Law Commons^™

Breaking The Rules, Rima Sirota

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Breaking the Rules” is a legal research and writing assignment that I crafted for students completing their first year of law school. The assignment honors new students’ desire for skills that will allow them to effectively challenge the status quo of settled but discriminatory legal rules. Part I of this article is an essay that contextualizes and explains the assignment; Part II provides the assignment itself.

Disabling Lawyering: Buck V. Bell And The Road To A More Inclusive Legal Practice, Jacob Izak Abudaram

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be and Ally. By Emily Ladau and Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell By Paul A. Lombardo.

How To Train Your Supervisor, Kris Franklin, Paula J. Manning

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Practicing The Be Practice Ready: Making Competent Legal Researchers Using The New Process And Practice Method, Jason Murray

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Re-Envisioning Law Student Scholarship, Emily Zimmerman

Catholic University Law Review

This Article recommends that we think more intentionally about how law students’ engagement in scholarship can promote their professional development. In so doing, we should recognize that legal scholarship plays a different role for law students than it does for law professors. Rather than trying to replicate law professors’ relationship with scholarship, the pedagogy of law student scholarship should focus more intentionally on the value of scholarship for law students—most of whom will not become law professors.

This Article suggests that much of the value of scholarship for law students lies in process, rather than product. Rather than thinking …

The 'Other' Market, Cody Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

The hiring market for tenure-track non–legal writing positions is a world unto itself with its own lingo (i.e., “meat market” and “FAR form”), its own unwritten rules (i.e., “Do not have two first-year courses in your preferred teaching package.”), and carefully calibrated expectations for candidates and schools with respect to the process and timing of hiring. These norms and expectations are disseminated to the participants in this market through a relatively well-established set of feeder fellowships, visiting assistant professor programs, elite law schools, blogs, and academic literature on the subject.

But there is another market that goes on every year …

Ask A Director Making The Library More Accessable, Lorelle Anderson

Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Exploring Diversity With A "Culture Box" In First-Year Legal Writing, Ann N. Sinsheimer

Articles

Studying law is in many ways like studying another culture. Students often feel as though they are learning a new language with unfamiliar vocabulary and different styles of communication. Throughout their legal education, students are also exposed to a profession comprised of unique traditions and expectations. As a result, learning law takes time and energy. It can be both engaging and frustrating and may even challenge some of students’ values and belief systems. To ease her students’ transition to law school, the author starts her course each year with a “culture box” exercise, which encourages students to examine who they …

The Need To Revisit Legal Education In An Era Of Increased Diagnoses Of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity And Autism Spectrum Disorders, Heidi E. Ramos-Zimmerman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The ever-fluctuating rhetoric from experts, in the field of neurodevelopmental disorders, has led to outdated notions and perplexity surrounding attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This Article tries to clarify some of the confusion. Better understanding of these disorders is imperative for today’s law professor, since law schools are likely admitting more students diagnosed with ADHD and ASD. This Article discusses the need for change in legal instruction and explores the link between the two disorders. An examination of recent history illuminates some of the commonly held misunderstandings and highlights the disparity in the diagnoses of ADHD …

Chinese And American Forum On Legal Information And Law Libraries: Highlights From Hangzhou, Ning Han, Evelyn Ma, Wei Luo

Ning Han

The Fifth Biennial Conference of the Chinese and American Forum on Legal Information and Law Libraries (CAFLL) was held in Hangzhou, China, June 1-2, 2017. More than sixty law school deans, law librarians, and law professors from more than fifty law schools in China attended the conference. Overseas attendees included more than twenty-five law librarians and library directors from Germany, Canada, as well as the presidents of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and International Association of Law Libraries (IALL).

Educating The New Lawyer: Teaching Lawyers To Offer Unbundled And Other Client-Centric Services, Forrest S. Mosten, Julie Macfarlane, Elizabeth Potter Scully

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In this article, Forrest Mosten and Julie Macfarlane build a new bridge in their 30-year professional relationship by linking their separate but complementary work in access to legal services, helping the self-represented litigant (“SRL”), transforming the lawyer from gladiator to problem-solver and conflict resolver, and using interdisciplinary team triage in Collaborative Law and preventive conflict wellness to better serve the public. The New Lawyer and Unbundled Legal Services are independent concepts that the three co-authors link in proposing new topics (including the concept of Legal Coaching, which is evolving from the unbundled model) and pedagogical approaches to teaching law students …

Best Practices For Teaching Advanced Legal Research Asynchronously Online, Khelani Clay, Shannon M. Roddy

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Practice And Fitness Making Writing Perfection More Nearly Attainable, Heather Ridenour, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Changing The Modal Law School: Rethinking U.S. Legal Education In (Most) Schools, Nancy B. Rapoport

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This essay argues that discussions of educational reform in U.S. law schools have suffered from a fundamental misconception: that the education provided in all of the American Bar Association-accredited schools is roughly the same. A better description of the educational opportunities provided by ABA-accredited law schools would group the schools into three rough clusters: the “elite” law schools, the modal (most frequently occurring) law schools, and the precarious law schools. Because the elite law schools do not need much “reforming,” the better focus of reform would concentrate on the modal and precarious schools; however, both elite and modal law schools …

Rat Race: Insider Advice On Landing Judicial Clerkships, Ruggero J. Aldisert, Ryan C. Kirkpatrick, James R. Stevens Iii

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For many, the judicial clerkship application process is, to quote Sir Winston Churchill, a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” It is a frenzied “Pamplona-like” atmosphere that begins on Labor Day +1 and continues unabated for several weeks. The initial week is the make or break point in the application review process because it is then that the judge starts to read each application and makes a “yes” or “no” evaluation. If his vote is a “no,” then no further action is taken. If it is a “yes,” the application passes to the law clerks, who then begin …

中国法律检索教育新发展, Liying Yu, Ning Han

Ning Han

本文通过问卷调查揭示中国法律检索教学领域的最新状况和发展趋势。该调查是作者2008年调查的继续，以期发现近年来国内该项教学的进展和变化。作者希望以中美法律图书馆员的视角对中国法律检索教学中诸如课程设置、教学方式、学分、考核评估等方面进行具体观察和分析；同时，对法律职业与法律教育者之间的反馈系统、学生对法律检索能力的认知、全国性指导标准等相关方面也有涉及。文章指出，当前，中国法律检索教学局限与机遇并存，特别是伴随信息与数据时代对社会经济文化的全面影响，中国法学教育改革适逢其时，法律检索教育也会不可避免地提到议事日程。而且，作者乐观地认为，中美法律图书馆员在其中的积极与促进作用也是无可替代的。

In Praise Of Legal Scholarship, Tamara R. Piety

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Lawyers At Work: A Study Of The Reading, Writing, And Communication Practices Of Legal Professionals, Ann N. Sinsheimer, David J. Herring

Articles

This paper reports the results of a three-year ethnographic study of attorneys in the workplace. The authors applied ethnographic methods to identify how junior associates in law firm settings engaged in reading and writing tasks in their daily practice. The authors were able to identify the types of texts junior associates encountered in the workplace and to isolate the strategies these attorneys used to read and compose texts.

The findings suggest that lawyering is fundamentally about reading. The attorneys observed for this study read constantly, encountering a large variety of texts and engaging in many styles of reading, including close …

The Integrated Law School Curriculum, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

In January 2014, the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education stated that “[a]n evolution is taking place in legal practice and legal education needs to evolve with it.” To this end, the Task Force recommended that the law school curriculum “needs to shift still further toward developing the competencies and professionalism required of people who will deliver services to clients.” In fact, the Task Force emphasized that “[a] graduate’s having some set of competencies in the delivery of law and related services, and not just some body of knowledge, is an essential outcome …

Filling The Google Gaps: Harnessing The Power Of Google Through Instruction, Rebecca Mattson

Rebecca A. Mattson

This article discusses teaching proper use of Google and Google Scholar in the legal research classroom.

Law Schools And Learning Outcomes: Developing A Coherent, Cohesive, And Comprehensive Law School Curriculum, Anthony S. Niedwiecki

Anthony S. Niedwiecki

No abstract provided.

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Toward A Writing-Centered Legal Education, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

The future of legal education should bridge the divide between learning and practicing the law. This requires three things. First, tuition should bear some reasonable relationship to graduates’ employment outcomes. Perhaps Harvard is justified in charging $50,000 in tuition, but a fourth-tier law school is not. Second, no school should resist infusing more practical skills training into the curriculum. This does not mean that law schools should focus on adding clinics and externships to the curriculum. The focus should be on developing critical thinkers and persuasive writers that can solve real-world legal problems. Third, law schools should be transparent about …

Interactive Group Learning In The Legal Writing Classroom: An International Primer On Student Collaboration And Cooperation In Large Classrooms, Roberta Thyfault, Kathryn Fehrman

Kathryn Fehrman

Research has long shown that students who work in small groups learn and retain more than students who are taught by other techniques. This crucial bit of information has led many scholars and educators to explore a variety of models for supporting and involving students in group learning. Part II of this article will provide an overview of the scholarship of collaborative and cooperative learning and the associated definitions and techniques. Part III discusses the application of collaborative and cooperative learning techniques in the law school classroom and special considerations and suggestions for international and large law school classrooms. Finally, …

A Government Of Laws Not Of Precedents 1776-1876: The Google Challenge To Common Law Myth, James Maxeiner

James R Maxeiner

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a common law country of precedents where, until the 20th century (the “Age of Statutes”), statutes had little role. Digitization by Google and others of previously hard to find legal works of the 19th century challenges this common law myth. At the Centennial in 1876 Americans celebrated that “The great fact in the progress of American jurisprudence … is its tendency towards organic statute law and towards the systematizing of law; in other words, towards written constitutions and codification.” This article tests the claim of the Centennial Writers of 1876 and finds …

Spirals And Schemas: How Integrated Law School Courses Create Higher-Order Thinkers And Problem Solvers, Jennifer Spreng

Jennifer E Spreng

As legal educators continue to shift focus to preparing students for practice, they should put integrated first-year courses and curricula into the top tier of potential reform vehicles. Integration refers to the extent to which a course or curriculum blurs disciplinary boundaries as well as boundaries between doctrine and authentic learning activities. Integrated courses promote active, deep learning that facilitate orderly knowledge construction and reveal more connections between vital legal concepts. The authenticity of integrated courses improves students’ retention and transfer of knowledge. Such accessible, interconnected knowledge in such a vital learning environment is like intellectual rocket fuel to law …

Keynote Address: Remarks At The Workshop On Tapping Into The World Of Electronic Legal Knowledge , Muna Ndulo

Muna B Ndulo

Professor Muna Ndulo of Cornell Law School presented the keynote address at the 2007 Starr Workshop, “Tapping into the World of Electronic Legal Knowledge.” The workshop took place at Cornell Law School October 7-10, 2007 and was co-sponsored by the Starr Foundation, New York University Law Library, and Cornell Law Library. Professor Ndulo addresses the topic of new information technologies and their importance to legal research and teaching.

Experiential Legal Writing: The New Approach To Practicing Like A Lawyer, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Law students engage in various types of “experiential” learning activities while in school, such as clinics and externships, but they graduate without the experience necessary to practice law. This is traceable to a glaring deficiency at most law schools: a writing program that is comprehensive, properly sequenced, and integrated across and throughout the law school curriculum.

First, most graduates have never drafted the documents they will encounter in law practice. Additionally, they have not drafted and re-drafted such documents while also participating in real-world simulations as they would in actual practice. Instead, students graduate having drafted an appellate brief, a …

Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing's Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

No abstract provided.

Whose Article Is It Anyway? Student Editors And The Law Review Process, Josephine R. Potuto

Josephine R Potuto

Law professors publish in law reviews, not peer-reviewed journals. They are edited by law students. The editing process can be both irritating and exasperating. From experiences lived and those shared by colleagues across the country, I provide concrete examples of where law student editors go wrong, and also explain why.