Law Commons^™

Vulnerable Populations And Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader, Chapter 6 - Vulnerability In Contracting: Teaching First-Year Law Students About Inequality And Its Consequences, Deborah Post, Deborah Zalesne

Deborah W. Post

Traditional legal pedagogy fails to demonstrate the relationship of contract to the subordination of vulnerable populations. As a result, students rarely see the complex web of interrelationships where economic activity takes place or the legal regime that maintains it. Students are not taught how to interrogate the discourse or dismantle the systems and structures that oppress subordinated communities. This Essay describes a technique that we have developed to help students learn the meaning of law and its cultural, social, and structural significance. The traditional framing of the study of contract doctrine as one that is objective, neutral, and fair avoids …

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 …

A People's Guide To U.S. Immigration Law, Irene Scharf

Irene Scharf

The goal of this book is to help those who are already here to understand their rights, responsibilities, and choices under the ever-more complicated immigration laws. In these insecure times, it is crucial to understand one's legal rights during work and home raids, how to act if charged by the authorities, how to avoid being deported/removed, how to decide whether to hire a lawyer and if hiring one how to choose one, how to assist one's lawyer to reduce fees, and much more.

Nourishing Justice And The Continuum: Implementing A Blended Model In An Immigration Law Clinic, Irene Scharf

Irene Scharf

The purpose of this Article is to describe how the new Immigration Law Clinic at Southern New England School of Law has combined attention to the School's mission of educating students and expanding justice by serving the community with the broader goal of addressing the continuing educational needs of recent law school graduates. The Clinic not only offers direct legal services to clients but also trains and mentors recently graduated local attorneys, who offer both pro bono client representation as well as student supervision. Through the Immigration Law Clinic, these attorneys are trained in both immigration law and clinical supervision. …

Developing Professional Identity Through Reflective Practice, Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus

Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus

No abstract provided.

Tough Love: The Law School That Required Its Students To Learn Good Grammar, Ann Nowak

Ann L. Nowak

No abstract provided.

Do Grades Matter?, Emily Zimmerman

Emily Zimmerman

Law school grading is regularly identified as the source of law student distress and disengagement. Although there is an abundance of literature criticizing law school grading, there is surprisingly little empirical research that investigates law students’ attitudes regarding grading. This Article presents the results of an empirical research project that investigated law students’ expectations and attitudes regarding their grades and the use of curved grading in law school. These results challenge some of the conventional wisdom about law students and grades and suggest that law professors may not necessarily know our students as well as we think we do.

For …

Growin’ Up: An Assessment Of Adult Self-Image In Clinical Law Students, Judith Ritter

Judith L Ritter

My thesis is that a majority of law students do not view themselves as adult professionals. When upper-class law students participate in live-client clinical programs, their lack of an adult self-image presents a barrier to effectiveness.

This article draws upon theories of psychological and moral development to explore the ingredients of being an adult and having an adult self-image. It examines the obstacles to development confronted by contemporary law students. The article explains the ways in which having an adult self-image is so important to the success of the student lawyer and how lacking an adult self-image can diminish the …