Law Commons^™

The Integrated Law School Curriculum, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

In January 2014, the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education stated that “[a]n evolution is taking place in legal practice and legal education needs to evolve with it.” To this end, the Task Force recommended that the law school curriculum “needs to shift still further toward developing the competencies and professionalism required of people who will deliver services to clients.” In fact, the Task Force emphasized that “[a] graduate’s having some set of competencies in the delivery of law and related services, and not just some body of knowledge, is an essential outcome …

Filling The Google Gaps: Harnessing The Power Of Google Through Instruction, Rebecca Mattson

Rebecca A. Mattson

This article discusses teaching proper use of Google and Google Scholar in the legal research classroom.

The Past And Future Of Canadian Generalist Law Journals, Bruce Ryder

Bruce B. Ryder

The author reviews the history and evolution of Canadian university-based generalist journals. The growth in the number of these journals grew steadily from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, and then stopped abruptly. The driving force behind the establishment of these journals were local and pedagogical: they were adjuncts of students' legal education. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, most generalist journals had outgrown their original mission. They became significant venues for the publication of legal scholarship and reformulated their aims and procedures to set high scholarly standards. All of the existing university-based generalist law journals now have …

Learning From And About The Numbers, Carole Silver, Louis Rocconi

Carole Silver

In this article, we enter the debate about the value of legal education, taking aim at the issue of the ways in which law schools prepare students for practice. But rather than focusing on skills training, our concern is with the approach of law schools to preparing students to understanding the context of the legal issues they will encounter, and specifically on their preparation for working with numbers, whether with regard to business, finance or information presented in statistical form generally.

Our contribution to this debate is to emphasize the importance of data in analyzing the value of law school, …

Techniques To Teach Substance And Skill In Contract Drafting: In-Office Meetings And Analytical Memos, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This short article is based on a talk at Emory Law School on Transactional Lawyering. One overall pedagogical aim of a transactional course (or any business contract drafting course) is to link skills training with insistence on in-depth substantive learning about law and business. In this way, skills training – although acknowledged to be practical – also can be recognized as intellectually demanding, a point not always appreciated by proponents of more traditional law teaching. Two techniques for making the connection – in-office meetings and detailed “companion” analytical memos – are described.

Remedies: A Guide For The Perplexed, Doug Rendleman

Doug Rendleman

Remedies is one of a law student’s most practical courses. Remedies students and their professors learn to work with their eyes on the question at the end of litigation: what can the court do for the successful plaintiff? Remedies develops students’ professional identities and broadens their professional horizons by reorganizing their analysis of procedure, torts, contracts, and property around choosing and measuring relief - compensatory damages, punitive damages, an injunction, specific performance, disgorgement, and restitution. This article discusses the law-school course in Remedies - the content of the Remedies course, the Remedies classroom experience, and Remedies outside the classroom through …

Female Law Students, Gendered Self-Evaluation, And The Promise Of Positive Psychology, Dara Purvis

Dara Purvis

For the last several decades, studies and surveys have shown that female law students perform worse and feel worse about their experiences in law school than do male students. Hidden in average figures, however, is a subgroup of female students who thrive. Positive psychology, focusing on what traits make people happy rather than how to alleviate depression, provides novel ideas of how to improve legal education for women without making accommodations specifically targeting gender.

Specialization In Law And Business: A Proposal For A J.D./'Mbl' Curriculum, Robert J. Rhee

Robert Rhee

This paper provides the specific details of how an interdisciplinary program of law and business can be structured in a three-year J.D. program. The program envisioned is a J.D./”M.B.L.”, which is distinguished from the better known J.D./M.B.A. The “M.B.L.” stands for “masters of business law,” which is simply an idea tag. The moniker can represent a program conferring a supplemental degree in law and business, or simply a specialized course of study to complete a J.D. Either way, the program is an interdisciplinary program of concentrated study in core transaction-oriented law courses and core business courses. The most effective education …

Collaboration And Teamwork, Janet Weinstein, Linda H. Morton

Linda H Morton

No abstract provided.

Teamwork, Linda H. Morton, Janet Weinstein

Linda H Morton

No abstract provided.

Globalism From An African Perspective: The Training Of Lawyers For A New And Challenging Reality, Winston P. Nagan, Marcio Santos

Winston P Nagan

This paper deals with the definition and implications of globalism generally and for African interests in particular. Its focus is on globalism as a cluster of social, economic, and political forces contesting for the controlling paradigm of international relations and international law. The article underscores the general issue of globalism's impact on the well-being of the international community. It also considers the impact of globalism on the U.N. Charter, and, in particular, the role of the United Nations in international economic order. The connections between globalism and society are considered as part of the changing character of war and political …

Legal Education In The Americas: The Anchor For Hemispheric Justice, Jon L. Mills

Jon L. Mills

No abstract provided.

Vii. Legal Education In The Americas, A. An Introduction (Proceedings Of The Third Annual Legal & Policy Issues In The Americas Conference), Jon L. Mills

Jon L. Mills

Proceedings of the Third Annual Legal & Policy Issues in the Americas Conference (2002)

Educating To Meet The Demands Of Florida Business And Law Schools - A. Introduction, Jon L. Mills

Jon L. Mills

Proceedings of the Second Annual & Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas, 2001

Remembering Harry Bitner: Law Librarian, Professor, And Wonderful Colleague, Claire M. Germain

Claire Germain

Professor Harry Bitner was an outstanding law librarian who shaped many of our best libraries, who was a mentor to many younger law librarians, and who provided leadership to the law library profession and to legal education generally.

A Tale Of Three “Professions”: Search Engine Optimization, Lawyering & Law Teaching, Ray Campbell

Ray W Campbell

The question has been posed: is legal practice today a profession? This leads, naturally enough, to another question: should society treat it as one? Using the concept of ‘profession’ in different ways, some argue that one thing modern legal practice needs is a good dose of 'professionalism;' others argue that, whatever once might have been true, treating law practice as a ‘profession’ is a rum game best abandoned.

These questions matter. Law enjoys special regulatory privileges and market protections that make little sense if law has become just another form of business – a specialized form of consulting, perhaps. At …

Legal Education In North Carolina: A Report For Potential Students, Lawmakers, And The Public, William D. Henderson, Andrew P. Morriss

Andrew P. Morriss

No abstract provided.

Legal Education In North Carolina: A Report For Potential Students, Lawmakers, And The Public, William D. Henderson, Andrew P. Morriss

Andrew P. Morriss

No abstract provided.

Roll Over Langdell, Tell Llewellyn The News: A Brief History Of American Legal Education, Stephen R. Alton

Stephen Alton

The origin of this essay is a presentation the author made at the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas on December 10, 2008. This essay is derived from the author's presentation, which originally was entitled "A Brief and Highly Selective History of American Legal Education and Jurisprudence. " In this essay, the author provides an overview of the history and development of legal education in America, emphasizing the establishment and evolution of the case method of instruction in American law schools and focusing on the influence of American jurisprudence on the development of legal education in …

Mandatory Prelicensure Legal Internship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come Again, Stephen R. Alton

Stephen Alton

This Article explores the wisdom of imposing an internship requirement on aspiring lawyers as a prerequisite for licensure. It is my position that such a requirement can be beneficial to the new attorney, to the profession, and to the public and should thus be mandated for all those who seek admission to the practice of law. This Article begins by briefly examining the history in the United States of law-office, apprenticeship as a means of legal education. I then proceed to an examination of modern internship requirements in England and Canada. There follows a discussion of some of the more …

Crisis And Trigger Warnings: Reflections On Legal Education And The Social Value Of The Law, Kim D. Chanbonpin

Kim D. Chanbonpin

In the same moment that law schools are embracing neoliberal strategies in response to the economic crisis caused by declining admissions, students in the classroom have begun to agitate for advance content notices (or “trigger warnings”) to alert them to any potentially trauma-inducing course materials. For faculty who have already adopted a defensive posture in response to threats to eliminate tenure, this demand feels like an additional assault on academic freedom; one that reflects a distressing student-as-consumer mentality. From this vantage point, students are too easily cast as another group of adversaries when, in actuality, students are straw targets who …

Teaching And Learning From The Mediations In Barry Werth's Damages, Leonard L. Riskin

Leonard L Riskin

This essay is based primarily on materials the author developed for courses taught at the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Law, in the winter 2002 and 2003 semesters, based on Barry Werth's book, "Damages."

The Meaning Of Quality, Steven R. Smith

Steven R. Smith

This essay considers the qualities that constitute excellent lawyers in any society. It thereby suggests the qualities that law schools should seek to ensure that their graduates possess as they leave law schools and enter the practice of law.

Financing The Future Of Legal Education: "Not What It Used To Be", Steven R. Smith

Steven R. Smith

This Article will first review the substantial improvements in legal education and track the sources of the funding for these improvements. It will look at whether law school is, and continues to be, a good economic investment for most students. It will then consider the current economic circumstances of legal education and the possible coming disconnect between expectations and reality. It will conclude by considering what could improve the lot of legal education in the future and, to the contrary, what could make matters much worse.

Deaning's Seven Deadly Sins And Seven Deanly Virtues, Steven R. Smith

Steven R. Smith

Deans sin. There are the petty offenses: the occasional missed reception, the student's name forgotten, or the parliamentary gaff at a faculty meeting. These are generally forgiven and dismissed before the next graduation. There are, however, the more serious decanal transgressions that are not so easily forgiven or forgotten. The worst of these are The Seven Deadly Sins of Deaning are Deception, Revenge, Narcissism, Pessimism, Taciturnity, Disloyalty and Aimlessness. The "opposite" evils are noted in italics at the end of each section.

Gresham’S Law In Legal Education, Steven R. Smith

Steven R. Smith

This article will first examine the traditional Gresham's Law regarding currency and then its broader application to instances in which the nominal and intrinsic values of something are separated. It will then look at the licensing of attorneys and how Gresham's Law may justify both the general accreditation of legal education and specific accreditation Standards. Viewed from this perspective it is the interests of the public, and not the more parochial interests of law schools, that deserve primary consideration in accreditation related to licensure. The article will conclude with a consideration of a coming debate about the appropriate place of …

Accreditation Revisited: Aba Reexamination Of Approved Law Schools, Steven R. Smith

Steven R. Smith

No abstract provided.

Symposium: Creative Problem Solving Conference -- Conference Transcript Excerpt--Session 1: Envisioning The New Lawyer, Steven R. Smith, Robert Walsh Dean

Steven R. Smith

No abstract provided.

The Dean And The Budget: Not 'Just A Bunch Of Damn Numbers', Steven R. Smith

Steven R. Smith

The process of developing and implementing a budget is among the most important and least understood responsibilities of deans. When done properly, the budget will move the school toward its goals and promote its mission. When done improperly, the budget will waste the limited resources of the school. This essay first considers the First Principle of Budgets for deans, then discusses procedural issues in developing a successful budget, and finally reviews a number of specific budget issues that law schools face.

Portals To Practice: A Multidimensional Approach To Integrating Experiential Education Into The Traditional Law School Curriculum, Myra Berman

Myra Berman

No abstract provided.