Law Commons^™

Lawyer, Form Thyself: Professional Identity Formation Strategies In Legal Education, Professional Responsibility, And Experiential Courses, Susan S. Daicoff

Susan Daicoff

Professional identity formation as a learning objective in law school may appear to be nontraditional and perhaps even innovative. While perhaps not a new concept, it is not typically an explicit goal of legal education. Empirical data finds that law school has demonstrable effects upon law students’ professional development; it also finds that certain nontraditional skills and competencies (or “soft skills”) make lawyers most effective. This article argues for explicit planning for and inclusion of professional identity development, including training in these nontraditional skills, in legal education. Professional identity encompasses one’s values, preferences, passions, intrinsic satisfactions, emotional intelligence, as well …

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.

A Brief Exploration Of Space: Some Observations On Law School Architecture, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Robert H. Jerry II

The nature of the space in which we work, teach, and study is important. The design of our surroundings affects our attitudes, moods, self-esteem, efficiency, and sense of community. For our students, space makes a difference in the quality of the learning experience. It is possible to teach and learn in deficient space, but it is easier to teach and learn when both faculty and students are comfortable, happy, and not distracted by the inconveniences and annoyances of a poorly designed environment. Inadequate space prevents us from achieving all of which we are capable, thereby diminishing our productivity, creativity, and …

Public Forum 2.1: Public Higher Education Institutions And Social Media, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

Robert H. Jerry II

Like most of us, public colleges and universities increasingly are communicating via Facebook, Second Life, YouTube, Twitter and other social media. Unlike most of us, public colleges and universities are government actors, and their social media communications present complex administrative and First Amendment challenges. The authors of this article — one the dean of a major public university law school responsible for directing its social media strategies, the other a scholar of social media and the First Amendment — have combined their expertise to help public university officials address these challenges. To that end, this article first examines current and …

Reflections On Leadership, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Robert H. Jerry II

This essay discusses aspects and theories of leadership, focusing on the servant-leadership theory and the writings of Robert Greenleaf, among others. The author concludes that servant-leadership theory is particularly well-suited to academic leadership, which generally has a close nexus with public service.

The Use And Abuse Of Humanistic Theory In Law: Reexamining The Assumptions Of Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship, Charles Collier

Charles W. Collier

No abstract provided.

Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship In Search Of A Paradigm, Charles W. Collier

Charles W. Collier

No abstract provided.

Socioeconomics: Choice And Challenges, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

The crucial link between rules and policy is choice. Rules require people to make choices that further policy. In addition, a single rule that is claimed to advance a specific policy involves a behavioral assumption of one kind or another. In this Article, the Author offers some closing observations with regard to the collection of articles from the Teaching Law & Socioeconomics Symposium. The Author's comments fall into two categories. First, he discusses an important theme that he has found throughout the articles: the importance of linking policy with the rules that further those policies by examining the determinants of …

Post-Tenure Scholarship And Its Implications, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

Periodically in the popular press and even in academic circles, the question arises of whether professors should be granted lifetime employment contracts based on a sample of four to six years of a probationary period. Further clouding the issue of how easily tenure should be granted is the question of what determines tenure. Is it a reward for past efforts or based on a forecast of future productivity? These concepts may seem like the same thing but they are not. Accordingly, the huge commitment of resources that occurs when tenure is granted paired with the Author's observations of pre-tenure scholars …

Faculty Ethics In Law School: Shirking, Capture, And "The Matrix", Jeffrey L. Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

The primary focus of this essay is the ethical dimension of the decisions faculty governance requires law professors to make. This essay is devoted to the proposition that conditions are ideal for most law schools to be governed for the benefit of the faculty at the expense of the welfare of students and others (stakeholders) who expect to be served by the law school. This section also suggests that faculty shirking, if it occurs, stems primarily from a lack of respect for those whom the law school serves. Section II addresses the second step. Having described shirking and capture in …

Teaching Contracts From A Socioeconomic Perspective, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

This essay begins with a brief discussion of what socioeconomics is. In this section I also address whether one must be well versed in conventional economics in order to apply a socioeconomic perspective. I then discuss the basic themes that are present throughout my contracts class that stem from my interest in socioeconomics. Underlying these themes is the more fundamental goal of devising methodologies for assessing the quality of contracts. By quality, I mean something more and perhaps more subtle than whether the parties have conformed to all the formal requirements. Instead, I encourage students to examine whether all of …

Diversity In Law Schools: Where Are We Headed In The Twenty-First Century, Jon L. Mills

Jon L. Mills

While we had historically recruited a large number of minority candidates to campus, because of the departures of our minority faculty, we needed to evaluate both our ability to recruit and our ability to retain minority faculty. Discriminatory hiring based on race is forbidden by law. The University of Florida is an equal opportunity employer. As a practical and legal matter, and in contrast to our current student admissions policy, we can consider race in employment decisions only to remedy past discrimination and only if narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. First, it is important to understand the …

Diversity Matters: Race, Gender And Ethnicity In Legal Education., Nancy E. Dowd, Kenneth B. Nunn, Jane E. Pendergast

Nancy Dowd

This Article presents more evidence of the inequality that persists in legal education for students. Based on a survey of University of Florida law students conducted in 2001, this study reaffirms the existence of differential experience and an inegalitarian culture in legal education. However, it also demonstrates the importance of diversity and the recognition by a significant majority of students of the value of race and gender pluralism. These competing findings provide a clear guide to the future direction of legal education.

Lights! Camera! Law School?: Using Video Interviews To Enhance First Semester Writing Assignments, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

This short article discusses why the Legal Communication and Research program at Syracuse University College of Law has used video interviews between hypothetical clients and attorneys as an alternative to the traditional assignment memo. The article also discusses some of the technical issues related to this approach and suggests some techniques budding producers might use to develop effective and engaging videos to enhance traditional legal writing assignments.

Widener Adds Support For A State-Sponsored Law School, Erin Daly

Erin Daly

No abstract provided.

‘Point And Click’ Versus Byod: Student Engagement Technologies As An Ethical Imperative For Teaching Law, Elizabeth A. Kirley

Elizabeth A Kirley

What conscientious law professor of first year, large format classes in torts, contracts, or criminal law has not pondered how to better engage students while easing their reluctance to speak out in class? While many students entering law schools are quite adept with student engagement technologies (SETs) from their undergraduate studies, some law faculty seem tied to the passive environment of lectures and PowerPoint presentations and hence reject SET methodologies as so much techno-wizardry. With the entry of web-based programs into the expanding field of SETs, and increasing empirical evidence that interactive learning improves grades, closes gender gaps, and helps …

Admit That The Waters Around You Have Grown: Change And Legal Education, Mari J. Matsuda

Indiana Law Journal

Presented as the Addison C. Harris Lecture at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana, September 25, 2013.

Affirmative Action: Between The Oikos And Cosmos Review Essay: Richard Sander & Stuart Taylor, Jr., Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended To Help And Why Universities Won't Admit It, Harry G. Hutchinson

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Globalization And The Aba Commission On Ethics 20/20: Reflections On Missed Opportunities And The Road Not Taken, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 was established in order to “perform a thorough review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the U.S. system of lawyer regulation in the context of advances in technology and global legal practice developments.” The thesis of this article is that the Commission was much more successful with the “technology” aspect of its work than it was with the globalization aspect of its work. This article offers an explanation for these differing levels of success and identifies an alternative path the Commission might have taken that might have led to greater success …

"Ph.D. Lite": A New Approach To Teaching Scholarly Legal Writing, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Most American law schools require the satisfaction of an upper level writing requirement, usually in the form of a seminar paper, or “Note”, for graduation. The problem for many students is that the J.D. is not generally geared towards learning scholarly writing. In recent years, the author has experimented with reformulating a seminar class as a “writing workshop” in order to focus on the scholarly writing process. In so doing, she has drawn from experiences supervising legal research degrees in other countries where research-based LL.M. degrees and Ph.D. degrees in law are the norm. This essay details her approach – …

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 …

Clinical Legal Education In Afghanistan: Next Steps, Stephen A. Rosenbaum

Publications

Law and Shari’a faculties in Afghanistan now have a critical mass of professors trained in the principles of interactive teaching and experiential education. Many deans and other administrators are keen on the idea of hosting a legal clinic or an innovative educational model. Piloting a clinical program requires a team of junior and senior faculty members who remain in continuous and long-term contact with their peers and practitioners across the nation, and with clinicians in the Global South and North. This should include a partnership with a reputable law school abroad for study, clinical practice and clinic tutorials; assistance from …

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.

"No Country For Old Men:" Junior Associates And The Real-World Practice Of Law, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

Law schools are designed to teach students about the doctrine of law and to help them prepare their skills to practice law. There are some practical aspects of law practice, though, that are rarely if ever discussed in law school. Perhaps this is because of an assumption that law firms will make these issues clear to the students they hire as associates, or perhaps it is because of a belief that such information has no place in the curriculum of an academic institution. Whatever the reason, this is information law students should have as they begin to think about where …

The Wire As A Gap-Filling Class On Criminal Law And Procedure, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Structure And Evolution Of The Academic Discipline Of Law In The United States: Generation And Validation Of Course-Subject Co-Occurrence (Csco) Maps, Peter A. Hook

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This dissertation proposes, exemplifies, and validates the usage of course-subject co-occurrence (CSCO) data to generate topic maps of an academic discipline. CSCO is defined as course-subjects taught in the same academic year by the same teacher. This work is premised on the assumption that in the aggregate and for reasons of efficiency, faculty members teach course-subjects that are topically similar to one another. To exemplify and validate CSCO, more than 112,000 CSCO events were extracted from the annual directories of the American Association of Law Schools covering nearly eighty years of law school teaching in the United States. The CSCO …

Iu Maurer School Of Law Creates Scholarship, Mentoring Programs With 4 Colleges, Mj Slaby

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2014, Section 2

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.

Virginia Bar Exam, July 2014, Section 1

Virginia Bar Exam Archive

No abstract provided.