, Cara Moulton

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.