Law Commons^™

Reforming Knowledge? A Socio-Legal Critique Of The Legal Education Reforms In Japan, Annelise Riles, Takashi Uchida

Annelise Riles

This article critiques the current Japanese legal education reforms, modeled largely on the United States, by proposing a socio-technical framework for analyzing the distribution of legal expertise in a given society. On one side of the spectrum is the "monocentric" model of legal expertise, in which expertise is monopolized by the profession and legal literacy is low. On the other side of the spectrum is the "polycentric" model of legal expertise, in which a range of social and institutional actors share responsibility for legal expertise and legal literacy is high. If the U.S. is a more monocentric system, the Japanese …

Exporting The Legal Incubator: A Conversation With Fred Rooney, Fred Rooney, Justin Steele

Fred Rooney

A legal conversion between Justin Steele, Executive Articles Editor of the UMass Law Review and Fred Rooney, Director of the International Justice Center for Post-Graduate Development at Touro Law Center.

Why Law Teachers Should Teach Undergraduates, Kevin Clermont, Robert Hillman

Kevin M. Clermont

For many years, members of the law school faculty at Cornell have taught an introduction to law course that is offered by the government department in the College of Arts and Sciences. The course has surveyed law in general, structured thematically around what law is and what law can and cannot do. Although its teachers have used law school pedagogic techniques in the undergraduate setting, they certainly have not intended the course to be a prelaw practice run. In short, the course--The Nature, Functions, and Limits of Law--is a general education course about law. Our experience leads us to believe …

Measuring The Value Of Collegiality Among Law Professors, Michael Seigel, Kathi Miner-Rubino

Michael L Seigel

This article is the last in a trilogy addressing the issue of collegiality among law In the first piece, titled On Collegiality, author Seigel defined professors' "collegiality" and suggested that most law schools have at least one, if not two or three, "affirmatively uncollegial" members of their faculty. Seigel posited that these individuals tend to interfere with the ideal functioning of their institutions by negatively affecting the well-being of their peers. Some readers of On Collegiality questioned the legitimacy of Seigel's cost-benefit analysis. Specifically, they commented that some of the factors Seigel used in his analysis could be empirically measured. …

Damages: Using A Case Study To Teach Law, Lawyering, And Dispute Resolution, Leonard Riskin

Leonard L Riskin

Seven law school faculty members and one practicing attorney recently developed and taught a wholly new kind of law course based on an already published case study, Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, by Barry Werth, an investigative reporter who spent several years researching to write the book. Damages, an in-depth account of a medical malpractice case, presents the perspectives of the injured family, the defendant physician, the lawyers, and the three mediators. In this Symposium Introduction, the authors provide a summary of Werth's book, explain why they decided to create a course based on his …

Panelist, The Legacy Of James M. Landis, Daniel Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

No abstract provided.

Testing, Diversity, And Merit: A Reply To Dan Subotnik And Others, Andrea Curcio, Carol Chomsky, Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

The false dichotomy between achieving diversity and rewarding merit frequently surfaces in discussions about decisions on university and law school admissions, scholarships, law licenses, jobs, and promotions. “Merit” judgments are often based on the results of standardized tests meant to predict who has the best chance to succeed if given the opportunity to do so. This Article criticizes over-reliance on standardized tests and responds to suggestions that challenging the use of such tests reflects a race-comes-first approach that chooses diversity over merit. Discussing the firefighter exam that led to the Supreme Court decision in Ricci v. DiStefano, as well as …

In Honor Of Steven P. Frankino, John Dobbyn

John Dobbyn

No abstract provided.

Conversations At Bc Law: Representative Bobby Scott, Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

First of a series of interviews with public servants with connections to BC Law.

What Is The Mission Of The Catholic Law School?, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Article "What is the Mission of the Catholic Law School?" by Rick Garnett in the Irish Rover. The article is part of a talk given by Prof. Garnett.

Cultivating Professional Identity & Creating Community: A Tale Of Two Innovations, Jan Jacobowitz

Jan L Jacobowitz

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." - George Bernard Shaw.

"When students realize that everyone has a philosophy of how to conduct their lives - even those…[who] are unconscious of the philosophy have one, just not a sound one - they can understand the importance of engaging in the process of developing a philosophy that will guide them in life and in their jobs as lawyers." - Benjamin V. Madison III.

Students enter law school to become lawyers, but what does that really mean? What are a student’s values, hopes and dreams upon entering law school? …

The Elephant In The Admissions Office: The Influence Of U.S. News & World Report On The Rise Of Transfer Students In Law Schools And A Modest Proposal For Reform, Bruce Price, Sara Star

Bruce M Price

Students who perform well after the first year of law school are increasingly transferring to schools ranked higher by U.S. News to maximize their chances of getting a law firm job immediately following graduation. This phenomena raises two fundamental and understudied issues: how students make the decision to seek to transfer to a higher-ranked and higher-tier law school, and why such law schools are willing to admit transfer students into their second-year class who they were not willing to admit initially. The first issue we explore through interviews with students who transferred as well as those who could have transferred …

Mindful Ethics—A Pedagogical And Practical Approach To Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, And Encouraging Civility, Jan Jacobowitz, Scott Rogers

Jan L Jacobowitz

Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation—an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation’s Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is …

An Interview With Dean J. Rich Leonard Of Campbell Law School

J. Rich Leonard

No abstract provided.

A Technological Trifecta: Using Videos, Playlists, And Facebook In Law School Classes To Reach Today’S Students, Dionne Anthon, Anna Hemingway, Amanda Smith

Anna P. Hemingway