Law Commons^™

Square Pegs And Round Holes: Differentiated Instruction And The Law Classroom, Karen J. Sneddon

Articles

As the academic semester begins, law students enter the classroom with sharpened pencils and charged laptops. Law professors enter the classroom with prepared notes and tabbed casebooks. But how will law professors ensure that the learning of each individual student is supported? Students do not take one path to law school. From English majors to engineering majors, students enter law school immediately upon graduating from college or years after graduation with various professional experiences. Despite criticism that legal education is resistant to change and over-relies on the Socratic Method, law school educators know that learning is not a one-size-fits-all experience. …

A Virtue Ethics Approach To Professional Identity: Lessons For The First Year And Beyond, Patrick Emery Longan, Daisy Hurst Floyd, Timothy Floyd

Articles

We have been teaching, writing, and speaking about professional identity formation for many years. Over that period, we have arrived by various routes at a virtue ethics approach to professional identity formation. In this article, we will share our approach and include lessons for the first year of law school and beyond.

Our commitment to a virtue ethics approach did not emerge overnight. It evolved over the years and comes from our varied experiences. Pat Longan's path emerged from his experience as a teacher and scholar of professional responsibility who was asked in 2002 to develop a stand-alone course on …

To Outgrow A Mockingbird: Confronting Our History—As Well As Our Fictions—About Indigent Defense In The Deep South, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

To Kill a Mockingbird occupies a beloved space in law school classrooms and curricula, especially in its portrayal of Atticus Finch. Frequently held up as the model or “hero-lawyer,” Atticus’s character is powerful in fiction, but problematic in practice. His work is lauded, rather than scrutinized, despite his questionable ability to represent his client in life-or-death circumstances—specifically, a racially charged sexual assault case in the Deep South. Through considering examples of historical lawyers and texts which explore similar themes without the lens of fiction, those engaged in legal education and legal practice can and should look to others to study …

Teaching With Feminist Judgments: A Global Conversation, Pamela A. Wilkins

Articles

The very idea of re-imagining and rewriting judicial opinions from a feminist perspective arises from the sense that the original judicial opinions did not "do justice" in either process or outcome. Nearly a dozen feminist judgments projects around the world have addressed this sense of injustice by demonstrating how a judgment's reasoning or result (or both) would have been different if the decision makers had applied feminist perspectives, theories,and methods. Using the resulting re-imagined feminist judgments in the classroom can help students in a myriad of ways, but especially in developing their own roles in addressing what they perceive to …

What American Legal Education Can Learn From The 'Harry Potter' Series, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

Both legal education and a Hogwarts magical education involve a new way of seeing the world—an immersive and intense process requiring, in many ways, a transformation. Students need a new wardrobe for both law school and wizarding school—and an awful lot of puzzling and expensive textbooks. Both Hogwarts and law school have been accused of operating entirely apart from reality. One of these criticisms may be valid. ...

This lighthearted comparison to the Harry Potter stories can perhaps join other voices to help make a serious and important case for practical legal education. There are few principled reasons for not …

Law School In A Different Voice: Legal Education As A Work Of Mercy, Pamela A. Wilkins

Articles

What might it mean for a law school to share this Mercy charism? More broadly, what would it mean for a law school to share the spiritual DNA of a female order, seeing the world from historically female perspectives and motivated by historically female concerns? More broadly still, in this #metoo era, in which women make up the majority of American law students, should it simply be business as usual at religiously affiliated law schools, or should we seize the opportunity to consider seriously, and in the light of faith, women’s perspectives on legal education, law, and justice?

This article …

The Course Source: The Casebook Evolved, Stephen Johnson

Articles

Law students are changing, law practice is changing, law schools are criticized for failing to prepare practice-ready lawyers, and there is nearly universal consensus that legal education must transform. However, the principal tool that many faculty members rely on to prepare their courses, the Langdellian casebook, is ill-suited for such transformation. This prototypical casebook, which is still the standard for many courses today, was designed for the Socratic dialogue and the case method mode of instruction. Although there is still a place for that method in legal education, other methods of instruction—the carriage bolts and lag screws of modern legal …

Teaching For Tomorrow: Utilizing Technology To Implement The Reforms Of Maccrate, Carnegie, And Best Practices, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

Part II of this article examines the development of the Langdellian method of instruction and the criticisms to the approach that have culminated in the calls for reform by the ABA, Carnegie Foundation, and Clinical Legal Education Association. Part II continues by focusing on the reasons why technology should play a central role in implementing the reforms petitioned by those organizations. The rest of the article provides examples of how technology can facilitate some of those reforms. Part III focuses on reforming assessment, the instructional models, and the instructional materials used in the classroom. Finally, Part IV explores the value …

Learning From Clergy Education: Externships Through The Lens Of Formation, Daisy Hurst Floyd, Timothy Floyd, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

Educating Lawyers, the 2007 Carnegie Foundation study of legal education, challenges law schools to become more intentional about educating students for formation of professional identity. Noting that clergy education has focused more on the formative aspects of professional education than have other professional schools, the study suggests that legal educators could learn a great deal from clergy education about teaching for professional identity formation. Taking that suggestion to heart, the authors undertook an examination of clergy education, with a particular focus on the role of field education in students’ personal and professional formation. This article reports on that examination …

Beyond Chalk And Talk: The Law Classroom Of The Future, Timothy W. Floyd, Karen J. Sneddon, Oren R. Griffin

Articles

Law schools are rethinking the traditional Langdellian classroom as they construct the law classroom of the future. Although the reform of legal education has long been heralded, law schools are now on the cusp of actual change. Carnegie’s Educating Lawyers and the Clinical Legal Education Association’s Best Practices for Legal Education are promoting a rethinking of the law classroom. Also encouraging the examination of legal education are changes in the incoming student population, such as the influx of students from the Millennial Generation; technological innovations; and shifting realities and economics of law practice, such as the increased focus on efficiency …

Teaching Multiple Skills In Drafting & Simulation Courses, Karen J. Sneddon

Articles

Good morning. I am really excited to be at this conference as a transactional lawyer who never drafted anything before she went into practice and had very, very little experience with any of the other transactional skills that I would be using on a daily basis. I am really excited to hear about the number of courses and opportunities that students have now. Of course, I am thrilled to speak about the opportunities that I offer the students in my courses.

What I do is provide two opportunities to learn about counseling. Every student at Mercer University School of Law …

Legal Education In The Digital Age, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

The reports of the demise of traditional law school teaching methods have been greatly exaggerated, however. Historically, reforms in legal education have moved glacially. For reasons described in this Article, it is unlikely that law schools and the American Bar Association will radically restructure legal education in the coming decades, regardless of any potential benefits. Part I of this Article provides a short history of legal education and the introduction of technology into legal education. Part H examines the potential use of technology to enhance traditional law school teaching, or to replace it with "classroom-free" or "extended classroom" teaching methods. …

Using Technology To Educate The Public, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

While the primary focus of any law faculty will always be its law students, the Internet and other new technologies enable law teachers to assume a central role in providing free legal education to the public. Although many schools are experimenting with distance learning and computer-assisted legal educa- tion to train law students, the real power of those tools may be their potential to facilitate public access to legal information. Traditionally, educating the general public has not been a primary responsibility of law professors, but today we have not only an opportunity, but an obligation, to develop computer-based legal education …