Law Commons^™

2019-20 Survey Of Applied Legal Education, Robert R. Kuehn, Margaret Reuter, David A. Santacroce

Faculty Works

This report presents the results of the 2019-20 Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE) Survey of Applied Legal Education. The survey was composed of two parts – a Master Survey directed to ABA accredited U.S. law schools and a Sub-Survey distributed to each person teaching in a law clinic or field placement course. Ninety-five percent of law schools and over 1,300 clinical teachers participated in the survey. The results provide valuable insight into clinical programs and law clinic and field placement courses in areas such as design, capacity, administration, funding, and pedagogy, and into the role and …

The 2016-17 Survey Of Applied Legal Education, Robert R. Kuehn, David A. Santacroce, Margaret E. Reuter, Sue Schechter

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This report presents the results of the 2016-17 Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE) Survey of Applied Legal Education. The survey was composed of four parts – a Master Survey directed to each ABA accredited U.S. law school; Law Clinics and Field Placement Course Sub-Surveys distributed by the schools to the persons responsible for each distinct law clinic or field placement course at the school; and a Faculty Sub-Survey distributed by the schools to each person teaching in a law clinic or field placement course. Ninety-four percent of law schools and over 1,100 clinical teachers participated in …

The Power Of The Public Defender Experience: Learning By Fighting For The Incarcerated And Poor, Patrick C. Brayer

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This Essay discusses how public defender apprenticeships impact law students and help mold their future careers. Brayer discusses the tangible advantages that the apprenticeship imparts on students as well as the transferable skills that students gain. Brayer then analyzes the internal and professional growth of students that participate in this apprenticeship. Brayer situates this growth within the context of Chief Justice John Marshall’s own similar experience, arguing how the public defender experience focuses and matures aspiring lawyers.

Law School Based Incubators And Access To Justice Perspectives From Deans, Patricia Salkin, Ellen Y. Suni, Niels Schaumann, Mary Lu Bilek

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At the end of February 2015, law professors, law deans, incubator staff and attorneys, and self-selected others gathered at California Western School of Law for the Second Annual Conference on Law School Incubators and Residency Programs. The incubators that are the subject of this article tend to focus on transition to law practice and access to justice, and some are also working to incorporate technology for the practice of law as a means of enhancing access to justice. As more law schools decide to host, sponsor or offer an incubator, and following our panel discussion at the February 2015 incubator …

A Law Clinic Systems Theory And The Pedagogy Of Interaction: Creating Legal Learning System, Patrick C. Brayer

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This article introduces a clinical systems approach that reframes professional experience as an interaction with a professional environment. The article encourages clinical faculty and other legal educators to contemplate the pedagogy of systemic interaction when teaching from experience and to then expand professional interactive opportunities within the short period of student participation. Clinical systems theory operates on the premise that students should reframe how they look at their surroundings so that the challenges that make up their professional system are not seen as problems but as means to a solution. Reframing by the student is realized in a clinical system …

Interdisciplinary Transactional Courses, Eric J. Gouvin, Robert R. Statchen, Anthony J. Luppino, William A. Kell

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This Article represents a panel presentation on interdisciplinary work in law school transactional courses. The Authors’ focus is on the Small Business Clinic at Western New England University School of Law. Topics covered are: interdisciplinary work and the classroom, professional liability and competency issues in rendering services through a clinic, culture class issues, ethical dilemmas, delivering professional products to the client, and co-curricular opportunities.

Opposition To Clinics Tests Attorney-Client Privilege; Students Working On Pro Bono Cases Leave Schools Vulnerable To Confidentiality Challenges, Patrick C. Brayer

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This National Law Journal article draws attention to past attempts by government and private parties to pierce the protections of the attorney client relationship, specifically confidentiality, when it comes to the representation of clients by law school clinics. Several law school clinics and innocence projects have defended themselves against actions by prosecuting attorney offices and opposing parties who have attempted to obtain information that is traditionally protected by state and federal confidentiality rules. Law school clinics, public interest organizations, innocence projects, government agencies and Public Defender organizations can better protect themselves from future attempts by opposing parties to invade the …

Happy Law Students, Happy Lawyers, Nancy Levit, Douglas O. Linder

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This article draws on research into the science of happiness and asks a series of interrelated questions: Whether law schools can make law students happier? Whether making happier law students will translate into making them happier lawyers, and the accompanying question of whether making law students happier would create better lawyers? After covering the limitations of genetic determinants of happiness and happiness set-points, the article addresses those qualities that happiness research indicates are paramount in creating satisfaction: control, connections, creative challenge (or flow), and comparisons (preferably downward). Those qualities are then applied to legal education, while addressing the larger philosophical …

Can Do: Training Lawyers To Be Effective Counselors To Entrepreneurs, Anthony J. Luppino

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This Report is the result of a grant to the University of Missouri-Kansas City from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to research and describe current methods of training law students and lawyers destined to represent entrepreneurs, and to identify promising pedagogy in pursuit of the goal of educating effective counselors to entrepreneurial clients. Entrepreneurs clearly need help in dealing with a multitude of increasingly complex laws and regulations. They may also require counsel in obtaining financing and negotiating their transactions, within the bounds of the applicable rules, to achieve their goals. The research reflected in this Report indicates that there …

Calling For Stories, Nancy Levit, Allen Rostron

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Storytelling is a fundamental part of legal practice, teaching, and thought. Telling stories as a method of practicing law reaches back to the days of the classical Greek orators. Before legal education became an academic matter, the apprenticeship system for training lawyers consisted of mentoring and telling war stories. As the law and literature movement evolved, it sorted itself into three strands: law in literature, law as literature, and storytelling. The storytelling branch blossomed.

Over the last few decades, storytelling became a subject of enormous interest and controversy within the world of legal scholarship. Law review articles appeared in the …