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Full-Text Articles in Law
Teaching Westlawnext: Next Steps For Teachers Of Legal Research, Ronald E. Wheeler
Teaching Westlawnext: Next Steps For Teachers Of Legal Research, Ronald E. Wheeler
Faculty Scholarship
As a follow up to his earlier piece titled "Does WestlawNext Really Change Everything: The Implications of WestlawNext on Legal Research," Professor Wheeler here explores strategies for teaching students to effectively research using the WestlawNext legal research platform. He focuses on challenging law librarians and other teachers of legal research to embrace change, to innovate and to devise research exercises that highlight both the advantages and the alleged pitfalls of WestlawNext. In particular, Professor Wheeler discusses source selection, filters, addressing the volume of results, esoteric content, and Boolean searching.
Beyond Skills Training, Revisited: The Clinical Education Spiral, Carolyn Grose
Beyond Skills Training, Revisited: The Clinical Education Spiral, Carolyn Grose
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Financial Retrenchment And Institutional Entrenchment: Will Legal Education Respond, Explode, Or Just Wait It Out?, Ian Weinstein
Financial Retrenchment And Institutional Entrenchment: Will Legal Education Respond, Explode, Or Just Wait It Out?, Ian Weinstein
Faculty Scholarship
Both markets and ideas have turned against the American legal profession. Legal hiring has contracted, and law school enrollments are decreasing. The business models of big law and legal education are under pressure, current levels of student indebtedness seem unsustainable, and a hero has yet to emerge from our fragmented regulatory structures. In the realm of ideas, the information revolution has sparked deep critiques of structured knowledge and expertise, opening the roles of the law and the university in society to reexamination. We are less enamored of the scholar-lawyer and gaze with longing at technocrats. I hope that clinical law …
Preparing "Main Street" Lawyers: Practicing Without Big Firm Experience, Lisa Reel Schmidt, Steve Garland, Robert Statchen
Preparing "Main Street" Lawyers: Practicing Without Big Firm Experience, Lisa Reel Schmidt, Steve Garland, Robert Statchen
Faculty Scholarship
This Article is the transcript of a panel presented at Emory’s Third Biennial Conference on Transactional Education. The panelists advance two premises: First, that law schools need to teach transactional skills because many students will either focus on transactional law or practice general law where transactional skills are necessary; and second, that some of the transactional skills the schools teach should be specific to main street lawyering because a number of students will be main street lawyers. The panelists explain how the transactional skills necessary for main street lawyering differ from skills needed in litigation and big law firms. They …
The Lawyer's Toolbox: Teaching Students About Risk Allocation, Dana Malkus, Scott Stevenson, Eric J. Gouvin, Usha Rodriques
The Lawyer's Toolbox: Teaching Students About Risk Allocation, Dana Malkus, Scott Stevenson, Eric J. Gouvin, Usha Rodriques
Faculty Scholarship
This Article is the transcript of a panel presented at Emory’s Third Biennial Conference on Transactional Education. The panel focuses on techniques for teaching risk allocation as part of transactional skills classes. The panelists describe their approaches to teaching risk allocation, from syllabus design to final evaluations. How can a professor help students to understand the basic concepts of risk, the role risk plays in business and legal decisions, and how they can help clients manage risk. The techniques for teaching risk allocation include hypotheticals, visual aids, and hands-on assignments. The panelists each take their students down a different path …
Specialization In Law And Business: A Proposal For A J.D./"Mbl" Curriculum, Robert J. Rhee
Specialization In Law And Business: A Proposal For A J.D./"Mbl" Curriculum, Robert J. Rhee
Faculty Scholarship
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 …
Tackling "Arithmophobia": Teaching How To Read, Understand, And Analyze Financial Statements, Paula J. Williams, Kris Anne Tobin, Eric Franklin, Robert J. Rhee
Tackling "Arithmophobia": Teaching How To Read, Understand, And Analyze Financial Statements, Paula J. Williams, Kris Anne Tobin, Eric Franklin, Robert J. Rhee
Faculty Scholarship
This discussion presents different ideas on how to teach accounting and practical finance to law students.
Transcription Of 2013 Chapman Law Review Symposium: "The Future Of Law, Business, And Legal Education: How To Prepare Students To Meet Corporate Needs", Leo E. Strine Jr., Bradley Borden, Robert J. Rhee, Tania King, Lee Cheng
Transcription Of 2013 Chapman Law Review Symposium: "The Future Of Law, Business, And Legal Education: How To Prepare Students To Meet Corporate Needs", Leo E. Strine Jr., Bradley Borden, Robert J. Rhee, Tania King, Lee Cheng
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Library Services For The Self-Interested Law School: Enhancing The Visibility Of Faculty Scholarship, Simon Canick
Library Services For The Self-Interested Law School: Enhancing The Visibility Of Faculty Scholarship, Simon Canick
Faculty Scholarship
This article suggests a new set of filters through which to evaluate law library services, in particular those that support faculty scholarship. Factors include profound changes in legal education, and motivators of today’s law professors. Understanding the needs of self-interested deans and professors, libraries can fill new roles that are consistent with our core values. In particular we can focus on dissemination and promotion of faculty work, especially through innovative open access projects.
Legal Education And Professional Skills: Myths And Misconceptions About Theory And Practice, Kate Kruse
Legal Education And Professional Skills: Myths And Misconceptions About Theory And Practice, Kate Kruse
Faculty Scholarship
Current critiques of legal education push law schools toward seemingly contradictory goals: (1) provide more practical training to a greater number of students; and (2) lower operational costs. This article addresses those who have a sincere desire to meet both goals. Although it offers a proposal for restructuring legal education, its primary focuses is on the mental and psychological barriers — the mistakes in thinking — that prevent law faculties from engaging in substantial. At the deepest level is a basic myth: that professional education can meaningfully separate theory from practice. This myth divides legal education into a series of …
Constructing Modern-Day U.S. Legal Education With Rhetoric: Langdell, Ames, And The Scholar Model Of The Law Professor Persona, Carlo A. Pedrioli
Constructing Modern-Day U.S. Legal Education With Rhetoric: Langdell, Ames, And The Scholar Model Of The Law Professor Persona, Carlo A. Pedrioli
Faculty Scholarship
This article explains how lawyers like Christopher Columbus Langdell and James Barr Ames, a disciple of Langdell, employed rhetoric between 1870, when Langdell assumed the deanship at Harvard Law School, and 1920, when law had emerged as a credible academic field in the United States, to construct a persona, that of a scholar, appropriate for the law professor situated within the university. To do so, the article contextualizes the rhetoric with historical background on the law professor and legal education, draws upon rhetorical theory to give an overview of persona theory and persona analysis as a means of conducting the …
A Case For Grade Inflation In Legal Education, Joshua M. Silverstein
A Case For Grade Inflation In Legal Education, Joshua M. Silverstein
Faculty Scholarship
This Article contends that every American law school ought to substantially eliminate C grades by setting its good academic standing grade point average at the B- level. Grading systems that require or encourage law professors to award a significant number of C marks are flawed for two reasons. First, low grades damage students' placement prospects. Employers frequently consider a job candidate's absolute GPA in making hiring decisions. If a school systematically assigns inferior grades, its students are at an unfair disadvantage when competing for employment with students from institutions that award mostly A's and B's. Second, marks in the C …
Why Environmental Law Clinics?, Adam Babich, Jane F. Barrett
Why Environmental Law Clinics?, Adam Babich, Jane F. Barrett
Faculty Scholarship
The law clinic has become an increasingly important part of legal education, giving students the opportunity to learn practical skills as well as to internalize core legal values. Pedagogical concerns preclude clinics from letting fear of criticism drive decisions about how they represent clients. The legal profession's idealistic aspirations pose challenges, and political attacks have answered clinicians' efforts to live up to these aspirations. An error underlies such attacks, however: holding lawyers responsible for their clients' legal positions despite the profession's duty to ensure that such positions get a fair hearing.
Legal Education At A Crossroads: Innovation, Integration, And Pluralism Required!, Karen Tokarz, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Peggy Maisel, Robert Seibel
Legal Education At A Crossroads: Innovation, Integration, And Pluralism Required!, Karen Tokarz, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Peggy Maisel, Robert Seibel
Faculty Scholarship
Although historically slow to change, law schools are now facing enormous pressure from educators, students, lawyers, judges, clients, and the public to rethink legal education and the lawyer‘s role in society. Now more than ever, there is robust national debate on the threshold contributions law schools should make to the preparation of law graduates for entry into practice. The clamor for reform in legal education is precipitated by a confluence of factors, including new insights about lawyering competencies and experiential legal education; the shifting nature of legal practice in the United States; a decrease in law jobs; changes in the …
Measuring The Racial Unevenness Of Law School, Jonathan Feingold, Doug Souza
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 …
Did Legal Education Fail Health Reform? And How Health Law Can Help, Wendy K. Mariner
Did Legal Education Fail Health Reform? And How Health Law Can Help, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
Arguments over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act illustrate the pervasiveness of health law issues in society. In court, arguments on both sides also demonstrated insufficient knowledge of the health care system and health insurance to identify and present useful arguments. Too many lawyers remained wedded to theories of constitutional law that have become disconnected from twenty-first century realities. Legal education may have something to answer for in this respect. This essay examines how legal education in health law may offer some valuable responses to ongoing critiques of legal education in general. The more law moves away from strict …
Adaptive Clinical Teaching, Colleen F. Shanahan, Emily Benfer
Adaptive Clinical Teaching, Colleen F. Shanahan, Emily Benfer
Faculty Scholarship
Teaching is an exercise in adaptation and clinical legal teaching is no exception. Clinical teachers develop effective approaches through instinct, training, pedagogy, skill, and trial and error. Building on the trials, errors, and instincts of clinical teachers, this article offers a more intentional approach: "adaptive clinical teaching" (ACT). ACT is a structured method of guided analysis and reflection that applies to any clinical teaching situation, allowing a clinician to make her teaching choices based on as much knowledge and with as much intentionality as possible. ACT provides clinicians with an approach for new issues as they arise and builds a …