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Full-Text Articles in Law
Maiming The Cubs, James J. White
Maiming The Cubs, James J. White
Articles
In the last twenty years much has been written about the deleterious effect that law school has on the mental well-being of law students.' Many have called for "humanizing" law school. In support of their case, the advocates of humanizing cite numerous anecdotes, much scholarly writing in the psychology literature, and even a few rigorous studies of law students. A principal voice is that of Professor Krieger who has done the most careful and elaborate study, a study of students at two law schools.1 You should understand that Professor Krieger and his cohorts do not merely claim that we make …
The Real Impact Of Eliminating Affirmative Action In American Law Schools: An Empirical Critique Of Richard Sander's Study, David L. Chambers, Timothy T. Clydesdale, William C. Kidder, Richard O. Lempert
The Real Impact Of Eliminating Affirmative Action In American Law Schools: An Empirical Critique Of Richard Sander's Study, David L. Chambers, Timothy T. Clydesdale, William C. Kidder, Richard O. Lempert
Articles
In 1970, there were about 4000 African American lawyers in the United States. Today there are more than 40,000. The great majority of the 40,000 have attended schools that were once nearly all-white, and most were the beneficiaries of affirmative action in their admission to law school. American law schools and the American bar can justly take pride in the achievements of affirmative action: the training of tens of thousands of African American (as well as Latino, Asian American, and Native American) practitioners, community leaders, judges, and law professors; the integration of the American bar; the services that minority attorneys …
Schooling Expectations, James Boyd White
Schooling Expectations, James Boyd White
Articles
On the evening before graduation the University of Michigan Law School holds a convocation for all the students receiving honors, ranging from the top grades in particular classes to the top awards we give for scholarship, character, and public service. The students attend with their family and friends. The piece that follows is a part of the talk given in May 2004 to such a convocation.
On American Legal Education Reform In Japanese Legal Education, Carl E. Schneider
On American Legal Education Reform In Japanese Legal Education, Carl E. Schneider
Articles
The one hundredth anniversary of the Kyoto University Faculty of Law is the kind of splendid occasion when, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked, a distinguished institution "becomes conscious of itself and its meaning." I can hardly express my pleasure at being invited to join in your celebration; but I must express my fear that I can add little to it. When Dean Tanaka kindly invited me, I should probably have declined, for I, a foreigner, can hardly know enough about an institution so central to the life of its country and its profession to speak of it and its …
For Terry Sandalow - Challenger And Creator, Christina B. Whitman
For Terry Sandalow - Challenger And Creator, Christina B. Whitman
Articles
In the popular imagination, legal education is the experience of sitting in a classroom and being pushed to think deeply by a brilliant and demanding teacher. Some law schools are lucky enough to have a faculty member who actually fulfills this expectation - one professor in particular whose courses are the testing ground for the very best and most engaged students. When I was a student at Michigan in the 1970s, and until his retirement last year at the end of the century, that teacher was Terry Sandalow. For many Michigan graduates, taking Federal Courts or Fourteenth Amendment from Professor …
Myths And Facts About Affirmative Action, Richard O. Lempert, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams
Myths And Facts About Affirmative Action, Richard O. Lempert, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams
Articles
The case against affirmative action in admissions to institutions of higher education is based on the moral attractiveness of colorblind decision making and buttressed by a sense that such programs are not just unfair but pointless. Their intended beneficiaries, the argument goes, are put in situations in which they are unable to compete with whites and not only perform poorly but are destructively demoralized in the process. Common to arguments against affirmative action in admissions is a belief that minorities advantaged by it displace whites who are more deserving of admission because they have accomplished more, can better benefit from …
Essay: Recent Trends In American Legal Education, Paul D. Reingold
Essay: Recent Trends In American Legal Education, Paul D. Reingold
Articles
An American law professor in Japan has much more to learn than to teach. A foreigner like me - who comes to Japan on short notice, with no knowledge of Japanese culture and institutions, and with no Japanese language skills - sets himself a formidable task. Happily, the courtesy of my hosts, the patience of my colleagues, and the devotion of my students, have made for a delightful visit. I thank all of you. You asked me to talk about American legal education. As you surely know, the system of legal education in the U.S. is very different from the …
The Pro Bono Priority: The University Of Michigan's Approach To Instilling Public Service, Robert E. Precht, Suellyn Scarnecchia
The Pro Bono Priority: The University Of Michigan's Approach To Instilling Public Service, Robert E. Precht, Suellyn Scarnecchia
Articles
The Pro Bono Priority is a two-part feature on pro bono service in Michigan law schools. in Crossing the Bar, the column of the Legal Education Committee, Dolores M. Coulter discusses how Michigan law schools measure up to the recommendations made in Learning to Serve, the report of the Commission on Pro Bono and Public Service Opportunities from the Association of American Law Schools. In the Access to Justice column, Robert E. Precht and Suellyn Scarnecchia focus specifically on the University of MichiHgan's unique approach to pro bono service.
Michigan's Minority Graduates In Practice: Answers To Methodological Queries, Richard O. Lempert, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams
Michigan's Minority Graduates In Practice: Answers To Methodological Queries, Richard O. Lempert, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams
Articles
Before making a few remarks in response to those who commented on our article (Lempert, Chambers, and Adams 2000), we would like to express our gratitude to the editors of Law and Social Inquiry for securing these commentaries and to the people who wrote them. The comments both highlight the potential uses to which our research and similar studies may be put and give us the opportunity to address methodological concerns and questions that other readers of our article may share with those who commented on it. The responses to our work are of two types. Professors Nelson, Payne, and …
Michigan's Minority Graduates In Practice: The River Runs Through Law School, Richard O. Lempert, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams
Michigan's Minority Graduates In Practice: The River Runs Through Law School, Richard O. Lempert, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams
Articles
This paper reports the results of a 1997-98 survey designed to explore the careers of the University of Michigan Law School's minority graduates from the classes of 1970 through 1996, and of a random sample of Michigan Law School's white alumni who graduated during the same years. It is to date the most detailed quantitative exploration of how minority students fare after they graduate from law school and enter law practice or related careers. The results reveal that almost all of Michigan Law School's minority graduates pass a bar exam and go on to have careers that appear successful by …
Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts
Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts
Articles
A majority of American law schools rely on teaching assistants to help administer first-year legal writing, research, and analysis (LWRA) courses. Specifically, surveys jointly conducted by the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) consistently detail the extensive use many LWRA professors make of teaching assistants. Likewise, Julie Cheslik recognized in her article about her 1994 survey on the use of TAs in the typical LWRA course that "[o]ne of the most prevalent uses of peer teachers in the law school setting is the employment of upper-level law students as teaching assistants in the first-year …
Building Pediatric Law Careers: The University Of Michigan Law School Experience, Melissa Breger, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Frank E. Vandervort, Naomi Woloshin
Building Pediatric Law Careers: The University Of Michigan Law School Experience, Melissa Breger, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Frank E. Vandervort, Naomi Woloshin
Articles
There are several obstacles to training and supporting pediatric lawyers. Children are a relatively new group of clients and law schools have not traditionally provided pediatric training. The required training is particularly challenging to deliver because it is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring faculty and students to look outside of the law school to obtain necessary knowledge. The greatest obstacle to developing the careers of pediatric lawyers is the low pay and low prestige typically afforded children's lawyers. As a result, law students reasonably question the likelihood of developing a successful career in the field. The number of available jobs is limited …
Learning And Serving: Pro Bono Legal Services By Law Students, David L. Chambers, Cynthia F. Adcock
Learning And Serving: Pro Bono Legal Services By Law Students, David L. Chambers, Cynthia F. Adcock
Articles
All lawyers' codes of professional ethics in the United States expect members of the bar to perform legal services for low-income persons. In practice, as we all know, many lawyers perform a great deal of such service while others do little or none. By much the same token, the accreditation rules of the American Bar Association urge all law schools to provide students with opportunities to do pro bono legal work; by much the same token, some schools in the United States have extensive programs for their students but many do not. In 1998, the Association of American Law Schools …
Bye-Bye Bluebook?, Pamela Lysaght, Grace C. Tonner
Bye-Bye Bluebook?, Pamela Lysaght, Grace C. Tonner
Articles
In March 2000, Aspen Law & Business published a new citation manual, the ALWD Citation Manual-A Professional System of Citation.' Developed mostly as a "restatement of citation," the ALWD Citation Manual not only provides the legal academy with a text that simplifies teaching legal citation, but also provides judges and lawyers with a helpful desktop reference book. This article explains why a new citation manual was created and highlights some of its significant features?
Doing Well And Doing Good: The Careers Of Minority And White Graduates Of The University Of Michigan Law School, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams
Doing Well And Doing Good: The Careers Of Minority And White Graduates Of The University Of Michigan Law School, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams
Articles
Of the more than 1,000 law students attending the University of Michigan Law School in the spring of 1965, only one was African American. The Law School faculty, in response, decided to develop a program to attract more African American students. One element of this program was the authorization of a deliberately race-conscious admissiosn process. By the mid-1970s, at least 25 African American students were represented in each graduating class. By the late 1970s, Latino and Native American students were included in the program as well. Over the nearly three decades between 1970 and 1998, the admissions efforts and goals …
The African American, Latino, And Native American Graduates Of One American Law School, 1970-1996, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams
The African American, Latino, And Native American Graduates Of One American Law School, 1970-1996, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams
Articles
In the spring of 1965, only one African American student and no Latino students attended the University of Michigan Law School. At the time, Michigan, like most American law schools, was a training place for white males. In 1966, the law school faculty adopted a new admissions policy that took race into account as a plus factor in the admissions process. This policy of affirmative action has taken many forms over the years, but, across the decades of the 1970's, the 1980's and the 1990's, about 800 African Americans, 350 Latinos, 200 Asian Americans and 100 Native Americans have graduated …
The Cutting Edge Of Poster Law, Michael A. Heller
The Cutting Edge Of Poster Law, Michael A. Heller
Articles
Students place tens of thousands of posters around law schools each year in staircases, on walls, and on bulletin boards. Rarely, however, do formal disputes about postering arise. Students know how far to go-and go no farther despite numerous avenues for postering deviance: blizzarding, megasigns, commercial or scurrilous signs. What is the history of poster law? What are its norms and rules, privileges and procedures? Is poster law effident? Is it just?
The Death Of A Friendly Critic, James J. White
The Death Of A Friendly Critic, James J. White
Articles
Our colleague, Andy Watson, died April 2. Andy was one of the handful of preeminent law professor/psychiatrists. In that role he wrote dozens of articles and several important books, including Psychiatry for Lawyers, a widely used text. I do not write to remind us of his scholarly work, of his strength as a clinical and classroom teacher, or of his prominence as a forensic psychiatrist. I write to remind us of his powerful criticism of our teaching. On the occasion of his death, it is right to recognize his influence on the law school curriculum and to consider whether his …
The Role Of Clinical Programs In Legal Education, Suellyn Scarnecchia
The Role Of Clinical Programs In Legal Education, Suellyn Scarnecchia
Articles
In clinic, students get a glance at the lawyer they will be someday. They gain confidence that, indeed, they will be a "good" lawyer. They understand the context in which their classroom learning will be applied. In short, they are able to integrate their law school experience.
Why Hard Cases Make Good (Clinical) Law, Paul D. Reingold
Why Hard Cases Make Good (Clinical) Law, Paul D. Reingold
Articles
In 1992, when the University of California's Hastings College of Law decided to offer a live-client clinic for the first time, its newly hired director had to make several decisions about what form the program should take.1 The first question for the director was whether the clinic should be a single-issue specialty clinic or a general clinic that would represent clients across several areas of the law. The second question, and the one that will be the focus of this essay, was whether the program should restrict its caseload to "easy" routine cases or also accept non-routine, less controllable litigation. …
The Rhythms Of Hope And Disappointment In The Language Of Judging (St. John's University School Of Law: Rededication Symposia), James Boyd White
The Rhythms Of Hope And Disappointment In The Language Of Judging (St. John's University School Of Law: Rededication Symposia), James Boyd White
Articles
I want to talk today about a certain aspect or dimension of the language of judging. From one point of view the quality I mean can be seen as a kind of idealism inherent in legal language; from another, as a kind of fundamental hypocrisy; from still another, as a simultaneously tragic and comic element in legal life.
On Becoming A Law Professor, Terrance Sandalow
On Becoming A Law Professor, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
Thirty-five years ago, when I first joined a law faculty, only one job description existed for law professors, that for the conventional classroom teacher. In the years since, the opportunities available to lawyers interested in teaching have become a bit more varied. In addition to conventional classroom teachers, a growing number of law teachers are employed by law schools to provide what I shall somewhat misleadingly call clinical instruction.1 Although these comments are addressed mainly to men and women interested in classroom teaching, a few lines about clinical teaching may be in order because the initial question for anyone considering …
Stress And Health In 1st-Year Law Students: Women Fare Worse, Daniel N. Mcintosh, Julie Keywell, Alan Reifman, Phoebe C. Ellsworth
Stress And Health In 1st-Year Law Students: Women Fare Worse, Daniel N. Mcintosh, Julie Keywell, Alan Reifman, Phoebe C. Ellsworth
Articles
The social and psychological consequences of being a female law student may include greater stress and worse health than that experienced by male students. First-year law students at a major state university were surveyed about their physical and psychological health prior to, in the middle of, and at the end of the school year. They were also asked about specific sources of strain (e.g., grades, time pressure) at mid-year. Relative to men, women reported greater strain due to sexism, lack of free time, and lack of time to spend with one’s spouse/partner. Women also displayed more depression and physical symptoms …
The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers
The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers
Articles
American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $40,000 from college and law school have become the norm, and debts of $50,000, $60,000, and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a considerably faster pace than the starting salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the starting salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …
Clinical Realism: Simulated Hearings Based On Actual Events In Students' Lives, Samuel R. Gross
Clinical Realism: Simulated Hearings Based On Actual Events In Students' Lives, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
This essay describes a novel clinical format, a simulation course that is based on students' testimony about actual events in their own lives. The two main purposes of the course, however, are not novel. First, I aim to teach the students to be effective trial lawyers by instructing them in the techniques of direct examination and cross-examination and by making them sensitive to the roles of the other courtroom players: the witness, the judge, and the jury. Second, I hope to encourage the students to think about the social and ethical consequences of our method of trying lawsuits.
Educational Debts And The Worsening Position Of Small-Firm, Government, And Legal-Services Lawyers, David L. Chambers
Educational Debts And The Worsening Position Of Small-Firm, Government, And Legal-Services Lawyers, David L. Chambers
Articles
Law school operating costs are up. Tuitions are up. The debts of law students are up. What is happening to the students who have borrowed large sums? Are their debts affecting their decisions about the jobs to seek? Once in practice, are they significantly affecting the standard of living they can afford to maintain? What, in particular, is the effect of debts on those who enter-or contemplate entering-small firms, government, legal services, and "public interest" work where salaries are lower than in most other settings in which lawyers work? In the preceding essay, Jack Kramer has performed another extremely valuable …
Thoughts On Teaching, Christina B. Whitman
Thoughts On Teaching, Christina B. Whitman
Articles
I teach in classrooms where, ten years ago, I sat as a student. People who were my teachers are now my colleagues. People who were my students are still my friends. The difference between teacher and student, it seems to me, is more appropriately described as progression through a life than as distinct positions in a hierarchy.
The Moral Responsibility Of Law Schools, Terrance Sandalow
The Moral Responsibility Of Law Schools, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
The subject I have been asked to address, the moral responsibility of-law schools, is perplexing, less because answers to the implicit question are uncertain than because the meaning of the question is unclear. Our ideas about moral responsibility have been formed in reference to individuals. They presuppose the existence of distinctively human characteristics such as understanding and will. What, then, can be meant by the moral responsibility of "law schools," institutions that, just because they are not human, necessarily lack these capacities?
Administrators And Teachers—An Uneasy But Vital Relationship, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Administrators And Teachers—An Uneasy But Vital Relationship, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
If William Faulkner could people a whole universe with the denizens of one atypical county in deepest Mississippi, I should be able to draw some general observations about the administration of teaching in American universities from my seven years' experience as dean of the Michigan Law School. But I lay no claim to Mr. Faulkner's powers of universalization, and so I shall begin with a few caveats about the peculiarities of legal education, about the ways we differ from undergraduate and graduate schools and even from other professional schools. My opinions can then be discounted accordingly.
Bad News And Good News, John W. Reed
Bad News And Good News, John W. Reed
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I have been asked to visit with you about some of my current interests in the evidence field, in which I teach. When you invite an academic lawyer to speak at your meeting, you obviously expect of him something other than the latest hot tips on trial strategy and tactics, something other than a speech entitled "Reflections on My Last Eleven Victories in Court." Others can do that for you, probably at lunch - or, even better, at cocktails with the successes more impressive and the defeats more forgivable under the influence of an ounce or two of alcohol.