Legal Education Commons^™

Education For A Public Calling In The 21st Century, Phoebe A. Haddon

Washington Law Review

A decade ago, an issue of the Association of American Law Schools' Journal of Legal Education was devoted to ruminations on selecting lawyers for the twenty-first century. Although some of the papers in the Journal issue offered congratulatory messages to legal educators and the Law School Admissions Council for their work, others more critically assessed legal education and the admissions process, warning of an impending "mid-life crisis" caused in part by an unreflective period of maturation. Focusing on two decades of "applicant explosion," affording the conscious creation of "a more intellectually elite profession,"' a number of the authors who submitted …

Narrowing The Gap By Narrowing The Field: What's Missing From The Maccrate Report—Of Skills, Legal Science And Being A Human Being, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Washington Law Review

I come here today, not to bury the MacCrate Report, but to criticize it, not for what it includes, although that is part of my critique, but for what it leaves out. I also want to situate my critique in the contentious intellectual history of legal education and legal scholarship, that, in my view, has too long polarized both the intellectual value and rigor of "law" (conceived of either as doctrine or theory) and "skills" (those nasty things that real lawyers have to do to express "the law" and represent clients). Among the most recent entries to this debate is …

Introduction: The Maccrate Report—Heuristic Or Prescriptive?, Wallace Loh

Washington Law Review

There is a freight train gathering speed on the tracks of legal education, and it is called SSV—Statement of Skills and Values. This SSV stands as the centerpiece of the Report of the ABA Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap, better known as the MacCrate Report, named after its chair, Robert MacCrate. The MacCrate Report has ignited a rational debate on curricular reform that is becoming increasingly intense. Viewed broadly, SSV may represent the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case …

Keynote Address—The 21st Century Lawyer: Is There A Gap To Be Narrowed?, Robert Maccrate

Washington Law Review

This law school symposium on the Twenty-First Century Lawyer reflects a fundamental shift in the focus of legal education within the academy—from law in the abstract toward the reality of law in the daily work of lawyers. While holding firm to their scholarly mission, law schools are giving increasing attention to the world of lawyer performance and the needs of their students to be prepared to participate effectively in the legal profession. The 1992 Report entitled Legal Education and Professional Development-An Educational Continuum, by a task force of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the …

Somewhere Farther Down The Line: Maccrate On Multiculturalism And The Information Age, Burnele V. Powell

Washington Law Review

A couple of months ago, sometime after I was invited by Symposium Editor Ruth Kennedy to participate in today's discussion, I got a telephone call from her. She wanted to know the title of my remarks. I, of course, had no idea, what I would entitle these remarks because I was still freshly in the throes of trying to write these remarks. Only moments before the phone rang, I had been preoccupied with several CDs that I had recently purchased and was thinking about the task ahead of me. It did occur to me, however, that there was something I …

On Teaching Professional Judgment, Paul Brest, Linda Krieger

Washington Law Review

To answer the question posed by the conveners of this symposium, of course there is a gap between legal education and the legal profession. There has always been one, and quite possibly it has widened somewhat in recent years, if for no other reason than that the world in which lawyers practice has changed so much while legal education has changed relatively little. The external changes include the internationalization of legal transactions, the centrality of technology to many aspects of practice, increased specialization driven by the proliferation and complexity of statutory and regulatory schemes, and the overloading of traditional systems …

From Sink Or Swim To The Apprenticeship: Choices For Lawyer Training, Lucy Isaki

Washington Law Review

Our symposium today asks the question: Is there a gap in lawyer training to be narrowed? My answer is: Probably. Is it any greater than the gap that existed twenty or thirty years ago? I think not. Law schools are graduating women and men well prepared to begin the practice of law. True, there is much that new law school graduates do not yet know. But in a short time—two to three years—most new law graduates gain the skills and substantive knowledge needed to be successful.

Economic Reality Facing 21st Century Lawyers, Thomas D. Morgan

Washington Law Review

Our predictions of future developments may be wrong, but if we do not at least think seriously about what skills these students will need to participate in the rapidly changing legal profession, we as legal educators will be certain to disserve both our students and their future clients.

Back To The Crib?, William B. Stoebuck

Washington Law Review

First, let me note that this Rembe Lecture honors Toni Rembe, Esq., a distinguished graduate of this law school, class of 1960. Toni and I knew each other as fellow students and members of the Washington Law Review, since I was class of 1959. After graduating here, she took a Master of Laws in taxation at New York University in 1961. Then she joined the premier San Francisco law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, where she has long been the head of the tax law division. Toni, who is a Seattle native, has maintained her ties to this city. …

Professor Cornelius J. Peck: A Man Of Many Talents, Ralph W. Johnson

Articles

Outstanding teacher, authoritative writer, master winemaker, successful labor arbitrator, durable bicyclist, avid gardener, occasional portrait painter, and more. Meet University of Washington School of Law Professor Emeritus Cornelius J. Peck. Born in Calumet, Michigan, he attended public schools in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and found his way east to Harvard, where he received a B.S. degree in 1944 and an LL.B. in 1949. He was a Harvard National Scholar while he worked on his B.S. and law degrees. He held two jobs with the U.S. Department of Justice and one with the National Labor Relations Board before joining the University of …

Profile, Winter 1994

Alumni Magazines

University of Washington School of Law alumni magazine

Profile, Summer 1993

Alumni Magazines

University of Washington School of Law alumni magazine

Profile, Winter 1993

Alumni Magazines

University of Washington School of Law alumni magazine

Profile, Summer 1992

Alumni Magazines

University of Washington School of Law alumni magazine

Profile, Winter 1992

Alumni Magazines

University of Washington School of Law alumni magazine

Profile, July 1991

Alumni Magazines

University of Washington School of Law Alumni Magazine

Teaching Tax Law After Tax Reform, Martin D. Ginsburg

Washington Law Review

Professor Ginsburg compares the teaching of individual income taxation before and after the extensive statutory revisions of the 1980s. The pervasive question, what is income, remains the central inquiry in the basic tax course, he observes, and the great classifications, personal versus commercial and current versus capital, unavoidably persist. The development in tax law that has most significantly changed the way the subject is taught, he believes, is embodied in the recent enactment of a variety of Internal Revenue Code provisions which, while facially inconsistent in their approach to particular cases, have in common an appreciation of differences in present …

The Fletcher Years, Ralph W. Johnson

Articles

How would you best describe Robert L. Fletcher, I asked my colleagues. He is, they said, thoughtful, a man of integrity, a delightful and companionable gentleman, sincere of purpose, hard-working, reliable, exceedingly thorough, a respected scholar and teacher. By habit he examines all aspects of a proposal before acting on it, reserves judgment until "all the evidence is in." Reputedly he enjoys ferreting out arcane future interests that violate the Rule Against Perpetuities in trust and real estate documents. Bob Fletcher practiced law for nine years in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, before entering teaching in 1956. Before that he was …

[Interview With] Viola Bird

Librarians' Chapters in Books

An interview with Viola Bird, who served as assistant law librarian for twenty years, from 1953 to 1973.

Betty Wilkins

Librarians' Chapters in Books

An oral history interview with Betty Wilkins, former director of the University of Washington Law Library.

Some Thoughts On Legal Education In Japan, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

This piece is based upon a talk given at the Harvard Law Association of Japan meeting on December 4, 1985, by Daniel H. Foote.

Published in Japanese - English original draft provided.

Anatomy Of Legal Education (Report Of The Tunks Committee): The Way We Were And The Way We Are, Afton Dekanal

Washington Law Review

Lehan K. Tunks, then Dean of Rutgers Law School in Newark, chaired an Association of American Law Schools Committee on Law School Administration and University Relations that conducted "an inquiry into the adequacy and mobilization of the financial and human resources in American law schools for research and education for the legal profession...." The study, begun in 1955, resulted in a 1961 report, Anatomy of Modern Legal Education, examining the 1956-57 operation of the 129 law schools then on the American Bar Association's approved list. A 146-page questionnaire answered by the dean of each school and a shorter questionnaire answered …

Professional Responsibility: Education And Enforcement, Robert H. Aronson

Articles

The fallout from the Watergate scandals has had a profound effect upon the legal profession because many of the prominent offenders were attorneys. The severity of the conduct involved and the suspicion that the activities publicized represent merely the tip of the iceberg have caused the American Bar Association, state and local bar committees, and law schools to seek new ways of educating prospective lawyers with respect to their ethical duties, and to seek more effective sanctions against ethically deficient attorneys. It is ironic, however, that increased awareness and activity in the area of legal ethics should be motivated by …

A Century Of Case Method: An Apologia, James M. Dente

Washington Law Review

This article will review the case method and the alternatives from the viewpoint of a seasoned-practitioner-turned-law-teacher. I will examine some of the criticisms of the method and offer some observations not heretofore made in the debate. It is hoped that this may help law students better understand the wisdom behind the use of the much maligned case method, which is still used in one form or another by the vast majority of American law professors.

Equal Protection, Affirmative Action And Racial Preferences In Law Admissions: De Funis V. Odegaard, Arval A. Morris

Washington Law Review

The purpose of this article is to explore the constitutional dimensions of the equal protection problem presented by a law school's voluntary adoption of racial classifications in a preferential admissions policy, and to do so, in part, by focusing on the recent case of De Funis v. Odegaard.

The Law Library In A New Law School, Marian G. Gallagher

Articles

Law school faculty members have a reputation for paying attention to their libraries. They achieved that collective reputation long ago through insistence on autonomous library administration by their own kind, and they have nurtured it by exhibiting greater dependence on libraries than the members of any other discipline. Expressions of their concern and involvement are recorded repeatedly in annual reports, budget justifications, fund-raising brochures, and the proceedings of ceremonial cornerstone layings. Some have gone far beyond expressions of concern, demonstrating compulsion to devote more time to the functioning of their law libraries than has seemed necessary or interesting to the …

Many Paths To Heaven—A Comparison Of Legal Education In Latin America And The United States, David S. Stern

Washington Law Review

It has been said that man's concepts of right and wrong and of justice are realized through his legal system; or to put it another way, that the law reflects the value judgments of the society in which it operates. More often than not, two societies will reflect two quite different images. The same can be said for legal education, another of the many mirrors in which societies can see themselves. To attempt to impose the forms and standards of one on another can obviously lead only to distortion. Unfortunately, this fact is apparently not so obvious to United States …

Legal Education In The United States, By Albert J. Harno (1953), Paul P. Ashley

Washington Law Review

This book is a history and evaluation of legal education in the United States, published for the survey of the legal profession. The writer invited a number of persons—lawyers and lay—to "advise him on the undertaking." But it is evident that the laborer was Albert J. Harno and this valuable contribution to the literature of our profession is his.

Armchair Tour Of The University Of Washington Law Library, Marian G. Gallagher

Articles

Bibliomania is a rare disease. Contrary to popular belief, the germ breeds, not on ancient vellum bookbindings, but on the inside pages of hard-to-locate, bound or unbound, published or unpublished, material. Consequently, the infection is not apt to spread to the practicing attorney who has too many clients and too many cases for a seven-day week. While it may be the secret hope of every librarian that years of exposure (to the bindings when help is scarce, to the inside pages when help is plentiful) will cause him to become infected, he does not lose sight of the fact that …

The Four-Year Course—A Brief Statement Concerning Its Content And The Reasons For The Change, Judson Falknor

Washington Law Review

Effective with the class entering the University of Washington Law School in the autumn quarter of 1938, the law course has been lengthened from three to four years. The plan was approved by the Board of Regents at their meeting on Saturday, January 15th, 1938. It is has been obvious for a long time that a lengthening of the standard law course was inevitable, and we have concluded that it is not wise to defer it longer. Our purpose is to bring the standards and requirements of the school into line with the necessities of present day conditions. For approximately …