Law Commons^™

Addressing Barriers To Cultural Sensibility Learning: Lessons From Social Cognition Theory, Andrea A. Curcio

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Using Principles From Cognitive Behavioral Therapy To Reduce Nervousness In Oral Argument Or Moot Court, Larry Cunningham

Nevada Law Journal

Sarah, a new attorney at a public defender’s office, is assigned to the appeals bureau. Ordinarily, Sarah spends her days researching and writing briefs, talking with clients, and brainstorming legal issues with colleagues. Today, however, she opened the mail to find a notice from the court setting a date for her first oral argument. She suffers the first of several anxiety attacks: rapid heart rate, racing thoughts, shortness of breath, sweaty palms, nausea, and feelings of panic and tension. As she reads the form letter, her hands tremble. This is the day she has dreaded. She loves to write and …

Getting Students Psyched: Using Psychology To Encourage Classroom Participation, Marybeth Herald

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Redefining Attention (And Revamping The Legal Profession?) For The Digital Generation, Lauren A. Newell

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Implicit Bias And The Legal Profession's "Diversity Crisis": A Call For Self-Reflection, Nicole E. Negowetti

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Teaching And Assessing Professional Communication Skills In Law School, Denitsa R. Mavrova Heinrich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Education In Transition: Trends And Their Implications, Michael A. Millemann, Sheldon Krantz

Faculty Scholarship

This is a pivotal moment in legal education. Revisions in American Bar Association accreditation standards, approved in August 2014, impose new requirements, including practice-based requirements, on law schools. Other external regulators and critics are pushing for significant changes too. For example, the California bar licensing body is proposing to add a practice-based, experiential requirement to its licensing requirements, and the New York Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, is giving third-year, second semester students the opportunity to practice full-time in indigent legal services programs and projects. Unbeknown to many, there have been significant recent changes in legal education that …

Synergy And Tradition: The Unity Of Research, Service, And Teaching In Legal Education, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Most non-profit law schools generate public goods of enormous value: important research, service to disadvantaged communities, and instruction that both educates students about present legal practice and encourages them to improve it. Each of these missions informs and enriches the others. However, technocratic management practices menace law schools’ traditional missions of balancing theory and practice, advocacy and scholarly reflection, study of and service to communities. This article defends the unity and complementarity of law schools’ research, service, and teaching roles. (For those short on time, the chart on pages 45-46 encapsulates the conflicting critiques of law schools which this article …

Law School Based Incubators And Access To Justice – Perspectives From Deans, Patricia E. Salkin, Ellen Suni, Niels Schaumann, Mary Lu Bilek

Journal of Experiential Learning

At the end of February 2015, law professors, law deans, incubator staff and attorneys, and self-selected others gathered at California Western School of Law for the Second Annual Conference on Law School Incubators and Residency Programs. The incubators that are the subject of this article tend to focus on transition to law practice and access to justice, and some are also working to incorporate technology for the practice of law as a means of enhancing access to justice. As more law schools decide to host, sponsor or offer an incubator, and following our panel discussion at the February 2015 incubator …

At Play In The Field Of Law: Symbolic Capital And Foreign Attorneys In Ll.M. Programs, Jan Hoffman French

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In this Comment, I would like to pick up a thread of the authors' analysis and, in so doing, shift the emphasis a bit. That thread relates to their use of Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical conceptualizations of "field" and "forms of capital." In their analysis of admissions essays submitted by foreign-lawyer applicants, Lazarus-Black and Globokar consider how the discursive genre of the admissions essay orients itself to the powerladen structures that constitute the particular field within which the essay is playing, or to which it is addressed.8 They also use the Bourdieusian concepts of "cultural and linguistic capital" in relation to …

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

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ou Law's Digital Initiative: Charting The Course For Legal Education In The Digital Age

Sooner Lawyer Archive

No abstract provided.

"Teaching" Formation Of Professional Identity, David I.C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article is my attempt to provide a guide to what professional identity formation is—as distinct from more familiar concepts of professionalism and ethics—and what legal educators are doing, and could do in the future, to foster this sort of professional formation in their courses and curricula. In Part I, I offer some background and history of the topic, which supports a new definition provided in the Article for lawyer professional identity formation. I describe in Part II what some schools are doing to “teach” formation of professional identity and argue that those efforts have some significant limitations. I argue …

Understanding The Costs Of Experiential Legal Education, Martin J. Katz

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Law schools across the country are under pressure to do two seemingly contradictory things. First, we must do a better job of preparing our graduates for practice. Most commentators, including me, believe that this requires law schools to increase the quantity and quality of experiential education we provide. At the same time, law schools are under pressure to control costs. If we do not do so, we risk pricing a large and growing segment of the population out of our market. Can law schools meet both of these mandates simultaneously? The received wisdom seems to be that experiential education is …

The Metaculture Of Law School Admissions: A Commentary On Lazarus-Black And Globokar, Bonnie Urciuoli

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

What does it mean for law school applicants to become, as Mindie Lazarus-Black and Julie Globokar put it, "what the ranking[s] count[]"? What does it mean for foreign applicants to develop responses to the application process by writing essays in certain ways, to project themselves (again as Lazarus-Black and Globokar put it) as "commodified persona[s]"? The application process analyzed by Lazarus-Black and Globokar exemplifies what Greg Urban calls metaculture: cultural forms that point actors toward recognizing and understanding what they do as exemplifying a particular cultural pattern. Metaculture is the mechanism by which culture is reproduced, moving through time and …

Law School Based Incubators And Access To Justice, Patricia Salkin, Ellen Suni, Niels Schaumann, Mary Lu Bilek

Faculty Scholarship

At the end of February 2015, law professors, law deans, incubator staff and attorneys, and self-selected others gathered at California Western School of Law for the Second Annual Conference on Law School Incubators and Residency Programs. The incubators that are the subject of this article tend to focus on transition to law practice and access to justice, and some are also working to incorporate technology for the practice of law as a means of enhancing access to justice. As more law schools decide to host, sponsor or offer an incubator, and following our panel discussion at the February 2015 incubator …

Judicial Education And Regulatory Capture: Does The Current System Of Educating Judges Promote A Well-Functioning Judiciary And Adequately Serve The Public Interest?, S. I. Strong

Journal of Dispute Resolution

First, the Essay considers certain obstacles to research concerning judicial education as a means of determining why more scholars have not sounded an alarm regarding practices in this field (Section II). The Essay then addresses a number of issues relating to the current approach to judicial education to determine whether and to what extent judicial control over this issue can be considered problematic (Section III). That analysis leads logically into a discussion of various ways that the possibility of regulatory capture of judicial education could be diminished (Section IV). Finally, the Essay concludes by drawing together various strands of analysis …

International Arbitration, Judicial Education, And Legal Elites, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This essay sketches an account of how investment arbitration affects development of local legal institutions, in particular domestic courts. When investment arbitration is introduced into a local legal environment, it becomes integrated with international commercial arbitration, and often domestic arbitration. This integration occurs because the local economic elites, private law firms, and local businesses that deal with (or compete with) foreign investors and investment arbitration disputes also deal with international commercial matters, international commercial disputes, and domestic arbitration.

Intergrating Skills And Collaborating Across Law Schools: An Example From Immigration Law, Anna R. Welch

Faculty Publications

This Essay discusses the design and implementation of introductory Immigration Law courses taught at two different law schools, Western State College of Law in Orange County, California and the University of Maine Law School in Portland, Maine. Although the courses took place on opposite coasts and did not engage in a formal partnership that was visible to students, the authors deliberately planned the courses in close collaboration with one another behind the scenes. In doing so, the courses shared the explicit goal of increasing students’ exposure to practical lawyering skills while reinforcing students’ understanding of the substantive immigration laws. This …

Institutionalizing The Uspto Law School Clinic Certification Program For Transactional Law Clinics, Jennifer S. Fan

Articles

With 188 transactional law clinics nationwide and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) Law School Clinic Certification Program (“Program”) recently established as a statutory program of the USPTO, this Article argues that every transactional clinic that works on trademark and patent applications should apply to become part of the Program. In satisfying the participation requirements of the Program, transactional law clinics will usher in a new, uniform way to educate aspiring intellectual property attorneys. As a result, the law students will not only be “practice ready,” but also more effective attorneys once they are in practice. Participating in …

Coming Of Age: Innovation Districts And The Role Of Law Schools, Jennifer S. Fan

Articles

New urban models, dubbed “innovation districts” are gaining traction in entrepreneurial-focused areas across the United States. This article begins by defining what innovation districts are. It then examines the potential role that law schools, together with technology transfer offices, can play as innovation cultivators within such districts. Specifically, it looks at three potential models that law schools can consider when contemplating a relationship with the technology transfer office within a university. Integrating a clinic and technology transfer office within an innovation district does not come without its challenges, however. Accordingly, this article will suggest ways for transactional law clinics to …

Client Problem-Solving: Where Adr And Lawyering Skills Meet, Katherine R. Kruse, Bobbi Mcadoo, Sharon Press

Faculty Scholarship

Influenced by critiques of legal education, law schools are scrambling to offer more and better opportunities for experiential education. To fulfill the new demands for experiential education, one obvious place to turn is clinic pedagogy, which has developed methodologies for teaching students in the real-practice settings of in-house clinics and externships. As the interest in experiential education broadens, a wider spectrum of teaching methodologies comes under the experiential tent, creating opportunities to tap new sources of guidance for reshaping legal education.

This article turns the spotlight on one of these other, less obvious resources within legal education: the alternative dispute …

Prepared For Practice? Developing A Comprehensive Assessment Plan For A Law School Professional Skills Program, Anthony Niedwiecki

Faculty Scholarship

With the challenges facing law schools because of declining enrollment and lower job placement rates, there has been an increased push for more practical training in law school. In fact, a number of law schools are now using the phrase "practice-ready" to promote the practical training provided to their students. Additionally, the new accreditation standards from the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar ("ABA Section on Legal Education") focus more on teaching students professional skills. The most significant changes to the standards require law schools to integrate learning outcomes and assessment into their curriculum, with the …

Foreword—Establishing A Firm Foundation For The Small Law Practice, Eric J. Gouvin

Faculty Scholarship

On March 26, 2014, the Western New England Law Review sponsored a symposium entitled "Firm Foundations: Managing the Small Firm and Individual Practitioner." The symposium presentations provided perspectives on the often-overlooked world of small firm practice.

A few influential books about the state of legal education and the future of the legal profession prompted public outcry from bar associations across the country to weigh in on the perceived problems of American legal education. The debate has resulted in some real changes in law school programs.

Legal education is in the midst of major changes. For decades, law schools have been …

The Mismatch Myth In U.S. Higher Education: A Synthesis Of The Empirical Evidence At The Law School And Undergraduate Levels, William C. Kidder, Richard O. Lempert

Book Chapters

Opponents of affirmative action in higher education commonly cite two principles to justify their opposition. One is that admissions to institutions of higher education should be based on "merit," which is often treated by critics of affirmative action as consisting of little more than test score results and high school or undergraduate grades. The second is the legal and moral imperative of not making consequential decisions based on race. We shall not address these principles except to note that others have shown that they do not make the case against affirmative action (Carbado & Harris 2008, Shultz & Zedeck 2011, …

Immigrant Lawyers And The Changing Face Of The U.S. Legal Profession, Ethan Michelson

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In this Comment, I extend Lazarus-Black and Globokar's analysis further downstream to consider the stakes for the U.S. legal profession as a whole. Gatekeepers to LL.M. programs are doing far more than determining individual fates and collectively shaping the future of U.S. legal education. I will demonstrate in this Comment that their work helps shape-in concrete, measurable ways-the demographic composition of the U.S. legal profession. In so doing, I will contribute to the emerging field of legal demography, which refers to the study of lawyers through the analysis of data not collected for this specific purpose.

Notes Toward An Understanding Of The U.S. Market In Foreign Ll.M. Students: From The British Empire And The Inns Of Court To The U.S. Ll.M., Bryant G. Garth

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Mindie Lazarus-Black and Julie Globokar's article on "Foreign Attorneys in U.S. LL.M. Programs: Who's In, Who's Out, and Who They Are" uses interviews, LL.M. student observations, and actual admissions committee documents from one Midwest and one East Coast law school to confirm the tremendous growth of those programs over the past two decades in the United States and indicate who makes the journey to the United States; how foreign LL.M. candidates pitch themselves to admissions committees; how those admissions committees evaluate candidates; and what candidates expect from LL.M. programs. The voices that come through are quite compelling. We now know …

Foreign Attorneys In U.S. Ll.M. Programs: Who's In, Who's Out, And Who They Are, Mindie Lazarus-Black, Julie L. Globokar

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In recent decades, there has been a remarkable growth in the number of foreign attorneys enrolled at U.S. law schools and particularly in LL.M. programs. To learn more about these students and how they fare, we conducted research in two law schools, one in the Midwest and the second on the East Coast. We examine the admissions process for foreign attorneys from the perspectives and experiences of both the administrators who make admissions decisions and the students who seek admission. We consider the layered international, national, state, and local laws that complicate the selection process, as well as the standards …

Technology And Legal Research: What Is Taught And What Is Used In The Practice Of Law, Rebecca Sewanee Trammell

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Law schools are criticized for graduating students who lack the skills necessary to practice law. Legal research is a foundational ability necessary to support lawyering competency. The American Bar Association (ABA) establishes standards for legal education that include a requirement that each law student receive substantial instruction in legal skills, including legal research. Despite the recognized importance of legal research in legal education, there is no consensus of what to teach as part of a legal research course or even how to teach such a course.

Legal educators struggle to address these issues. The practicing bar and judiciary have expressed …

Disciplining Legal Scholarship, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

U.S. law schools are hiring large proportions of J.D.-Ph.D.s in tenure-track faculty positions in an effort to increase the quantity and quality of empirical legal scholarship. That effort is failing. The new recruits bring methods and objectives unsuited to law. They produce lower-than-predicted levels of empiricism because they compete on the basis of methodological sophistication, devote time and resources to disputes over arcane issues in statistics and methodology, prefer to collaborate with other Ph.D.s, and intimidate empiricists whose work does not require high levels of methodological sophistication. In short, Ph.D.s impose the cultures of their disciplines on legal scholarship. Importing …