Law Commons^™

The Plural Of Anecdote Is Not Data: Teaching Law Students Basic Survey Methodology To Improve Access To Justice In Unemployment Insurance Appeals, Faith Mullen

Scholarly Articles

This project is part of Professor Mullen's larger Bellow Scholars research agenda, which concerns access-to-justice issues at the OAH more generally. This project tried to ascertain whether self-represented parties (both employees3 and employers) in unemployment insurance (UI) appeals perceive a need for more legal assistance. For three weeks in November of 2009, law students from The Catholic University of America administered a survey that asked self-represented parties in UI appeals whether, based on their experiences in the hearing, they perceived a need for more legal assistance and whether there were aspects of the hearings that they found particularly challenging. Initially …

First-Year Law Faculty Are Uniquely Poised To Mentor Stellar Students For Elbow Employment With Judges, Laurie A. Lewis

Scholarly Articles

Judicial clerkships are in high demand for new law graduates. In this tight job market, applicants must possess outstanding applications. Applicants must be not only practice-ready, but also clerkship-ready. They must be people-oriented, with superb oral communication skills. They must be outstanding researchers and writers. And they must have a passion for discovering truth and promoting justice.

Students should embark on a clerkship-ready path during their first year of law school. First-year faculty members are uniquely poised to identify students with skills and traits inherent to successful clerks. Such students demonstrate intellectual excellence, superior work habits, and an ability to …

Teaching Social Justice Lawyering: Systematically Including Community Legal Education In Law School Clinics, Margaret Martin Barry, A. Rachel Karn, Margaret E. Johnson, Catherine F. Klein, Lisa Vollendorf Martin

Scholarly Articles

There is a body of literature on clinical legal theory that urges a focus in clinics beyond the single client to an explicit teaching of social justice lawyering. This Article adds to this emerging body of work by discussing the valuable role community legal education plays as a vehicle for teaching skills and values essential to single client representation and social justice lawyering.

The Article examines the theoretical underpinnings of clinical legal education, community organizing and community education and how they influenced the authors’ design and implementation of community legal education within their clinics. It then discusses two projects designed …

Externship Demographics Across Two Decades With Lessons For Future Surveys, J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy, Sudeb Basu

Scholarly Articles

Sudeb Basu (J.D., Catholic University, 2011) and Professor J.P. “Sandy” Ogilvy (Catholic University) report on the results of a 2007-2009 national survey of externship programs at American law schools and compare many of the data points to previous surveys of externship programs, the 2007-2008 CSALE survey, and some ABA/LSAC data, to chart the growth and increasing sophistication and complexity of the pedagogy associated with legal externships. Some of the data discussed include limits on the number of externship credits or externship courses, student involvement in externships, the distribution of credits awarded for externship courses, the average number of hours of …

Autonomy-Mastery-Purpose: Structuring Clinical Courses To Enhance These Critical Goals, Leah Wortham, Catherine F. Klein, Beryl Blaustone

Scholarly Articles

Part I describes the difference in extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and reviews the negative effects of business and educational models assuming extrinsic motivation to be most effective rather than seeking to stimulate intrinsic motivation. Part II describes the Carnegie Foundation's Preparation for the Professions project's call for law schools to focus on law students' sense of identity and purpose as part of their professional education, as well as noting the similar goal that students learn "how to be" as articulated by the Tuning Project of the Bologna process regarding higher education in Europe. Part III provides basics on the theory …