Legal Education Commons^™

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.

Preparation Of The Multistate Bar Examination: One Drafting Committee's Perspective, John W. Reed

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One who wants to know how the Multistate Bar Examination is created should begin by learning how the drafting committees work. My assignment is to describe the work of one of those committees: the Evidence Committee. Though there are differences among the six committees, they mostly are ones of style, and to learn how to operate in the evidence group is to understand the process generally.

Thoughts On Teaching, Christina B. Whitman

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I teach in classrooms where, ten years ago, I sat as a student. People who were my teachers are now my colleagues. People who were my students are still my friends. The difference between teacher and student, it seems to me, is more appropriately described as progression through a life than as distinct positions in a hierarchy.

The Mythical Meritocracy Of Law School Admissions, James C. Hathaway

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Because more people apply to law schools than can be accepted, the admissions procedure at most faculties has been designed to select the best qualified persons from the applicant pool. Selection criteria are adopted to enable law school administrators to determine fairly and objectively which applicants are most likely to succeed in legal studies. Even with the advent of admissions policies designed to increase opportunities for members of various minority groups to study law, specific admissions decisions within each preferred category are generally made with a view to choosing the candidates judged most able to do well at law school. …

The Moral Responsibility Of Law Schools, Terrance Sandalow

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The subject I have been asked to address, the moral responsibility of-law schools, is perplexing, less because answers to the implicit question are uncertain than because the meaning of the question is unclear. Our ideas about moral responsibility have been formed in reference to individuals. They presuppose the existence of distinctively human characteristics such as understanding and will. What, then, can be meant by the moral responsibility of "law schools," institutions that, just because they are not human, necessarily lack these capacities?

The Invisible Discourse Of The Law: Reflections On Legal Literacy And General Education, James Boyd White

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My subject today is "legal literacy," but to put it that way requires immediate clarification, for that phrase has a wide range of possible meanings with many of which we shall have nothing to do. At one end of its spectrum of significance, for example, "legal literacy" means full competence in legal discourse, both as reader and as writer. This kind of literacy is the object of a professional education, and it requires not only a period of formal schooling but years of practice as well. Indeed, as is also the case with other real languages, the ideal of perfect …

Litigation Abuse And The Law Schools, John W. Reed

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At the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in July, 1983, one session was devoted to a discussion of "Excessive Discovery: A Symptom of Litigation Abuse." (Without knowing, I would guess that a similar title appeared on just about every judicial conference program this year-and last year, and the one before that.) Frank Rothman, President of MGM/United Artists, addressed the subject from the point of view of a corporate client, and his remarks are printed in this issue, beginning at page 342. Judges and trial lawyers expressed their views. And I was asked to comment on the extent to which the law …

Salt Survey: Minority Group Persons In Law School Teaching, David L. Chambers

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In the summer and fall of 1981 we sent questionnaires to faculty members1 at all 172 law schools accredited by the AALS, asking questions about current numbers of minority group members and women on their faculties and about numbers of offers made and offers accepted, tenure decisions and denials, and resignations. Our principal goal was to measure the progress that has been achieved in adding minorities and women to law faculties. In this issue, we report on our findings about minority groups.

Towards A Comprehensive Approach To Clinical Education: A Response To The New Reality, Terence J. Anderson

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No abstract provided.

A Colleague's Tribute, James J. White

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This piece was published as a dedication to Dean Richard E. Speidel. In describing Dick Speidel's character and scholarship one is tempted to use the adjectives that are now a fixed part of the Decanal resignation ritual. Whatever their vices in office, retiring Deans are invariably "bright, insightful, generous, scholarly, worldly;" occasionally they are persons of "unbounded administrative skill," and even of "unlimited scholastic vision."

Administrators And Teachers—An Uneasy But Vital Relationship, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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If William Faulkner could people a whole universe with the denizens of one atypical county in deepest Mississippi, I should be able to draw some general observations about the administration of teaching in American universities from my seven years' experience as dean of the Michigan Law School. But I lay no claim to Mr. Faulkner's powers of universalization, and so I shall begin with a few caveats about the peculiarities of legal education, about the ways we differ from undergraduate and graduate schools and even from other professional schools. My opinions can then be discounted accordingly.

Bad News And Good News, John W. Reed

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I have been asked to visit with you about some of my current interests in the evidence field, in which I teach. When you invite an academic lawyer to speak at your meeting, you obviously expect of him something other than the latest hot tips on trial strategy and tactics, something other than a speech entitled "Reflections on My Last Eleven Victories in Court." Others can do that for you, probably at lunch - or, even better, at cocktails with the successes more impressive and the defeats more forgivable under the influence of an ounce or two of alcohol.

In The Halls Of Ivy: Legal Robots, Lester Brickman

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The article argues that law schools must move beyond traditional theoretical education to incorporate clinical training, emphasizing the development of practical skills like client counseling and emotional competence. It highlights the gap between intellectual learning and real-world client interactions, advocating for a more holistic approach to legal education.

Professional Responsibility: Education And Enforcement, Robert H. Aronson

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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 …

Law School Grading: An Experiment With Pass-Fail, Richard O. Lempert

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The story is told about a graduate of an Ivy League institution who, when asked by a law school admissions officer whether he was in the top half of his class responded quickly, "No sir, I'm one of those who make the top half possible." For better or worse, most students, once in law school, do not take low grade averages with such equanimity. Among the objects of their displeasure are they themselves, their instructors, course content, and the grading system which makes a top and bottom half possible. It is conceivable that high average students direct displeasure at the …

The Basic Course—A Mild Dissent, Whitmore Gray

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Perhaps it is unusual to start a discussion of a topic with a dissent from the assumption underlying its choice, but I think that in the present case this may be justified. The present topic was no doubt selected because for many years teachers have viewed the course in "comparative law" as a basic course, leading subsequently to specialized courses or research in various subject matters or geographical areas. In fact, the other two speakers on this afternoon's program, Professors Rudolf Schlesinger of Cornell and Arthur von Mehren of Harvard, are both on record in the form of their casebooks …

Legal Education In The Soviet Union And Eastern Europe, Whitmore Gray

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The following notes are based on interviews with law professors, law students and lawyers during a brief trip in 1970 to Moscow, Budapest and Prague. On previous visits in 1959 and 1965 the writer had visited law schools in Kiev, Baku, Tbilisi, Alma Ata, Leningrad, Prague and Warsaw, and had sat in on lectures, recitation sections, and examinations.1 In looking this time for changes, the writer was particularly interested in whether there was some reflection there of the general student malaise which the United States has been experiencing, manifested in American law schools in student pressure for "relevant" courses and …

The Reform Of Legal Education In Brazil, Keith S. Rosenn

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No abstract provided.

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

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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 …

Ann Arbor And Legal Aid, James J. White

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Since the leasing of its office in August 1965, the Washtenaw County Legal Aid Society has been open nearly 50 hours per week and has been staffed exclusively by second and third-year law students from the University of Michigan Law School. The bulk of the practice has been in family law--divorce, support, custody--but there have been a substantial number of creditor-debtor cases, a handful of misdemeanor defense cases, and a large batch of miscellaneous cases.

The Lawyer As A Negotiator: An Adventure In Understanding And Teaching The Art Of Negotiation, James J. White

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In the fall of 1965 we enlisted experience as a teacher in an experimental seminar called "The Lawyer as a Negotiator." We gave the students experience not by simulation but by making them negotiate with one another for their grades in the course. In this as in many other "experience" courses the teaching supplement consisted of readings and of classroom participation by the students and teachers. However the supplement differed from the standard trials and appeals or legal writing course in that a psychiatrist was a full partner in the teaching and in the discussion and analysis of the student …

Centennial Observance, Marcus L. Plant

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Preparations for the appropriate observance of the University of Michigan Law School Centennial were started more than two years in advance of the 100th anniversary date. The arrangements were planned and are being carried out by two committees. One is an alumni centennial committee of forty-five members selected so as to be representative of law school alumni in all areas of the country. The other is a committee of members of the law faculty.

The Law School Of The University Of Michigan: 1859 - 1959, Elizabeth Gaspar Brown

Articles

On October 3, 1959, the law school of the University of Michigan will have completed a hundred years of functioning existence. A century earlier, on October 3, 1859, James Valentine Campbell delivered an address On the Study of the Law at the Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, officially opening the law department.

Legal Education: Past, Present, Future, E. Blythe Stason

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For this Law School Centennial issue of the Journal, I am undertaking to offer, first, a retrospective view of legal education of the past generation, and, second, a speculative preview of the years that lie ahead. This is a task of no slight challenge, for legal education is a truly complex activity in a rapidly changing world. To present an evaluation of the past as well as a prediction for the future within the compass of a short article necessarily involves both brevity and careful selection of the features of the subject to be examined. Moreover, since I am principally …

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

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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 …

What The American Law Institute Means To The Law School, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"While in no sense a law school affair, the American Law Institute is so intimately connected with the progress of the law and legal education that it justifies mention here. The Institute was organized at a meeting of judges, lawyers and law teachers, held in Washington in February, 1923.... The Law School of the University of Michigan is and will continue to be intimately connected with this movement for the improvement of the law...."

Revival Of Moot Courts At Michigan, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"Clubs formed for the purposes of argument of moot cases exist in varying numbers at several of the best law schools in the country. From the students of the Law School at Michigan has come a movement for the establishment of such clubs here...."

The Michigan Law Review: A Survey, John B. Waite

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"The Michigan Law Review was instituted as a means of special education for those seniors in the Law Department who proved themselves particularly capable of profitting[sic] therefrom. It stands also as an extremely valuable service of the Law School to its alumni and to practicing lawyers in general."

The Future Of Michigan's Law School, Henry M. Bates

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An article penned by Dean Bates in anticipation of the opening of the Law School's Lawyers' Club buildings in the following year. Bates does not mention by name the "distinguished alumnus of the University" whose "vision has developed the best-conceived and most effective plan in the history of the legal profession and the interests which it serves." A general narrative "travelogue" of the Law School in 1924.

Change In Entrance Requirements To State University Law School, Henry M. Bates

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“A very important step forward in legal education was taken on January 25th, 1924, when the Regents of the University of Michigan adopted the unanimous recommendation of the law faculty for the raising of entrance requirements to the Law School, as follows ….”