Legal Education Commons^™

Discrimination In Our Midst: Law School's Potential Liability For Employment Practices, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

Studies and articles examining tenured, tenure-track and contract faculty in law schools have exposed the inequalities that women face when compared with their male counterparts. This article asks the legal academic community to consider these conditions in light of established Title VII doctrine which forbids discrimination because of sex. This article offers a hypothetical about the fictitious National Law School, whose labor relationships mimic those of many real law schools in a number of ways. Based on the facts in this hypothetical, the article explores different possible causes of action, either systemic or individual, that employees could reasonably win against …

Report Regarding The Pacific Mcgeorge Workshop On Globalizing The Law School Curriculum, Thomas O. Main

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

“Kulturkampf[S]” Or “Fit[S] Of Spite”?: Taking The Academic Culture Wars Seriously, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

Polarization and heated debate within legal academia are nothing new. Some might argue that vigorous contentiousness, even if not always civil, is essential to a healthy intellectual culture. Others would note that lawyers, legal academics especially, are a highly contentious bunch with a reputation for aggressive behavior.

Fundamentally, this Article asks whether strife and disagreement are a necessary part of academic discourse. The Article describes the academic Kulturkampfs aimed at Critical Race Theory that have taken place in the last ten years both outside of and within the Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement. The Article particularly examines what it is …

Better Writing, Better Thinking: Using Legal Writing Pedagogy In The "Casebook" Classroom (Without Grading Papers), Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

In this Article, Professor Beazley proposes that a Legal Writing revolution is the next revolution in legal education, and that the revolution is not just coming, it has begun. She offers first steps for law school faculty to take in furtherance of this revolution. Professor Beazley argues that the pioneers of this new revolution are Legal Writing faculty. Section I of this Article examines some ways that the law school culture that segregates Legal Writing faculty has both promoted their opportunities to develop innovative pedagogies and inhibited their ability to share those pedagogies with other faculty. Section II explains certain …

Boyd School Of Law Establishes Saltman Center For Conflict Resolution, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

This article discusses William S. Boyd School of Law’s establishment of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution.

A Tribute To Dean James J. Alfini: Former Dean And Professor Of The Northern Illinois University College Of Law, Jean R. Sternlight, Jeffrey M. Shaman, Nina Appel, Leona S. Green, Daniel Reynolds

Scholarly Works

This is a tribute to Dean James J. Alfini, as he begins his tenure as Dean of South Texas College of Law.

Lawyers Should Be Lawyers, But What Does That Mean?: A Response To Aiken & Wizner And Smith, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

Lawyers should be more like social workers. That is the message of Law as Social Work, the provocative essay by Jane Aiken and Stephen Wizner (Aiken & Wizner) in the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy volume, which preceded the conference on Promoting Justice Through Interdisciplinary Teaching, Practice, and Scholarship, hosted by Washington University School of Law in March 2003. Almost as if in reply, Abbe Smith's contribution to the same pre-conference volume reasserts the importance of lawyers as zealous and partisan advocates, using the realities of the criminal defense context to argue for the value of the lawyer's …

Three Views Of Visiting, Terrill Pollman, Jim Levy, Samantha Moppett

Scholarly Works

A panel discussion among legal writing instructors of the pros and cons of accepting visiting teaching positions at other law schools.

Irlafarc! A Survey On The Language Of Legal Writing, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

Language, like law, is a living thing. It grows and changes. It both reflects and shapes the communities that use it. The language of the community of legal writing professors demonstrates this process. Legal writing professors, who stand at the heart of an emerging discipline in the legal academy, are creating new terms, or neologisms, as they struggle to articulate principles of legal analysis, organizational paradigms conventional to legal writing, and other legal writing concepts. This new vocabulary can be both beneficial and detrimental. It can be beneficial because it expands the substance of an emerging discipline. It also can …

"Venn" And The Art Of Shared Governance, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the concept of shared governance in the context of a law school that is part of a university. It argues that the governance of a law school is a shared process between the dean/administration and the faculty. It explains why law schools can't be run the way that businesses are run, and it tries to explain governance in terms of jurisdiction.

Further Thoughts On Better Writing, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

As writing teachers, we frequently witness the mystery of how writing and re-writing clarifies thinking. We teach our students to let the writing process show them the gaps in their reasoning. As student edit, they learn that paring away the superfluous allows us to see the line and structure of the argument. When a section or sentence “won’t write,” it is often because we are trying to ignore a flaw in our understanding. Form is related to content. The attempt to simplify out message teaches us what is it we have to say.

Anticipatory Repudiation Of Letters Of Credit, Keith A. Rowley

Scholarly Works

Letters of credit play a vital role in financing international transactions, and are becoming increasingly popular domestically as substitutes for more traditional secured financing. As such, they deserve substantially more scholarly attention than they receive outside of specialized treatises and banking trade publications. Moreover, as unilateral promises by issuers of the letters of credit to pay money to their beneficiaries, the fact that Article 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code and pre-UCC common law recognize the right of a beneficiary to sue for anticipatory repudiation is at odds with the prevailing rule in this country that a promisee cannot sue …

Forgetfulness, Fuzziness, Functionality, Fairness And Freedom, In Dispute Resolution, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Professor Subrin is a self-professed traditionalist who has been one of the most forceful defenders of what I might term neo-traditional “Clarkian” litigation. By that, I mean the model of civil disputing in which litigation is a primary vehicle. More important, the litigation is based on notice pleading, broad discovery, and a preference for adjudication on the merits.

Key Subrin works over the years have focused on the historical path of the Clarkian model, which served to fuel much of the law revolution of the mid-Twentieth Century, to the “new era” of civil procedure and dispute resolution that dominated the …

Desegregating The Law School Curriculum: How To Integrate More Of The Skills And Values Identified By The Maccrate Report Into A Doctrinal Course, Alice M. Noble-Allgire

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Favorite Insurance Cases Symposium, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Teaching Real Torts: Using Barry Werth's Damages In The Law School Classroom, Tom Baker

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Classic Insurance Law In A Postmodern World, Leo P. Martinez

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam: Yale Rosenberg, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

In memory of Yale Rosenberg, much-appreciated colleague at the University of Houston Law Center.

Is "Thinking Like A Lawyer" Really What We Want To Teach?, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article argues that the phrase thinking like a lawyer assumes that other professions don't have their own ways of approaching problems and that law schools only need to teach how lawyers think, rather than how lawyers do what they do. It suggests that law schools should do much more than just teach law students how to think.

Introduction: Favorite Insurance Cases Symposium, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Insurance law scholars and teachers sometimes feel, with a mixture of paranoia and justification, that insurance law simply does not receive its proper respect in the hierarchy of legal education and law generally.

Consider the law school curriculum. In none of America’s nearly 200 ABA-approved law schools in insurance law a required course. Nor is it considered a course that, although not required, prudent students “must” be sure to take before they graduate (e.g. Evidence, Corporations). Enrollments may be respectable but the class is seldom oversubscribed, even where the law school is located in an insurance hub city. Although other …

Law School Externships: Building Another Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Martin A. Geer

Scholarly Works

A commitment to an excellent externship program in which students are intensely engaged in learning lawyering skills, values, responsibilities, and how the law and legal systems affect communities, families, and individuals, further advances William S. Boyd School of Law’s goals. It is another bridge over gaps between legal education, the profession, and the community. This article discusses the externship program at William S. Boyd School of Law.

Biting Off What They Can Chew: Strategies For Involving Law Students In Problem-Solving Beyond Individual Client Representation, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

Problem-solving is most often taught in the context of representing individual clients in small manageable cases where students retain primary control and develop a sense of ownership. Increasingly, law school clinical programs are involving students in broader service projects designed to meet the needs of clients that go unaddressed by the legal system. Student involvement in these projects presents challenges for the traditional model of problem-solving taught in individual case representation. This article explores the challenges of translating the problem-solving techniques employed in direct representation of individual clients into the larger context of problem-solving for a client community by examining …

Building A Tower Of Babel Or Building A Discipline? Talking About Legal Writing, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

High-quality writing is one of the crafts most necessary to a successful career in law. Mature legal professionals, lawyers, judges, and law professors write every day. Often, they write cooperatively--editing and redrafting a shared document. Nevertheless, those trained in the law may lack a common language that enables them to talk with each other about writing. Like the workers building the tower in the biblical story of Babel, legal professionals sometimes find themselves unable to communicate about their work.

Unlike most subjects in the legal academy, legal writing has emerged as an area of serious study in law schools only …

Do Best Practices In Legal Education Include Emphasis On Compositional Modes Of Studying Law As A Liberal Art?, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Reporter's Notes on "A Liberal Education in Law: Engaging the Legal Imagination through Research and Writing Beyond the Curriculum."

Reading The Law In The Office Of Calvin Fletcher: The Apprenticeship System And The Practice Of Law In Frontier Indiana, A. Christopher Bryant

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Of Cat-Herders, Conductors, Fearless Leaders, And Tour Guides, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article discusses four distinct approaches to the role of the dean and the pros and cons of each approach.

When Local Is Global: Using A Consortium Of Law Schools To Encourage Global Thinking, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

Dean Rapoport will discuss students and faculty consortia focusing on the North American Consortium on Legal Education (NACLE), which, among other things, promotes student and faculty exchanges between and among three law schools in the U.S., three in Canada, and three in Mexico.

A Plea For Rationality And Decency: The Disparate Treatment Of Legal Writing Faculties As A Violation Of Both Equal Protection And Professional Ethics, Peter Brandon Bayer

Scholarly Works

This article builds on the work of others by demonstrating that as a matter of academic ethics, informed by cardinal legal standards of decency, the disparate treatment and adverse terms and conditions imposed on writing professors are not simply unfair but defy the ethical aspirations of American law schools. Specifically, as the construct for analysis, this article establishes and utilizes the proposition that the discordant status of legal writing professors fails to satisfy minimal professional ethics. As a model, this article shows that it is not even minimally rational under the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, our …

The William S. Boyd School Of Law Juvenile Justice Clinic, Mary E. Berkheiser

Scholarly Works

This article reviews the work of the Juvenile Justice Clinic at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

The Lawyering Process Program: Building Competence And Confidence, Terrill Pollman, Jennifer B. Anderson

Scholarly Works

In this article, the authors describe the Lawyering Process Program at the William S. Boyd School of Law. Like their colleagues at law schools across the country, students at the Boyd School of Law spend the early part of their law school careers learning the basics of legal research and writing. Unlike many of their fellow IL's, however, Boyd students also learn other important concepts and skills. The Lawyering Process Program at Boyd is a unique, three-semester class that includes significant instruction and experience in four areas: (1) legal writing and analysis; (2) legal research; (3) lawyering skills; and (4) …