Law Commons^™

A Book Club With No Books: Using Podcasts Movies, And Documentaries To Increase Transfer Of Learning, Incorporate Social Justice Themes, Create Community, And Bolster Traditional And Character-Based Legal Skills During A Pandemic, Marni Goldstein Caputo, Kathleen Luz

Faculty Scholarship

In the fall of 2020, students entered law school under extreme circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic led to isolation, depression, and restrictions on activities. A new hybrid learning environment was created. Social upheaval also caused unease. The 2020 national elections loomed, bringing divisive political discourse. The murder of George Floyd and other BIPOC, at the hands of police, led to a reckoning around the country. Additionally, with the COVID-19 pandemic came a rash of anti-Asian violence.

Faced with these unprecedented realities, we, as legal educators, struggled with how to adapt our curriculum to this new normal. These realities forced us to …

Educating Main Street Lawyers, Luz E. Herrera

Faculty Scholarship

Discussion about the value of a law degree has focused on the financial success of lawyers. Both defenders and critics of the existing legal education model largely ignore the implications that the cost of legal education and high lawyer fees have on access to justice. While a lawyer’s ability to make a decent living must be addressed when determining the value of a legal education, we fail to take into account the fact that there are millions of individuals in the U.S. who cannot find a lawyer to represent them when they need one. For advocates who believe that our …

Measuring The Racial Unevenness Of Law School, Jonathan Feingold, Doug Souza

Faculty Scholarship

In "Measuring the Racial Unevenness of Law School," Jonathan Feingold and Doug Souza introduce and analyze the concept of racial unevenness, which refers to the particularized burdens an individual encounters as a result of her race. These burdens, which often arise because an individual falls outside of the racial norm, manifest across a spectrum. At one end lie obvious forms of overt and invidious racial discrimination. At the other end, racial unevenness arises from environmental factors and institutional culture independent from any identifiable perpetrator. As the authors detail, race-dependent burdens can arise in institutions and communities that expressly promote racial …

Students Schooling Students: Gaining Professional Benefits While Helping Urban High School Students Achieve Success, Susan P. Leviton, Justin A. Browne

Faculty Scholarship

This article looks at the educational plight of urban low income children and explores the opportunities for success that small urban high schools provide. It then distills commonalities among successful small schools to demonstrate three central points: 1) that small is essential but not sufficient; 2) that small schools offer an opportunity for urban school districts to help improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged students by providing a fertile environment where individualized instruction, more class time, better-trained teachers, and a curriculum that prepares students psychologically and emotionally, as well as intellectually can help them overcome the adverse effects of poverty; and …

Giving Millennials A Leg-Up: How To Avoid The If I Knew Then What I Know No Syndrome, Leslie Larkin Cooney

Faculty Scholarship

While it may not be possible for law schools to train students completely within three years for the practice of law, we can come much closer to this goal and make the transition to professional life an easier and more productive one. This article explores the common traits of members of the generation comprising today's law students who prefer the label Millennial to others because of their expressed wish not to be associated with Generation X. The article discusses ways to enhance clinical education and teach lifelong learning skills so students can continue developing their problem solving expertise long after …

Law Teachers And The Educational Continuum, Michael K. Jordan

Faculty Scholarship

There are many difficulties in teaching the law. These problems are often referred to generically as the difficulty in training students to "think like lawyers." The primary focus of the literature discussing these concerns has, therefore, been on how law schools should assist students in developing this ability. Underlying much of this literature is the assumption that what is needed is some tinkering with the law school curriculum. Students are believed to enter law with a set of abilities and potentialities that are honed by the law school curriculum to produce something called a lawyer or the skill denominated as …

The Role Of The Law School In Continuing Legal Education, Robert R. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.