Law Commons^™

A Light Unseen: The History Of Catholic Legal Education In The United States: A Response To Our Colleagues And Critics, John M. Breen, Lee J. Strang

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

We are enormously grateful to the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies for hosting the conference on February 14, 2020, dedicated to a review of our book manuscript, A Light Unseen: The History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, and for publishing the papers of the conference participants. We are also grateful for the opportunity to offer some reply in the pages of the Journal. A Light Unseen sets forth a comprehensive history of the book’s subject matter. The book describes the purposes for which Catholic law schools were founded, the schools maturation and success in …

Disruption To Disorder: The Case Study Of For-Profit Legal Education In Riaz Tejani's Law Mart, Andrew W. Jurs

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Rarely a day goes by without headlines hailing new approaches to legal education, from mild changes to major modifications to the existing order. These new approaches range from minor tweaks to major overhauls and, in recent years, have included innovations such as formative assessment, flipped classrooms, two-year JD programs, tiered licensing, GRE admissions, online education, and refocusing on practice skills or professionalism—to name a few. Our era of disruption is a time to stop and reflect upon an earlier story of legal education experimentation, namely the rise and eventual collapse of for-profit legal education. It is a story outlined …

From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal …

Our Collective Work, Our Collective Strength, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

This essay considers the collective strength of women of color in two contexts: when we are well represented on law school faculties and when we contribute to accomplishing stated institutional diversity goals. Critical mass is broadly defined as a sufficient number of people of color. Though the concept has been socially appropriated, its origins are scientific. While much of the academic literature encourages diversity initiatives designed to reach a critical mass, social change is not a science. Diversity in numbers may positively benefit individual experiences for women of color, however, diversity alone will not change social norms at the root …

The Cognitive Power Of Analogies In The Legal Writing Classroom, Patricia G. Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

New law students traditionally learn better when they can connect what they are learning to a familiar non-legal experience. Therefore, the use of an analogy, which can be defined as a comparison showing the similarities of two otherwise unlike things to help explain an idea or concept, is an obvious way to facilitate a student’s connection between the new and what is already known. An analogy is a logical step in introducing the complex processes of legal research and analysis by attempting to simplify the alien structure of summarizing that legal research and analysis into a coherent piece of …

We Are In This Together: A Faculty-Led Approach To Fostering Innovation In Online Instruction, Courtney Selby, Rachel H. Smith

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

After reviewing this chapter, readers will understand how to:

• Implement a faculty-led approach to improving online instruction at their in­stitutions;
• Convene a faculty task force to spearhead that approach;
• Engage faculty members in productive discussions about the pedagogy of online law teaching;
• Prepare a set of institution-specific recommendations for improved online teaching; and
• Foster a faculty culture invested in innovating online instruction well beyond emergency use.

As so many platitudes tell us, challenges present opportunities. And the challenges of teaching law in a pandemic certainly created an avalanche, a flood, a—pick your natural disaster—of opportunity. Indeed, the sudden switch …