Legal Education Commons^™

A Brief History Of Anticipatory Repudiation In American Contract Law, Keith A. Rowley

Scholarly Works

This article traces the evolution of the doctrine of anticipatory repudiation from its foundations laid years before the landmark case of Hochster v. De la Tour, 118 Eng. Rep. 922 (Q.B. 1853), through Hochster, its growing acceptance by American courts in the late-1800s and early-1900s, its canonization in the first Restatement of Contracts (despite the Restatement's principal Reporter's personal objections to the doctrine), its codification in the Uniform Commercial Code, its standardization in the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, and its inclusion in the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. This article devotes considerable attention not only …

Salt History: Founding Of Salt, Jennifer Williamson, Michael Rooke-Ley

Founding of SALT

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Law Of Law Teaching: A Feminist Process, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Riddikulus!: Tenure-Track Legal Writing Faculty And The Boggart In The Wardrobe, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

Professor Beazley compares myths to boggarts in this examination of the reasons schools cite when explaining their lack of tenure-track positions for legal writing faculty. These boggarts are the living myths that pop out and whisper in faculty ears whenever someone suggests that law schools should create tenure-track - or even permanent - faculty positions in legal writing. Although some faculties have defeated these boggarts, they are still out there, popping out not from under the bed or from behind the closet door, but at lunch in the faculty lounge, after the committee meeting, and during the conversation in the …

Going From "Us" To "Them" In Sixty Seconds, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

Observations by a professor who has decided to become an Associate Dean.

Critical Race Theory And Autobiography: Can A Popular Genre Make A Serious Academic Contribution?, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

This Essay reviews “Notes of a Racial Caste Baby, Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action” by Bryan K. Fair, “How Did You Get to Be a Mexican? a White/Brown Man's Search for Identity” by Kevin R. Johnson, and “To be an American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation” by Bill Ong Hing. This Essay examines the potential contributions each book makes to legal scholarship and the popular press. The Essay first describes how each author uses the autobiographical narrative and what these narratives accomplish. The Essay examines each book's legal agenda and assesses how well each author achieves …

Forum Non Conveniens In Federal Statutory Cases, Keith A. Rowley, Lonny Sheinkopf Hoffman

Scholarly Works

This article, previously published in Volume 49 of the Emory Law Journal, examines the federal doctrine of forum non conveniens in cases in which the plaintiff asserts a right to relief under federal law. The arguments we advance - particularly our claim that the federal doctrine of forum non conveniens can be better understood not as turning on matters of convenience, as the formal doctrine suggests, but on an assessment of the relative sovereign interests in adjudicating the dispute - remain relevant to an understanding of the federal doctrine. The paper, thus, may be of interest to practitioners, academics and …

A Reflective Rhetorical Model: The Legal Writing Teacher As Reader And Writer, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Like most writing teachers, the legal writing teacher believes that his reading and response to student work is the most important thing he does, an importance that is underscored by the amount of time it takes. Yet, despite its importance and the hours it consumes, the rhetoric of teacher reading and writing remains relatively unexplored. This article proposes that we begin to apply what we have learned about student reading and writing to our own reading and writing. Our process of reading and responding to student work should be as reflective and rhetorical as the reading and writing process that …

Alwd Citation Manual: A Professional System Of Citation, Terrill Pollman, Leah A. Kane

Scholarly Works

The Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) has written a new citation manual that is easy to teach from and easy to use.

Although the ALWD Manual provides a very different teaching and learning experience, practitioners should experience few difficulties adjusting to the new manual.

Salt History & Timeline, Joyce Saltalamachia

Founding of SALT

In 1999, Joyce Saltalamachia sends a memo to the SALT History "Explore" Group. The memo includes a brief history of the founding of SALT and time-lines of significant SALT activities from beginning through 1991.

Ratings, Not Rankings: Why U.S. News & World Report Shouldn't Want To Be Compared To Time And Newsweek - Or The New Yorker, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the many problems with the U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools. It argues, among other things, that the rankings magnify insignificant differences among law schools and that the rankings do not provide helpful consumer information.

Pro Bono Service At The William S. Boyd School Of Law, Mary E. Berkheiser, Christine Smith

Scholarly Works

The mission of the William S. Boyd School of Law is to serve Nevada, and the legal and academic communities by developing and maintaining an innovative educational program that will train ethical and effective lawyers and leaders for Nevada and for the legal profession. To put the school’s mission in motion, we have begun by stressing community service, professionalism and the roles, responsibilities, skills and values of lawyers, and by involving students and faculty in community service projects in ways that will benefit our state.

Applying New Rhetoric To Legal Discourse: The Ebb And Flow Of Reader And Writer, Text And Context, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Applying New Rhetoric to law school pedagogy, this article suggests an ebb and flow of reader and writer, text and context drawn from New Rhetoric theory, research, and teaching practices. Almost all legal writing scholarship now focuses on some aspect of New Rhetoric. Yet it is likely that the product approach still prevails in the places where the papers are graded, in part because it is the more familiar and straightforward way that papers have always been graded. What follows is an initial attempt to more fully apply New Rhetoric theory and research to the teaching of legal reading and …

Continuing Classroom Conversation Beyond The Four Whys, Jeffrey W. Stempel, Bailey Kuklin

Scholarly Works

LAW school classes regularly prove Santayana's aphorism. Although nearly every law teacher desires to keep discussion focused and forward-moving, there are more than a few moments of thundering silence experienced in the classroom. Most of us adjust to this inevitability by positing some pedagogical virtue to still air and contenting ourselves with the knowledge that conversation-stopping “whys?” are usually delivered by us as teachers rather than the students. Perhaps we are underappreciative of the value discomfitting silence has, but we generally prefer that the conversation continue, that we miss the opportunity to feel simultaneously smug and uncomfortable, and that students …

A More Complete Look At Complexity, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The ability of courts to successfully resolve complex cases has been a matter of contentious debate, not only for the last quarter-century, but for most of the twentieth century. This debate has been part of the legal landscape at least since Judge Jerome Frank's polemic book from which this Symposium derives its title, and probably since Roscoe Pound's famous address to the American Bar Association. During the 1980s and 1990s in particular, the battlelines of the pro-and anti-court debate have been brightly drawn. Some commentators, most reliably successful plaintiffs' counsel and politically liberal academics, defend the judicial track record in …

The Process And The Product: A Bibliography Of Scholarship About Legal Scholarship, Linda H. Edwards, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

This bibliography of scholarship about legal scholarship was originally prepared for the 1997 Conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. The Conference explored the rapidly developing area of scholarship by legal writing professors and the ways in which this important scholarship can be encouraged. Characteristically, when writing teachers turn their attention to a particular kind of writing project, they begin by examining both the genre and the creative activity the genre employs—that is, the process and the product. This bibliography is one result of that study. The authors hope that it will prove helpful to anyone interested in legal …

Teaching In The Shadow Of The Bar, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

This Essay is a memorial tribute to Professor Trina Grillo. Trina took seriously what many of us know but find too hard to remember: the student who is academically disqualified or who fails the bar examination might be the most brilliant in the class or the most needed within the profession. When we conceive of the bar exam as a particularly grueling and potentially unfair rite of passage between law school and the practice of law, we collude in hiding the pervasive and often negative power of the bar exam. The bar examination permeates and controls fundamental aspects of legal …

From Product To Process: Evolution Of A Legal Writing Program, Jo Anne Durako, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Diane Penneys Edelman, Brett M. Amdur, Lorray S.C. Brown, Rebecca L. Connelly

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Self-Graded Draft: Teaching Students To Revise Using Self-Critique, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Beazley first explains why the predictability of legal documents, legal writers, and legal readers makes an objective method of self-critique particularly useful in legal writing. She then discusses how she designs self-grading guidelines and explains various methods for incorporating the self-grading process into a legal writing course. Finally, she addresses some of the challenges she faced when assigning the self-graded draft to students, and discusses ways to deal with these challenges. In appendixes, Professor Beazley included two samples of self-graded draft guidelines for use in a three-draft Memorandum Assignment, as well as a short illustration of …

A Writer’S Board And A Student-Run Writing Clinic: Making The Writing Community Visible At Law Schools, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

In this article the author explains institutional programs she has developed in response to a common problem, students’ frustrations with the limits of a law school’s legal writing program. The author proposes establishing a Writers’ Board, where members of the law school community who care most about legal research and writing training can work together to create opportunities for students to learn more. The Writers’ Board’s primary project is a Writing Clinic that offers diverse ways to improve legal research and writing on campus. Despite problems that are likely to arise when creating a Writers’ Board and Clinic, the author …

Symbiotic Legal Theory And Legal Practice: Advocating A Common Sense Jurisprudence Of Law And Practical Applications, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Lawyers and legal academics are waging a fierce war over the soul of legal education in the United States. The various battles in this war include disputes over the proper emphasis on teaching versus scholarship; the need for clinical, practical, or transaction-oriented education versus the need for theoretical education; and the need for traditional doctrinal work versus the need for interdisciplinary or more liberal arts-oriented education within law schools. The war also plays itself out in discussions over law school hiring and tenure decisions.

In this Article I urge that practice and even the most abstract theory are complementary, not …

The Convergence Of Analogical And Dialectic Imaginations In Legal Discourse, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

The dialogue over the role of narrative in the making and interpreting of law and in legal practice is often stalemated by confusion about the complex relationships between narrative and other forms of legal reasoning. Are narrative and rules opposing methods for interpretation and persuasion? Does narrative theory assert that lawyers can win cases by presenting a sympathetic story, without regard for the governing rule of law? If so, it is no wonder that conversations about narrative theory are so difficult.

This article explores the relationship between narrative and other forms of legal interpretation and persuasion. It relies on David …

Cultural Literacy And The Adversary System: The Enduring Problems Of Distrust, Misunderstanding And Narrow Perspective, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The meandering road to discovery reform illustrates, among other things, the ineffectiveness of an atomized profession that lacks either sufficient understanding of the adversary system or the resources and forcefulness to address the practical impact of adversarialism. In some ways, lawyers reforming litigation can be characterized as poorer investigators than the sixsome who examined the elephant. The elephant sleuths were guilty of isolation and ignorance. Lawyers and policy makers not only exhibit a lack of information and empathy, but also often show an unwarranted distrust of or contempt for the elements of the profession with which they disagree. Unfortunately, however, …

Teaching Students How To "Think Like Lawyers": Integrating Socratic Method With The Writing Process, Mary Beth Beazley, Mary Kate Kearney

Scholarly Works

Professor Beazley begins this article with an overview of how Socratic method and the writing process have traditionally been used and how they can be integrated in the legal writing course. The remainder of the article is devoted to an analysis of how this integration can be achieved in a five-step structured dialogue. She and her co-author identified these five steps as: (1) the assignment, or "instigating question"; (2) the student's written answer, in a series of "focused drafts" with "private memos"; (3) the teacher's written response, using Socratic questions whenever possible; (4) the conference, where the teacher can use …

Comparative Law: Its Purposes And Possibilities, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

Comparative law is much more than “matching laws.” Professor Grossfield’s short, lively book will certainly awaken its German reader to the value, indeed necessity, of comparative law and comparative insights in his or her own practice or scholarly work. This, he aims at the skeptic who may think of comparative law or foreign legal systems as arcane and useless fluff, too luxurious for the hard working “practical-minded” practitioner. Professor Grossfield throws the cold water of realization into this skeptic’s face. The message being that considering comparative approaches and theory about similar problems may indeed be as practical as one can …

Response, [To Kathryn Abrams, Hiring Woman], Thomas B. Mcaffee

Scholarly Works

This article is a response to an article by Professor Kathryn Abram about the recruitment and hiring of women law professors. Professor McAffee confronts an issue that Professor Abrams does not—that of giving women a “preference” in hiring. Professor McAffee also adds to Professor Abrams’ reflections about the question of how law schools should go about hiring more women.

Salt Flyer Circa 1989, Society Of American Law Teachers

Other Documents

No abstract provided.

Why Lawyers Should Be Allowed To Advertise: A Market Analysis Of Legal Services, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

In Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, a 1977 decision, the United States Supreme Court overturned the American Bar Association's (ABA) sixty-nine-year-old prohibition of advertising by lawyers. The Bates holding invalidated comprehensive bans on lawyer advertising but left unsettled the scope of permissible regulation. While the Bates Court found attorneys' price advertising to be protected speech under the first amendment, it also stated that false and misleading advertising could be prohibited. The majority expressly declined to consider the problems of advertising claims relating to the quality of legal services.

The organized bar's reaction to Bates has been hesitant and inconsistent. …

Bylaws Article Vi Nominations, Stephen Gillers

Committees & Bylaws

Article VI of SALT's Bylaws governs nominations and elections of the members of the Board of Governors and the President of the Society.

Response To Chambers And Lesnick Letters On Committee Structures, Norman Dorsen

Committees & Bylaws

Norman Dorsen, the SALT President, responds to the Chambers and Lesnick letters on the committee structures.