Law Commons^™

A Frank & Honest Talk: Aall’S Diversity Symposium Takes On Hard Questions Of Creating And Maintaining Diversity In The Legal Community, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

"Getting a Rise Out of Diversity: Celebrating the Challenge" took on hard questions of diversity, while keeping the spirit of New Orleans alive through celebration. With speakers who work to maintain diversity in legal practice and education every day, participants engaged in a lively discussion of what diversity actually is and how to create and sustain it.

Creeping Impoverization: Material Conditions, Income Inequality, And Erisa Pedagogy Early In The 21st Century, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

To say that poverty remains one of the most pressing issues of our time is a colossal understatement. A staggering number of people on the planet live in poverty. In the United States alone, the working poor and those living at or below the poverty line make up 12.6 percent of our populace.' While these individuals may not all be in imminent danger of starving or homelessness, they often lack basic safeguards that those in the upper socio-economic levels of society take for granted: basic health insurance, access to pension programs, disability coverage, and the certainty of a living wage …

What's Wrong With Langdell's Method, And What To Do About It, Edward Rubin

Vanderbilt Law Review

Here we are, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, using a model of legal education that was developed in the latter part of the nineteenth. Since that time, the nature of legal practice has changed, the concept of law has changed, the nature of academic inquiry has changed, and the theory of education has changed. Professional training programs in other fields have been redesigned many times to reflect current practice, theory, and pedagogy, but we legal educators are still doing the same basic thing we were doing one hundred and thirty years ago. Many law professors are conscientious and …

Can Law Survive Legal Education?, Ernest J. Weinrib

Vanderbilt Law Review

Legal education exists at the confluence of three activities: the practice of law, the enterprise of understanding that practice, and the study of law's possible understandings within the context of a university. The first of these, the practice of law, consists of the activities consciously governed by law, including, for example, lawyers giving legal advice, citizens contemplating the legality of prospective actions, legislators creating law within the limits of their jurisdiction, and judges determining the rights and duties of litigants. It thus comprehends the entire field of legal institutions, legal doctrine, and legal interaction. The second activity, the enterprise of …

2007 Symposium On The Future Of Legal Education, Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt Law Review

Like the proverbial elephant, law school appears different when perceived from different perspectives. During my twenty years as a law professor, I saw law school as a professional training program, a legal research institute, and a wonderful group of academic colleagues. The articles in this Symposium on the Future of Legal Education, based on a conference held at Vanderbilt in spring of 2006, generally view law school from a similar perspective. Now that I'm a Provost, my perspective is different. This raises some new issues, but it also underscores the basic theme of the Symposium. Law schools, like business schools, …

A Damn Hard Thing To Do, John H. Schlegel

Vanderbilt Law Review

Back in the mid-eighties, I offered a first year, second semester "un-elective" called American Legal Theory and American Legal Education. It scrunched together two history courses I had taught irregularly before. I liked the way the two topics fit together and still do, but with so many recalcitrant law students enrolled in it, the course was an unmitigated disaster. As is always the case with such attempts at offering perspective, amidst the shambles I had acquired at least a few devoted students. At the end of the last class one of them came up to the front to ask a …

A Case For Another Case Method, Todd D. Rakoff, Martha Minow

Vanderbilt Law Review

American legal education is pretty good. Generally speaking, it is rigorous, and generally speaking, students learn a lot. After three years in law school, students usually leave not only with knowledge of specific legal materials, but also with the sharp analytic skills and ability to work in existing legal institutions that people expect from lawyers. But our society is full of new problems demanding new solutions. Less so than in the past-less than in the 1930s and less than in the 1960s-are lawyers inventing those solutions. Much of the action is moving to graduates trained in other disciplines and professions, …

Taking Law And _______ Really Seriously: Before, During And After "The Law", Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Any consideration of what legal education should consist of must begin with the question of what "law," as a field of study, is. Whether a study of "the law" is science, philosophy, political science, or a field unto itself, or is more like a social science study of the norms and behaviors that human beings create and enforce for their self- governance, what the field is should have something to do with how it is studied.

So, one can ask, what is the object of study when one studies "the law"? Court decisions and interpretations (doctrine) and statutes and regulations …

Reflecting On The Dream Of The Marathon Man: Black Dean Longevity And Its Impact On Opportunity And Diversity, Leroy Pernell

Journal Publications

At the beginning of the 2005-2006 academic year there was, what many viewed, as a comparatively bounteous crop of African-American deans of ABA-approved law schools. However, several changes during that year caused the crop to diminish rapidly. At the time of this writing, there are eighteen deans of color at American Bar Association approved law schools within the United States. Of these, fifteen are African-American and two are Latino. Of this number, five African-American deans are deans of law schools associated with historically black universities. These comments address, not necessarily the absolute number of African-American or Latino deans at any …

Integrating Practical Training And Professional Legal Education: Three Questions For Three Systems, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

This address deals with integrating theory and practice in practical professional training in US, German and Japanese systems of legal education.

Training Law Students To Be International Transactional Lawyers - Using An Extended Simulation To Educate Law Students About Business Transactions, Daniel D. Bradlow, Jay Finkelstein

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The article describes an innovative approach to educating law students about the legal issues and the role of lawyers in negotiating international business transactions. It is based on our experiences in developing and teaching a course that is built around a semester-long simulation exercise and taught in counterpart classes at two law schools. The students in these classes represent the opposing parties and negotiate a cross-border business transaction involving a joint venture agreement, a licensing agreement and a long-term supply contract. The students, who attend either the American University Washington College of Law or the Centre for Energy Mineral and …

Learning To Write In Code: The Value Of Using Legal Writing Exercises To Teach Tax Law, Scott A. Schumacher

Articles

Traditionally, law school tax courses have been taught using a mix of problems, class discussion, the Socratic method, and one end-of-term exam. The goal of these courses is to introduce students to key concepts of tax law and to teach them the essential skill of reading and interpreting the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations. This traditional method of instruction is an efficient and cost-effective way of transmitting a great deal of complex information to a large number of students. It is also a good vehicle to teach the essential skill of reading and interpreting the Code. However, the time …

Why Not A Justice School? On The Role Of Justice In Legal Education And The Construction Of A Pedagogy Of Justice, Peter L. Davis

Scholarly Works

Why are law schools not named schools of justice, or, at least, schools of law and justice? Of course, virtually every law school will reply that this is nit-picking; all claim to be devoted to the study of justice. But our concern is not so easily dismissed. The names of institutions carry great significance; they deliver a political, social, or economic message. . . This Article contends that not only do law schools virtually ignore justice – a concept that is supposed to be the goal of all legal systems – they go so far as to denigrate it and …

Counting Outsiders: A Critical Exploration Of Outsider Course Enrollment In Canadian Legal Education, Natasha Bakht, Kim Brooks, Gillian Calder, Jennifer Koshan, Sonia Lawrence, Carissima Mathen, Debra Parkes

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In response to anecdotal concerns that student enrollment in outsider courses, and in particular feminist courses, is on the decline in Canadian law schools, the authors explore patterns of course enrollment at seven Canadian law schools. Articulating a definition of outsider that describes those who are members of groups historically lacking power in society, or traditionally outside the realms of fashioning, teaching, and adjudicating the law, the authors document the results of quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted at their respective schools to argue that outsider pedagogy remains a critical component of legal education. The article situates the numerical survey results …

The Anxiety Of The Law Student At The Socratic Impasse - An Essay On Reductionism In Legal Education, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Clinical Genesis In Miami, Anthony V. Alfieri, Maryanne Stanganelli, Jessi Tamayo, Wendi Adelson

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Hierarchy - Or Why We Always Choose The Tools Of The Master's House, Zanita E. Fenton

Articles

No abstract provided.

A Search For Balance In The Whirlwind Of Law School: Spirituality From Law Teachers, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The first-year introductory course in property law is about all that is left of the traditional black-box curriculum. It is where beginning law students cope with and despair of the arcana of English common law; where, with more detachment than, say, in the torts course, analysis of appellate opinions is what "thinking like a lawyer" means, with no more than peripheral and begrudging attention to modem legislation and administrative law; where legal reasoning is a stretching exercise and initiatory discipline. And, incidentally, surviving bravely the rude invasion of teachers of public law, it is where a teaching lawyer can point …

Teaching Economic Torts, Jay Feinman

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Educating Lawyers Now And Then: Two Carnegie Critiques Of The Common Law And The Case Method, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The 2007 Carnegie Foundation report on legal education, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, is eerily reminiscent of the Foundation's 1914 Report, The Common Law and the Case Method in American University Law School. This article compares the two reports. It commends the 1914 report for its broad comparative civil/common law perspective that is unsurpassed to this day. It shows how the two reports view the case method similarly, but with significantly different emphases. The 2007 report counts the case method as academic, while the 1914 report sees it as practical. It shows how the two reports, while …

Father Charles Whelan: A Career In The Service Of Others, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Fordham Law School's motto, "In the service of others," perfectly captures our law school's great aspirations and commitments. In a most distinguished and multifaceted career, Father Charles Whelan has been the personal embodiment of that ideal, through his dedication to education, to advocacy, and to service to a broader community. His has been a career shaped by his Ignatian ideals, and the legacy he leaves as he retires is extraordinary.

Three Modes Of Legal Problem Solving–And What To Do About Them In Legal Education, Thomas D. Barton

Faculty Scholarship

Legal problems are addressed in at least three basic ways, or modes, each of which is associated with a particular "tense": (1) through judgment, an authoritative decision pronounced by an empowered third party concerning the legal significance of past behaviors; (2) through consent, a "present tense" resolution in which the parties to a legal concern resolve it privately by negotiated or mediated agreement; and (3) through prevention, a future-oriented process that designs contracts, legal arrangements, compliance regimes, education and training programs, organizational structures, or even physical environments so as to keep legal risks from erupting into injuries or legal liability. …

Keeping An Eye On The Golden Snitch: Implications Of The Interdisciplinary Approach In The Fourth Generation Of Natural Resources Law Casebooks, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Professor Homer Clark: "Just Do It!", David H. Getches

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Ethical Obligations Of Lawyers, Law Students And Law Professors Telling Stories On Web Logs, Anna Hemingway

Anna P. Hemingway

The Bologna Process And Its Implications For U.S. Legal Education, Laurel S. Terry

Laurel S. Terry

Virtually all European countries are in the midst of a massive multi-year project intended to dramatically restructure higher education in Europe. This project, which is known as the Bologna Process or Sorbonne-Bologna, began less than ten years ago when four European Union (EU) countries signed a relatively vague agreement. The Bologna Process has now grown to forty-six countries, including all of the EU Member States and nineteen non-EU countries. The Bologna Process participants have agreed to form the European Higher Education Area or EHEA by 2010; among other goals, the EHEA is intended to help Europe better compete in the …

Law And Government Institute: Rapid Growth In Faculty, Offerings, Speakers, John L. Gedid

John L. Gedid

No abstract provided.