Law Commons^™

Adding Legal Research To The Bar Exam: What Would The Exercise Look Like?, Patrick J. Meyer

Akron Law Review

Various authors have criticized the current bar exam format for not testing law practice skills. This is in spite of the ground-breaking MacCrate Report, the seminal publication of the practice-ready movement, which nearly 30 years ago listed ten fundamental practice skills. One of these ten Fundamental Lawyering Skills is legal research, which is still not tested on bar exams. The focus of this article will be on deficiencies pertaining to a lack of legal research readiness in the practice of law. My proposal is to add an interactive legal research exercise to the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), requiring applicants …

Let's Be Honest About Law School Cheating: A Low-Tech Solution For A High-Tech Problem, Lori A. Roberts, Monica M. Todd

Akron Law Review

The savvy nature of academic cheating has outpaced educators racing to foil students’ high-tech high-jinx. Indeed, a culture of cheating in higher education has become pervasive, and even normalized. While problematic in all educational contexts, the implications of this erosion of academic integrity have particularly profound consequences in law school. There is no question that every law school has problems with cheating, but this Article is meant to cast doubt that engaging in a technological arms race with students to catch the cheaters is the best solution. Instead, a pedagogical commitment to teaching integrity in law school is a better …

The Effects Of The Fair Use Doctrine On Text-Book Publishing And Copying; Part Ii, Roger Billings

Akron Law Review

Although not expressly authorized by law, it has, through custom, become regarded as a fair use for scholars to make handwritten copies of copyrighted materials needed for research. The basis for allowing hand-copying is that it is such a slow, tedious method of reproduction that scholars usually choose to purchase the complete work rather than to hand-copy excerpts from it. Consequently, hand-copying does not significantly reduce publishers' sales. However, this reasoning obviously cannot be applied to photocopying. As photocopying, a fast and convenient process, becomes cheaper than buying the book, when a professor desires to make a complete volume for …

House Bill 1219: A Study, Paul M. Scott

Akron Law Review

Because H.B. 1219 does raise certain constitutional questions which will soon come before the courts, and because of its potential impact on higher education in Ohio, a complete study of it is in order. This Comment seeks to do that by analysis of the background events leading up to the bill's introduction, its legislative history, a summary and explanation of the act's important provisions, an analysis of potential constitutional infirmities in view of current court decisions, and a discussion of relevant policy considerations. The purpose of this Comment is not to assess the wisdom or desirability of the statute, but …

Editorial Foreword, Donald E. Wright

Akron Law Review

In recent years, much public comment has centered on the issue of delay in civil and criminal litigation. A survey of six Northeastern Ohio counties was published in 1970 under the title: ORDER IN THE COURTS. The report failed to stir active concern in the legal community because of the lack of available standards against which disposition figures could be measured.

Special Foreword, Stanley A. Samad

Akron Law Review

In the preface to the first issue of the AKRON LAW REVIEW, I observed "that the law review that serves as an instrument of American legal education also serves as a hallmark of the- institution that sponsors it." In reviewing the six full years of publication of the AKRON LAW REVIEW, I conclude that the student editors and the staff have met this challenge well, by publishing a journal of high literary quality, timely in content, and balanced in the selection of materials.

Ethics: Informal Opinion 1151 - Lawyers And The Title "Doctor", Milard King Roper Jr.

Akron Law Review

The legal profession is the only professional group in the United States that has ever prohibited its practicing members with doctorates from using the title "Doctor." Now, with D.R. 2-102(F) of the Code and its interpretation in Informal Opinion 1151, lawyers have been given the opportunity to take advantage of the recognition of their education as being on a par with other doctoral training.

Student Evaluation Of Law Teaching, William Roth

Akron Law Review

So it is that at law schools today no one is particularly happy with their questionnaire and student/facility committees continue to be engaged intermittently in trying to "do something" about it. Everyone agrees that evaluation ought to be done, but few are satisfied that it is now being done properly, or meaningfully. It was into this thicket that the Teaching Methods Section of the Association of American Law Schools set out recently to collect data in the hope that it might lead to a recommended teacher evaluation questionnaire.

Expanding Educational Objectives Through The Undergraduate Business Law Course, Samuel S. Paschall

Akron Law Review

The business law course has the potential to be a rich, valuable educational experience for the college student. But to be so, the course must transcend the mere conveyance of legal information in a format where the instructor's view of the law is set forth in an organized, comprehensive and rote fashion. The law is more than a set of rules to be memorized. A professor should strive to develop students' cognitive skills and present the law as a subject demanding reflection and involving societal values and intellectual practices.' The best means to promote such objectives is to provide a …

The View From My Corner Of The World: A Personal Comment On The Process Of Becoming A Lawyer, Linda B. Klein

Akron Law Review

This comment critiques several aspects of legal education that collectively devolve into what I perceive generally to be a self-perpetuating, institutional dysfunction: a traditional pedagogy, a stifling epistemology,'' and a myopic standardization.

It is my contention that, overall, legal education as presently constituted tends greatly to impede, rather than encourage, students' spiritual and emotional growth as individuals. In both its form and content, this comment confronts directly the conventionalism of law school. Instead of writing one more Law Review article that lacks originality, is boring, humorless, and too long, and has too many footnotes, I am seeking to demonstrate herein …

Introduction To Clinical Teaching For The New Clinical Law Professor: A View From The First Floor, William P. Quigley

Akron Law Review

New clinical teachers, full of enthusiasm and energy, arrive at the law school having just crossed over into the new vocation of professor from their previous work as practicing lawyers. As many as ten eager, dedicated, inexperienced law students will shortly be representing several clients each, under the close supervision of the new clinical faculty member. There is a new office, new coworkers, new cases, new students, but most new of all, a new way of operating. No longer the lone advocate, now the advocate has-become a clinical teacher, working with law students. Dedicated to education and service, the clinic …

James V. Ohio State University: Ohio Declares Promotion And Tunure Records Of State-Supported Universities And Colleges Public Records Subject To Discloure, Robert A. Gerberry

Akron Law Review

This Note will examine the national trend employed by different courts in dealing with the issue of access to peer review materials. Section II of this Note delineates the recent case law in university peer review cases. Next, Section III presents the statement of the case and details the impact of an action in mandamus. Finally, Section IV analyzes the Ohio Supreme Court's ruling in light of the University's arguments of academic freedom and the need for confidentiality.

Address At The Annual School Of Law Dean's Club Dinner: Integrity, Stephen L. Carter

Akron Law Review

I would like to begin by saying how very pleased I am to be here for the Dean's Club Dinner, especially celebrating the 75th anniversary of the University of Akron School of Law. Someone is speculating today that this school may have a higher proportion of its graduates sitting on various courts than I suspect any law school in the country. That's a marvelous achievement and suggests that something very important is going on in the classrooms here. Students are learning the law; not simply being instilled with the love of learning, but are also learning a kind of moral …

Yesterday Once More: Skeptics, Scribes And The Demise Of Law Reviews, Bernard J. Hibbitts

Akron Law Review

Readers of the present collection of commentaries in this Special Issue of the Akron Law Review will recognize these points. They are all criticisms of the system of electronic self-publication that I proposed in my Web-posted article Last Writes? Re-assessing the Law Review in the Age of Cyberspace. But they are also recognizable from another context. Five hundred years ago, every one of them was leveled at the scholarly proponents of commercial printing.

How Valid Is The Often-Repeated Accusation That There Are Too Many Legal Articles And Too Many Law Reviews?, Howard A. Denemark

Akron Law Review

Law professors working at terminals with an Internet connection to the Web need not worry any more about whether the subject of a piece is too esoteric, too doctrinal, too complicated or even too impolitic for law review editors; we are free to write and publish on the topics of our choice. This freedom might give us a useful antidote to the substantive . . . sameness of the reviews as they now exist. On the Web, we need not endure months of frustrating or embarrassing delay while our papers are judged, peer reviewed, edited or printed in formal journals; …

The Future Of Legal Scholarship And Scholarly Communication: Publication In The Age Of Cyberspace, David A. Rier

Akron Law Review

In Part I of this paper, I will review the essentials of Hibbitts's discussion, and his argument that electronic self-publication of legal scholarship soon willand shouldreplace the edited, printed law review as we know it today. In Part II, I apply sociological analysis to explore some special features of the audience for and functions of legal scholarship. I will build upon this discussion in Part III, which explains why legal scholarship is a poor candidate for electronic self-publication, and why self-publication is a poor use of the Internet's potential for scholarly communication. In the concluding Part IV, I outline some …

Last Writes? Re-Assesing The Law Review In The Age Of Cyberspace, Bernard J. Hibbitts

Akron Law Review

The full-text version of this article1 offers a comprehensive re-assessment of the law review from the perspective of the present age of cyberspace. Such a re-assessment is best begun with an investigation of the academic and technological conditions that initially joined to generate the genre. The standard story setting out the origin of the American law review runs as follows: in 1887, a group of enterprising Harvard law students, backed by visionary faculty and supportive Harvard alumni, commenced publication of a student-edited legal periodical (the Harvard Law Review) which soon became the model for many others. The story is factually …

The History And Influence Of The Law Review Institution, Michael L. Closen, Robert J. Dzielak

Akron Law Review

The "academic scholarship" to which Cardozo referred related principally to the articles appearing in law reviews of the law schools during that period in time. Almost immediately upon their establishment, the student-edited law reviews became a significant and lasting feature of legal education in the United States. Since the publication of the first student-edited law review in the 1870s, the law review institution has advanced to the stage where today, more than 400 such periodicals are published. Their history, though interesting in itself, provides many insights into the development of legal education generally.

Law & Lawyering In The Work Place: Building Better Lawyers By Teaching Students To Exercise Critical Judgment As Creative Problem Solver, Alan M. Lerner

Akron Law Review

This article is about the evolution of that course from the earliest planning through its presentation. Hopefully, having the two of us involved in the day-to-day teaching of the course would send the message to our students that collaboration was a positive aspect of the learning and lawyering processes. Additionally, we hoped that the students would see that “academic” and “clinical” faculty are partners in their legal education.

Disabilities, Law Schools, And Law Students: A Proactive And Holistic Approach, Kevin H. Smith

Akron Law Review

The understandable and laudable desire of law schools to comply with federal laws and regulations forbidding discrimination against, and requiring the provision of reasonable accommodations to, qualified disabled law students has diverted attention from the range of disabilities possessed by law students and the spectrum of issues raised by disabled students in law school. This article is intended to serve as a starting point and a means to stimulate the needed examination and discussion.

The Zen Of Grading, Ruthann Robson

Akron Law Review

As law professors, we spend a substantial amount of time engaged in the activity of reviewing exams, papers, and other “evaluative devices” with the purpose of assigning our students grades. Personally, I estimate that I have spent over four thousand hours (almost six months of days and nights, or a year of long summer days) hunched over student work during my teaching career. It can be difficult not to consider student exams as a mere obstacle, a chore of the most unpleasant type to endure, and the worst part of our otherwise usually rewarding work as professors. Grading law school …

The Modern University And Its Law School: Hierarchical, Bureaucratic Structures Replace Coarchical, Collegial Ones; Women Disappear From Tenure Track And Reemerge As Caregivers: Tenure Disappears Or Becomes Unrecognizable, Marina Angel

Akron Law Review

Recent changes in the organizational structure of law schools and universities have not been positive from the perspective of all women and men of color, the last hired. Tenured positions are disappearing rapidly and the nature of those that remain is changing drastically. Organizational structures are becoming more hierarchical, with women at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Tenure: Endangered Or Evolutionary Species, James J. Fishman

Akron Law Review

This article will review some of the challenges to the system of academic tenure: the efforts to reform, curtail, or eliminate it. It will discuss exogenous factors undermining the institution and then suggest some areas where tenure should evolve, particularly focusing upon academic tenure in legal education. The author argues that the hierarchical structure of traditionally tenured faculty and other faculty, clinicians, and legal writing professors, employed on short or long-term contracts, has undermined academic freedom and tenure.

The Corporatization Of Academic Research: Whose Interests Are Served?, Risa L. Lieberwitz

Akron Law Review

The following article is the text of a speech given at the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting in January 2005, which has been edited and footnoted for publication in the Akron Law Review.

Forty-Two: The Hitchiker's Guide To Teaching Legal Research To The Google Generation, Ian Gallacher

Akron Law Review

This article is a meditation on contemporary legal research and possible changes in the way the subject should be taught. Absent from this article is any mention of the importance of teaching students about the mechanical workings of the various tools lawyers use to conduct legal research. It seems so resoundingly obvious that law schools should be doing this that any discussion of the issue would appear contrived and sterile. The much more interesting, and more difficult, questions to answer are what else law students should learn, who should teach it to them, and why they should learn it. These …

The Dubitante Opinion, Jason J. Czarnezki

Akron Law Review

This short Essay endeavors to shed some light on the use of the term dubitante in judicial opinions and spark discussion as to the merits of the dubitante opinion—What is a dubitante opinion? When was the term first used, and how often is the term used? Who uses it and how? What are the consequences of its use?

Facing The Klieg Lights: Understanding The "Good Moral Character" Examiniaton For Bar Applicants, Aaron M. Clemens

Akron Law Review

This Article aims to help secure compliance with each bar’s standards by revealing the typical reasoning behind these rules, as well as how to comply with them. Part II of this Article describes the inception and evolution of the character requirement. Part III outlines the issues that the bar examines to discern character. Part IV proposes methods for applicants to deal with problems areas. Part V contains closing remarks. The best advice for any applicant with concern regarding admission is to contact an attorney familiar with the bar admission process in the targeted jurisdiction. Because “[c]haracter is much easier kept …

Competing With Delaware: Recent Amendments To Ohio's Corporate Statutes, David Porter

Akron Law Review

House Bill 301 is evolutionary, not revolutionary, in its content, but its changes are nonetheless significant for Ohio corporations and their lawyers. To place these changes in context, this article summarizes corporate statutory developments since 1997 that highlight Ohio’s previous initiatives to keep up with Delaware, America’s dominant state of incorporation, and then discusses at greater length the recent amendments contained in House Bill 301, concluding with a look ahead at some additional changes that may occur as early as this year.

Do Law Schools Mistreat Women Faculty? Or, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Dan Subotnik

Akron Law Review

How much fire, if any, is there to charges, first leveled more than fifteen years ago and continuing today, that a harsh law school culture oppresses women faculty? As Martha Chamallas, a well-known feminist law critic, writes,—and perhaps professes in class as well—“[f]or both new and senior women law professors, gender bias is still a major fact of life.”... After evaluating the complaints against law schools, which I spell out below—and renouncing any presumption in my favor—I conclude, unindignantly, that the charges are almost entirely unproven...The principal charges leveled against the male establishment in terms of hiring, retention and promotion …

In Memoriam Professor Malina Coleman (1954-2009)

Akron Law Review

Article about and written in memory of Professor Malina Coleman.