Law Commons^™

Tribute To John Pickering, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Michigan Law Review

John Pickering was a grand human whose life is just cause for celebration. He taught constantly, through his own work and deeds, how lawyers in private practice can contribute hugely to the public good. John's dear friend, my revered D.C. Circuit colleague, Carl McGowan, spoke of the lawyer of technical competence content to be a working mason. The best of lawyers, Judge McGowan said, serve as architects, planners, builders in law. Along with high technical competence, the best of lawyers have a deep understanding of the nature and purposes of the law, which makes them wise and reliable counselors, broad-gauged …

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 …

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 …

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

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 …

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 Underrepresentation Of Minorities In The Legal Profession: A Critical Race Theorist's Perspective, Alex M. Johnson Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Over the last four years, I have taught a course in Critical Race Theory at the University of Virginia School of Law three times. Although each course is different, given the interplay between the teacher and the students and the integration of new developments into the course, there has been one constant subject that the students and I address: Of what import is the development of Critical Race Theory for the legal profession and larger society? Can Critical Race Theory have a positive or any effect for those outside legal academia? This article represents an attempt to explore that question …

Moving Ground, Breaking Traditions: Tasha's Chronicle, Angela I. Onwuachi-Willig

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Note uses a fictional dialogue to analyze and engage issues concerning stereotypes, stigmas, and affirmative action. It also highlights the importance of role models for students of color and the disparate hiring practices of law firms and legal employers through the conversations and thoughts of its main character, Tasha Crenshaw.

Point/Counterpoint: A Debate On Irony And Interpretation, Richard Lempert, Peter Westen

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

Can irony play a role in the construction of statutes? In the following articles, legal scholars Richard Lempert and Peter Westen debate the point, taking, as their context, the Supreme Court decision in United Steelworkers v. Weber, a 1979 affirmative action case that brings to the fore the moral dilemmas posed by such programs.

Professor Lempert's initial article originally appeared in Ethics 95 (October 1984), published by the University of Chicago Press. Professor Westen's response, and Lempert's rejoinder to it, were written especially for Law Quadrangle Notes.

Richard Lempert is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of …

Point/Counterpoint: A Debate On Irony And Interpretation, Richard Lempert, Peter Westen

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

Can irony play a role in the construction of statutes? In the following articles, legal scholars Richard Lempert and Peter Westen debate the point, taking, as their context, the Supreme Court decision in United Steelworkers v. Weber, a 1979 affirmative action case that brings to the fore the moral dilemmas posed by such programs.

Professor Lempert's initial article originally appeared in Ethics 95 (October 1984), published by the University of Chicago Press. Professor Westen's response, and Lempert's rejoinder to it, were written especially for Law Quadrangle Notes.

Richard Lempert is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of …

The Cost Of Equality: Civil Rights During Periods Of Economic Stress, Harry T. Edwards

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

Many minority workers, only recently hired under affirmative action programs, have been laid off during the present recession under "last hired, first fired " seniority systems. Thus it has been claimed that the gains in equal opportunity employment that have been made over the last ten years are in danger of being lost through layoffs in the recession of the '70's.