Law Commons^™

Enhanced Legal E-Ducation: Knowledge Technology At Cornell Law School, Sasha Skenderija

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

In 2008, it comes as no surprise that new knowledge technologies have had a significant impact upon the field of legal education as well. While many opportunities have been explored and some of them seized, there also remain a number of hurdles to the full utilization of the new possibilities. Cornell Law School, one of the top legal education institutions in the United States, is widely recognized for the academic excellence of its faculty and students as well as for the innovative approach to legal teaching and research. The significant share of this recognition originates from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, …

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2008, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2008, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Peasants, Tanners, And Psychiatrists: Using Films To Teach Comparative Law, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Working Paper Series

Films have proven to be a useful teaching tool for a course on Comparative Law. The films serve to introduce the class to the look and feel of legal proceedings from selected foreign legal systems and to illustrate particular aspects of how these legal proceedings differ from our own. The article summarizes the results of more than 10 years of experience in using films. It will be of interest to others who teach Comparative Law and also to lawyers, judges, and students who want a video means of oriented themselves to foreign legal traditions. The article discusses the limitations of …

Virginia Bar Exam, February 2008, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, February 2008, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Succeeding In The Candidate Pool: Resources Available At Association Of American Law Schools For Persons Interested In Becoming A Law School Dean, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article covers three areas that fall under the author’s supervision as Deputy Director of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). First, the author will discuss the two Deans Databanks that he administers, which relate directly to increasing diversity among the ranks of law school deans in America: the Women Deans Databank and the Minority Deans Databank. In particular, the author will address how these two databanks reflect the core values of the AALS and how the databanks function in the deanship process. Second, the author will discuss the Law Deanship Manual an AALS publication that addresses nearly every …

Advanced Legal Studies And Research, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

Pamphlet highlighting history & alumni, internationalism, graduate programs, research programs, and the law school community at the University of Michigan Law School.

The Practice Of Teaching, The Practice Of Law: What Does It Mean To Practice Responsibly?, Howard Lesnick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case Against Mandatory Pro Bono Programs, Sydney Howe-Barksdale

Sydney Howe-Barksdale

No abstract provided.

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

Nancy Levit

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 …

Exporting American Legal Education, James E. Moliterno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Vico, Llewellyn And The Task Of Legal Education, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Legal education fails students by not appreciating the rhetorical basis of legal reasoning and argumentation. I draw from Vico's "On the Study Methods of Our Time" and Llewellyn's legal realism; both argued that law and legal reasoning are exemplary sites of rhetoric. I suggest that contemporary cognitive studies of the metaphorical structure of human understanding and the initiatives of the "new legal realism" carry forward the insights of Vico and Llewellyn. This re-orientation corrects the shallow and instrumentalist outlook of most lawyers.

Vico's "Ingenious Method" And Legal Education, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Contemporary discussions about the need to reform legal education, culminating in the 2007 Carnegie Report, should be put into a broader historical, philosophical and ethical perspective. Three hundred years ago the Italian humanist, Giambattista Vico delivered his famous oration, "On the Study Methods of Our Time," in which he lamented the rise of Cartesian critical philosophy at the expense of the cultivation of imagination, prudence and eloquence. Vico discussed law and legal education as his primary example, and his oration therefore provides an incredible resource for our contemporary deliberations.

Part One considers the literature addressing the demise of legal professionalism …

Recruiting Sexual Minorities And People With Disabilities To Be Dean, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

As our day-to-day work lives make abundantly clear, a law faculty is a many-headed creature: an assortment of people with a variety of interests, strengths, foibles, personalities, and identities. Within the legal academy, a dominant consensus acknowledges that a strong faculty embodies diversity along multiple axes, including, for example, race, gender, religion, age, political ideology, research and teaching methodologies, and subject matter expertise.

The dean, however, stands alone, and stands above. Thus, issues of expectation, representation, comfort with and fear of difference operate quite differently when deans are selected, and when they do their jobs. The dean exercises authority over …

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

Articles

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 …

Project Reveals Challenges And Recommendations For Teaching International Humanitarian Law In U.S. Law Schools, Hadar Harris, Solomon Shinerock

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

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

Faculty Works

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 …

Globalization And The Business Of Law: Lessons For Legal Education, Carole Silver, David Van Zandt, Nicole Phelan

Carole Silver

No abstract provided.

Commentary, Session 1: Deciding To Become A Dean, Linda L. Ammons

Linda L. Ammons

Deciding to become a dean is a difficult decision. How do you know when you are ready and how do you need to prepare? Mentorship, leadership skills, risk-taking, vision, and energy are just some of the attributes needed by deans in today’s law school environment.

Morte E Ressurreição Da Hermenêutica, Ivo T. Gico

Ivo Teixeira Gico Jr.

Este artigo trata dos objetivos e utilidades da hermenêutica, seja para tomada de decisões, seja para a compreensão do que é Direito. É por meio da hermenêutica que juristas de toda sorte acreditam extrair sentido e conteúdo das normas jurídicas de modo científico, quando, na verdade, a utilizam para fundamentar sua decisão pré-concebida. É a hermenêutica verdadeiro instrumento científico para se chegar a soluções justas ou mera forma de expressão para legitimação de decisões?

This article deals with hermeneutics true objectives and utilities, either as a decision making instrument or to answer the question: What is the Law? It’s through …