Law Commons^™

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

Alison Lintal

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 …

This Is Your Brain On Research: Cognitive Theory And Assignment Construction, Jennifer R. Mart-Rice, Franklin Runge, Alyson Drake

Jennifer Mart-Rice

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

Joel Pruce

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 …

Marking The Path From Law Student To Lawyer: Using Field Placement Courses To Facilitate The Deliberate Exploration Of Professional Identity And Purpose, Timothy W. Floyd, Kendall L. Kerew

Kendall L. Kerew

No abstract provided.

Comparison, Self-Direction And Creativity: Contextualising Public Law, Danielle Ireland-Piper

Danielle Ireland-Piper

The study of law can be technical and dry. Law is often taught in a didactic manner that focuses upon complex legal rules, doctrine and theories in isolation form the law’s social, cultural and political contexts. Law teachers often employ orthodox, conservative teaching methods such as didactic lectures and the prescribing of large quantities of reading. Consequently, the level of engagement by law students in their studies can be rather low, and many students are extrinsically, rather then intrinsically, motivates.

Bibliography Of Sources On Prostitution Decriminalization In Rhode Island, Donna M. Hughes Dr., Melanie Shapiro Esq

Donna M. Hughes

The Role Of The Administrator In Instructional Technology Policy, Philip T.K. Daniel, Jason P. Nance

Jason P. Nance

In response to national and state reform movements, and in an attempt to strengthen preparation standards for teachers and students, accreditation boards have prepared performance indicators in the area of technology. Such standards call for the full integration of technology in school curricula, formal coursework and professional development workshops for teachers, and an understanding on the part of teachers and students alike as to the legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of technology. The thesis of this research is that it is essential that school administrators be involved in all levels of planning and integrating technology into school curricula …

Addressing Barriers To Cultural Sensibility Learning: Lessons From Social Cognition Theory, Andrea A. Curcio

Andrea A. Curcio

Understanding subconscious biases, their pervasiveness, and their impact on perceptions, interactions, and analyses, helps prepare lawyers to represent people from cultural and racial backgrounds different from their own, and to address both individual and institutional injustice. Two law student surveys suggest many students believe lawyers are less susceptible than clients to having, or acting upon, stereotypes or biases. The survey results also indicate that many students suffer from bias blind spot – i.e. they believe that while others cannot recognize when they are acting based upon stereotypical beliefs and biases, the students know when they are doing so. The survey …

Interprofessional Education, Lisa Bliss, Sylvia Caley, Patty Roberts, Emily Suski, Robert Pettignano

Sylvia B. Caley

As legal educators consider how to improve the outcomes of legal education, maximizing the knowledge, skills, and values taught during the law school experience, consideration should be given to increasing interprofessional learning opportunities in the curricula. As Best Practices for Legal Education suggested, the creative thinking necessary for effective problem-solving includes an understanding of interprofessional dimensions of practice, but interprofessional opportunities are still the exception rather than the norm in legal education. Interprofessional legal education intentionally asks law students to blend the knowledge, skills, and values of two or more professions in order to address complex legal problems. Placing students …

Dean's Desk: Legal Clinics Cultivate Essential Lawyering Skills, Andrea Lyon

Andrea D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Addressing Barriers To Cultural Sensibility Learning: Lessons From Social Cognition Theory, Andrea A. Curcio

Andrea A. Curcio

Understanding subconscious biases, their pervasiveness, and their impact on perceptions, interactions, and analyses, helps prepare lawyers to represent people from cultural and racial backgrounds different from their own, and to address both individual and institutional injustice. Two law student surveys suggest many students believe lawyers are less susceptible than clients to having, or acting upon, stereotypes or biases. The survey results also indicate that many students suffer from bias blind spot – i.e. they believe that while others cannot recognize when they are acting based upon stereotypical beliefs and biases, the students know when they are doing so. The survey …

Real World In The Classroom, Marci Johnson, Jonathan Bull, Derrick Carter, Michael Hagenberger

Jonathan Bull

This panel will discuss creating integrating real world projects into the classroom environment. Panelists include Marci Johnson (English), Jonathan Bull (Library Services), Derrick Carter (School of Law), and Michael Hagenberger (College of Engineering).

Crowdsourced Coursebooks, Stephen E. Henderson, Joseph T. Thai

Stephen E Henderson

Given increasing criticism and dropping admissions, American legal education is likely to change, hopefully reversing the unsustainable trend of increasing expense without increasing value. Much debate focuses on restructuring the curriculum to make it more “practical” and skills-infused; here we instead propose a rethinking of the basic unit of law teaching, the casebook. Casebook authors and publishers are cautiously venturing into electronic editions, but they fail to harness the power of social learning to make textbooks dramatically smarter as well as cheaper. Working with a technology startup, we are developing an online platform that reinvents both authorship and learning. The …

More Dialogue Over Law School Cost And Curriculum, Mark Mckenna, Geoffrey Bennett

Mark P. McKenna

Mark McKenna and Geoffrey Bennett were quoted in The Indiana Lawyer article More dialogue over law school cost and curriculum about Retired Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard’s Clynes Chair Lecture by Marilyn Odendahl. “So you’re trying to take students who have learned a subject matter and then put them in a practice environment where they have to make use of that. Both reinforce what they learned in the classroom, but then it also helps them understand the context that you can’t necessarily get from the pages of a book,” McKenna said. “If (states adequately funded their schools), that …

It Takes A Team: A Semester Success Story Of Writing, Receiving, And Executing A Grant In One Semester With An English 1110.01 Class, Robert A. Eckhart, Michelle Battista

Robert A. Eckhart

Teaching Tips: Personal Criminal History Analysis Paper, Gordon Crews, Angela Crews

Angela Crews

Students often have difficulty visualizing the practical application of criminological theory. The following activity assists instructors to develop students‘ abilities in evaluating behaviors and determining the theoretical perspectives that potentially could be used to explain those behaviors. It also is designed to assist students in comprehending how their own experiences impact their views on law-violating behavior and its etiology. This exercise facilitates students‘ awareness of how their beliefs about the causes of law-violating behavior inevitably impact their beliefs about potential solutions or responses to this type of behavior. Eventually, students unfailingly begin to realize the artificial dichotomy between us, as …

A House Divided: The Incompatible Positions Of The Centers For Disease Control And The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission On Obesity As A Disability, Kent Kauffman

Kent D Kauffman

The question whether obesity was a covered disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was inconsistently answered by the federal courts. But the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) revised the federal government's position on obesity as a disability, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has, as a result, taken a more assertive role in this area of disability discrimination. The difficulty with the EEOC's position is that is disregards the reality that obesity presents in the workplace, one of ever-burgeoning and unsustainable costs. It is also a stance that is antipathetic to …

"Thinking" In A Deweyan Perspective: The Law School Exam As A Case Study For Thinking In Lawyering, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

As creatures of thought, we are thinking all the time, but that does not necessarily mean that we are thinking well. Answering the law school exam, like solving any problem, requires that the student exercise thinking in an effective and productive manner. This Article provides some guidance in that pursuit. Using John Dewey’s suspended conclusion concept for effective thinking as an organizing theme, this Article presents one basic set of lessons for thinking through issues that arise regarding the approach to a law school exam. This means that the lessons contained here help exercise thought while taking the exam — …

Scenes From A Restaurant: The Challenge Of Being Manager And Friend, Kent Kauffman

Kent D Kauffman

This decision-based critical incident involves the dilemma faced by a college student who is made the manager of a restaurant, placing her above her two close friends who also work in the restaurant. The three women not only work together, but they go to college together. Two of three friends are assistant managers for a short time, but when one is demoted and the other is promoted, the change in the professional relationship threaten the personal dynamics. Things come to a boil, as it were, when the newly minted manager delegates responsibility for the restaurant’s inventory to the restaurant’s non-managerial …

Values Education In The Israeli Education System And The Place Of Education For Values: Adopting Legal Narratives (Written For The Committee For Revamp Schooling For The 21st Century, Initiative For Applied Education Research, Israeli Academy For Science And Humanities), Lotem Perry-Hazan

Dr. Lotem Perry-Hazan

No abstract provided.

Mind The Gap: How Law Professors, Academic Support Professionals, And Students Can Fill In The Formative Assessment Gap, Heather Zuber-Harshman

Heather Zuber-Harshman

This article serves to accomplish three things. First, to provide students with feedback tools that will help them achieve academic success and improve the quality of their law school experience. Students who do not receive feedback or receive inadequate feedback should use the provided forms to proactively and creatively find ways to obtain feedback. They should never be afraid or too proud to ask others for assistance with generating this feedback.

Second, to encourage professors and Academic Support professionals who believe students should receive adequate feedback to take steps towards providing the feedback.

Third, to provide Academic Support professionals with …

Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In his 1910 book, How We Think, John Dewey proclaimed that “the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquainting the attitude of suspended conclusion. . .” This Article explores that insight and describes its meaning and significance in the enterprise of thinking generally and its importance in law school education specifically. It posits that the law would be best served if lawyers think like thinkers and adopt an attitude of suspended conclusion in their problem solving affairs. Only when conclusion is suspended is there space for the exploration of the subject at hand. The …

"Learning" Research And Legal Education: A Brief Overview And Selected Bibliographical Survey, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Back To The Future In Law Schools, William Reynolds

William L. Reynolds

This paper first argues for the maintenance of the traditional first-year curriculum. It does so in the context of an examination of what most lawyers do in practice and, therefore, what most lawyers should know. This portion includes a defense of the Socratic Method. The paper then addresses contemporary concerns about legal education, including the devaluation of courses in the private law curriculum, and considers why legal academics are not interested in private law.

Combining Forces: The Joint Defense Agreement In Civil Litigation, Stephen Messer

Stephen Messer

From day one of law school aspiring lawyers are taught that information shared in confidence between a lawyer and his client is confidential. Although all lawyers are well aware of this, surprisingly few know that conversations with a client and someone else's lawyer can also be privileged. This is what happens when a joint defense agreement is created; Joint defense agreements extend the attorney client privilege throughout the entire defense camp in cases where multiple defendants and their counsel have common interests in the litigation. This often overlooked, yet highly effective legal strategy may serve as a valuable tool for …

White College Students' Explanations Of White (And Black) Athletic Performance: A Qualitative Investigation Of White College Students, Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

No abstract provided.

A Conceptual Model Of Academic Success For Student-Athletes, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

Concern over the academic talent development of Division I student–athletes has led to increased research to explain variations in their academic performance. Although a substantial amount of attention has been given to the relationship between student–athletes and their levels of academic success, there remain critical theoretical and analytical gaps. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model to understand and explain the cumulative processes and characteristics—as a whole and in stages—that influence academic success for Division I student–athletes. Research on student–athletes and academic success is reviewed and synthesized to provide a rationale for the basic elements of …

Towards A Pedagogy Of Fair Use For Multimedia Composition, Renee Hobbs, Katie E. Donnelly

Renee Hobbs

No abstract provided.

To Share Or Not To Share: Cancer And What Teachers Should Tell Students About It, Robert A. Eckhart

Robert A. Eckhart

How much personal information to disclose to students is a fundamental question teachers have been asking themselves for decades. How much should teachers tell their students – a lot or a little? How should they tell them –in class, or face-to-face? Should the teacher only tell their students in a limited manner and then not answer questions, or should they be prepared to answer any and all questions the students might have? These are difficult questions, but if the teacher approaches the disclosure in the right way – avoiding irrelevant, overly negative, or offensive disclosures – it can be a …

The Psychology Of Hope: Legal Educators Must Strengthen Students' "Waypower" To Succeed, Cassandra L. Hill

Cassandra L. Hill

The power of hopeful thinking is often undervalued. According to C.R. Snyder, the father of hope theory, hope reflects a mental set in which we have the willpower to move toward a goal and the “waypower” or mental capacity to devise effective methods, plans, or paths to reach that goal. Both the willpower to succeed and the waypower to solve problems are required to have a truly hopeful attitude. Applying this formula to legal education, if law students lack either the willpower or the waypower for their goals, they cannot have high hope to succeed. And hope is a key …