Legal Education Commons^™

Teaching With Feminist Judgments: A Global Conversation, Bridget J. Crawford, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

This conversational-style essay is an exchange among fourteen professors-representing thirteen universities across five countries-with experience teaching with feminist judgments.

Feminist judgments are 'shadow' court decisions rewritten from a feminist perspective, using only the precedent in effect and the facts known at the time of the original decision. Scholars in Canada, England, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, India, and Mexico have published (or are currently producing) written collections of feminist judgments that demonstrate how feminist perspectives could have changed the legal reasoning or outcome (or both) in important legal cases.

This essay begins to explore the vast pedagogical potential …

Training Law Students To Maintain Civility In Their Law Practices As A Way To Improve Public Discourse, Nancy B. Rapoport

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Our current social discourse is broken. Not only have we resorted to name-calling instead of reasoned discussion, but we have also resorted to the fundamental attribution error: we attribute bad motives to people with whose positions we disagree rather than starting with the presumption that, perhaps, buried deep within their positions could be a grain of truth. As Yoni Appelbaum observed in a recent article in The Atlantic, "Recent research by political scientists at Vanderbilt University and other institutions has found both Republicans and Democrats distressingly willing to dehumanize members of the opposite party."' We need to find a …

Why Legal Writing Is “Doctrinal” And More Importantly Profound, Harold Anthony Lloyd

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

On The Shoulders Of Giants: Reflections On The Foundations And Futures Of The Study Of Gambling, Bo J. Bernhard

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

Dr. Bo Bernhard was invested as the Phillip G. Satre Chair in Gaming Studies and delivered the Robert D. Faiss guest lecture on gaming law policy on April 5, 2018.

Learning From Feminist Judgments: Lessons In Language And Advocacy, Linda L. Berger, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Bridget J. Crawford

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Judicial decision-making is not a neutral and logical enterprise that involves applying clear rules to agreed-upon facts. Legal educators can and should help students learn more about how judges actually go about making their decisions. The study of re-imagined judicial decisions, such as the alternative judgments from various Feminist Judgments Projects, can enrich the study of law in multiple ways. First, seeing a written decision that differs from the original can help students think “outside the box” constructed by the original opinion by showing them a concrete example of another perspective written in judicial language. Second, the rewritten judgments show …

What Law Must Lawyers Know?, Joan W. Howarth

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What constitutes the body of legal knowledge that every lawyer must
possess? I used to know, or think I did, but no longer. I suspect no one else
knows either. This difficult question is not just an intriguing theoretical
matter but also an urgent, practical problem. Licensing regulators assume
that minimal competence in any profession requires certain fundamental
knowledge, skills, and abilities.Bar examiners must determine what
knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary for minimum competence as
an attorney and then design tests and other requirements to attempt to align
licensure with minimum competence. Today’s tangled attorney licensing
puzzle cannot be …

Growth And Mindset For A Generation As A Profession, Latisha Nixon-Jones

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Ringing Changes: Systems Thinking About Legal Licensing, Joan W. Howarth, Judith Welch Wegner

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Part I examines core assumptions associated with licensing systems as well as associated ambiguities. In particular, it acknowledges multiple understandings about what “competence” is and differing assumptions about how to evaluate or measure it. Part I thus sets forth important predicates for our argument that only a multi-faceted licensing system can do what is needed in assuring minimal competence, and that not all forms of competence are best measured by traditional licensing examinations.

Part II raises the possibility of creating a post-first-year examination designed to assess critical thinking in the context of the first-year curriculum. It also considers ways in …

Drawing Connections Between Artificial Intelligence, Cognition, And Legal Skills, Drew Simshaw

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Competitive Coping Strategies In The American Legal Academy: An Empirical Study, Bernard A. Burk, Jerome M. Organ, Emma B. Rasiel

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

New York Leads From The Middle: Crowdsourcing The Bar Exam Cut Score, Joan W. Howarth

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In this article, Prof. Howarth urges states to move to a uniform cut score on the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) through the use of crowdsourcing.

Joe Williams And Discourse Communities-The Journal Of Legal Writing Institute And Community Service, Terrill Pollman

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Professor Pollman writes a tribute to The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute.

Pursuing Gault, David S. Tanenhaus, Eric C. Nystrom

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Championing Children's Rights In Nevada, 2000-2015: The Thomas & Mack Juvenile Justice Clinic As Change Agent, Mary C. Berkheiser

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Salt 2017 Awards Dinner Program, Society Of American Law Teachers

Meetings & Events

No abstract provided.

The Problem With Aba Standard 405(C), Kathryn M. Stanchi

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This essay takes the position that clinicians and legal writing faculty deserve better than "not too bad." Standard 405(c) needs to be called out for what it is: an institutionalized bar to professional advancement divorced from any reasonable measure of merit.

In Praise Of Margaret Howard, Nancy B. Rapoport

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Professor Nancy Rapoport joins a group of distinguished colleagues in paying tribute to Professor Margaret Howard.

Rhetoric & Reality In The Aba Standards, Linda L. Berger

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The rhetoric of Chapters 3 and 4 of the ABA Standards creates, maintains, and perpetuates hierarchies in law school faculties. Those hierarchies subordinate some categories of faculty members and the courses they teach. Without change in the Standards or their implementation, these hierarchies will remain, and the values and norms of traditionally privileged faculty and subject matters will become even more firmly embedded as representing the best of the legal academy. By adopting the 405(c) “best practices” policy statement, individual law schools and law faculties take upon themselves the power to demonstrate that the ABA Standards are the floor, not …

When Less Is More: An Ideological Rhetorical Analysis Of Selected Aba Standards On Curricula And Faculty, Linda L. Berger

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This chapter undertakes an ideological rhetorical analysis of several key provisions of Chapters 3 and 4 of the American Bar Association’s Standards for Approval of Law Schools, specifically, the interrelated provisions that regulate the curriculum and specify the required conditions of employment for the faculty of a law school. The analysis of selected ABA Standards regulating curricula and faculty supports rhetorical analyst Sonja Foss’s conclusion that the “dominant ideology controls what participants see as natural or obvious by establishing the norm. . . . [and] provides a sense that things are the way they have to be as it asserts …

The Case For A Uniform Cut Score, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

To our detriment, attorneys have become accustomed to state-by-state disparities in the cut score for our national, multiple choice licensing test, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE). MBE cut scores range from 129 in Wisconsin to 145 in Delaware. The states with the most licensed attorneys, New York and California, use MBE cut scores of 133 and 144, respectively, which land on different sides of the national MBE score bell curve bulge. No one pretends that these disparities are justified because practicing law as a new lawyer is more difficult in California than in New York. The MBE cut score is …

Pre-Competencies As Precursors: Enhanced Admissions Criteria In The Age Of Seat-Deposit Anxiety, Rebecca Flanagan

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Models Of Invisibility: Rendering Domestic And Other Gendered Violence Visible To Students Through Clinical Law Teaching, Elizabeth L. Macdowell, Ann Cammett

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The proliferation of university courses about domestic violence includes clinical courses in law schools in which students represent victims in their legal cases. This essay advocates for a broader approach to teaching about the problem. Using examples from their clinic cases, the authors show how teachers can overcome pedagogical challenges and render domestic and other forms of gendered violence, including state and community violence, more visible to students by intentionally raising and placing it within larger frameworks of structural inequality. In this way, students learn to identify and address gendered violence even when it is not the presenting problem.

The Humanities In The Law School Curriculum: Courtship And Consummation, Linda H. Edwards

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Today the humanities occupy a small corner of the law school curriculum. Might they instead become a more vibrant partner in legal education? Might law and humanities scholarship escape the pages of law reviews and teach us something important about how to read and understand the law?

Despite the long theoretical dominance of legal realism in scholarly circles, much of legal education as we know it has remained mired in Langdell's formalist vision of the law—a vision of a narrow, abstract, impersonal system bereft of human meaning and value. But we can do better. We can approach law, and teach …

Research Instruction And Resources In The Transactional Skills Classroom: Approaches To Incorporating Research Instruction Into Transactional Skills Courses, Lori D. Johnson, Jeanne Price, Eric H. Franklin

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Professors Lori Johnson, Jeanne Price, and Eric Franklin discuss methods of teaching legal research skills in the context of a transactional law class.

Seeing Higher Education And Faculty Responsibility Through Richard Matasar's Critiques Of Law Schools: College Completion, Economic Viability, And The Liberal Arts Ideal In Higher Education, John Valery White

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Professor John Valery White argues that the crisis in higher education has been framed around discomfort with and critiques of changes that have taken place in the last few decades as universities grew and became more complex, and more expensive. These arguments raise valid and significant concerns about higher education and its subcomponents like legal education but on the whole have missed the true challenge to higher education of recent years. He argues that the significant current policy push to improve college attainment has led to the loss of academic authority and leadership by higher education institutions, their administrators, and …

Finishing The Job Of Legal Education Reform, Mary Beth Beazley

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In this article, Professor Beazley advocates for the extension of tenure to skills faculty for the good of law faculty and of legal education. She argues that extending tenure to legal writing and other skills faculty will help to advance the goals of education reform in a variety of ways. First, equalizing the power of skills faculty will allow law schools to get the full benefit of their teaching and scholarship, a benefit that is currently blunted by ignorance and bias. Second, fair treatment of skills faculty will advance the values of equality, diversity, and inclusion: law students will benefit …

Crafting Comment Letters: Teach Policy, Develop Skills, And Shape Pending Regulation, Benjamin P. Edwards, Nicole G. Iannarone

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Professor Benjamin Edwards joins his colleague, Professor Nicole Iannarone, in this essay, unpacking the regulatory comment letter process and how to incorporate it into the law school curriculum. Participating in live rulemaking offers unique opportunities for students including mastering the substantive area of law, developing critical thinking skills, and developing their professional identities. The authors describe their own experiences in incorporating students into the regulatory rulemaking process. Because of the focus on securities law, their students review and comment on proposed actions by securities regulators - the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After providing …

Opinion & Dissent: Magic Words, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Teaching Remedial Problem-Solving Skills To A Law School's Underperforming Students, John F. Murphy

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

How Teaching About Therapeutic Jurisprudence Can Be A Tool Of Social Justice, And Lead Law Students To Personally And Socially Rewarding Careers: Sexuality And Disability As A Case Example, Michael L. Perlin, Alison J. Lynch

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.