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John C. H. Wu At The University Of Michigan School Of Law, Xiuqing Li

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The following is an English language translation of a 2008 Chinese language article on John C.H. Wu, Soochow Law School LL.B. 1920 and Michigan Law School, J.D. 1921, by Professor Li Xiuqing of Shanghai's East China University of Political Science and Law. Li is a specialist in Chinese and foreign legal history, with a focus on the transplant of Western and Japanese law into China during the late imperial and modern era. She also serves as the Secretary-General of the China Foreign Legal History Association. In 2006-07, Li was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School, where …

Teaching Ip From An Entrepreneurial Counseling And Transactional Perspective, Sean M. O'Connor

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The traditional law school appellate case method is not well-suited to teaching students either the substance and process of counseling entrepreneurial clients or helping such clients create IP strategies that effectively advance their business vision. This Article describes the author’s creation of new courses and clinics to advance teaching IP in the emerging field of entrepreneurship and innovation law

Real Collaborative Context: Opinion Writing And The Appellate Process, Tom Cobb, Sarah Kaltsounis

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Several questions motivated us to begin experimenting with new and more ambitious forms of collaboration in our teaching. We aimed to infuse the classroom with what might be called “real collaborative context.” We looked for instances of collaboration that actually occur in the legal process and asked students to participate in those processes in order to gain a better understanding of the social aspects of legal practice and jurisprudence.

Our hope is that students will experience collaboration not so much as a classroom performance whose main goal is to assist in learning something else that could also be taught in …

(Un)Covering Identity In Civil Rights And Poverty Law, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Much Has Changed: Diversity And Opportunity At The University Of Idaho College Of Law, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Giants Of A Golden Age: An Appreciation Of Professors Dennis Colson And Craig Lewis, Donald L. Burnett Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Writing To Learn Law And Writing In Law: An Intellectual Property Illustration, Michael J. Madison

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This essay, prepared as part of a Symposium on teaching intellectual property law, describes a method of combining substantive law teaching with a species of what is commonly called "skills" training. The method involves assessing students not via traditional final exams but instead via research memos patterned after assignments that junior lawyers might encounter in actual legal practice. The essay grounds the method in the theoretical disposition known generally as "writing to learn." It argues that students are likely to learn intellectual property law effectively if they learn to practice as intellectual property lawyers, and specifically to write as intellectual …

Baghdad Booksellers, Basra Carpet Merchants, And The Law Of God And Man: Legal Pluralism And The Contemporary Muslim Experience, Haider Ala Hamoudi

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There is a crisis in our law schools in the study of Islamic law and the law of the Muslim polities. The current approaches either focus exclusively on national codes to the derogation of other vitally important influences on the legal order, most importantly the body of norms and rules derived from Islamic foundational texts known as the shari'a, or they regard as secondary, and at times irrelevant, the actual legal order of the societies in favor of an academic construction of the theories of medieval Muslim jurists. Neither of these approaches reflects with a necessary degree of accuracy the …

Toward A Deeper Understanding Of Professionalism: Learning To Write And Writing To Learn During The First Two Weeks Of Law School, Ben Bratman

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Law schools are under pressure to instill in their students a sense of professionalism, but what exactly does professionalism mean? And what can professors of legal writing do to lay an educational foundation of professionalism? They are, after all, the teachers who at most schools have the greatest interaction with the impressionable first-year students.

Professionalism is frequently used to mean a variety of behaviors that are important for lawyers to exhibit, but that are also important for those in business - outside the traditional professions - to exhibit. In the context of legal education, professionalism is better understood to mean …

Encouraging Diversity In Law School Deanships, Kellye Y. Testy

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Introduction to a symposium.

Sociolegal Islands?, Daniel H. Foote

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In 1992, in an address at the American Society of Comparative Law annual meeting, Professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School bemoaned the state of comparative legal studies in the United States. Many scholars specialized in comparative law, she observed. But at Harvard and other law schools, they were like islands; they conducted research and teaching largely in isolation, having little contact with the core curriculum or other faculty. From the many nods of agreement. it was evident she had voiced a common concern.

Primarily due to increased globalization, the situation has changed. At many law schools comparative perspectives …

Teaching Contradiction: A Case Study, Michael Townsend

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One of the most difficult realities confronting first-year law students is that American legal education is simultaneously theoretical and metatheoretical. At one moment students are at the "theoretical" level, by which I mean that they work "within" or "inside" the "black letter" in the context of various factual settings. In the next instant, students move to the "meta-theoretical" level, talking "about" the black letter from a number of "perspectives." That is, they slide between "learning law" and "learning about law." Many students find such transitions to be problematic, bewildering, and even stressful.

One response, for students and teachers alike, is …

Sentencing: Where Case Theory And The Client Meet, Kimberly A. Thomas

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Criminal sentencing hearings provide unique opportunities for teaching and learning case theory. These hearings allow attorneys to develop a case theory in a context that both permits understanding of the concept and, at the same time, provides a window into the difficulties case theory can pose. Some features of sentencing hearings, such as relaxed rules of evidence and stock sentencing stories, provide a manageable application of case theory practice. Other features of sentencing hearings, such as the defendant's allocution, require an attorney to contend with competing "case theories," and as a result, to face the ethical and counseling challenge of …

Using Ethics Codes To Reinforce Lessons Of Statutory Interpretation, Edward R. Becker

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To increase my students' exposure to statutory interpretation, I assign them early in the second semester to argue a motion to disqualify counsel based on imputed disqualification under Michigan's ethics ruls. Interpreting ethics rules involves many of the same "pure" statutory interpretation techniques I introduced the previous semester, and the students appear to easily make any needed translations. This exercise also helps prepare students to interpret other quasi-legislative authorities like court or evidentiary rules, administrative codes, and municipal ordinances.

Discovering William Cook: Ten Sources For Reconstructing The Life Of A Lawyer, Margaret A. Leary

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Ms. Leary uses a case study to describe ten categories of resources for reconstructing a Manhattan lawyer's life. These resources answer questions about his law practice, scholarship, personal life, personality, values, and philanthropy. The case study uses today's resources to look far back into the details of the life of William W. Cook, who gave his fortune to the University of Michigan Law School.