Legal Education Commons^™

Public Schools To Public Services, Laura Wilcoxon

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Two's Company. Three's A Crowdsourcing Activity?, Rosa Castello

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The start of a new school year has always excited me. As a student, it meant new supplies, new clothes, new opportunities. As a professor, I still like the newness each semester beginning brings. This past academic year brought a lot of newness with online teaching. It forced me to confront my fears and hesitations about using technology to achieve pedagogical goals and to embrace some of the exciting ways technology can be used to successfully achieve these goals. One tool I adopted from the tech world this past year—that both supported my goal of incorporating social justice issues …

A Place Of One's Own: How Law Libraries Support Democracy By Protecting Citizens' Right To Read, Amy A. Emerson

Faculty Publications

By offering places for private reading and contemplation, law libraries foster wellinformed citizens capable of independent thought. This process, in turn, provides a foundation for understanding the law, questioning the law, and ultimately challenging the legal status quo, all necessary elements of a well-functioning democracy.

Expanding The Legal Services Ecosystem: An Educational Model To Improve Access To Immigration Justice Through Legal Paraprofessionals, Michele R. Pistone

Faculty Publications

Using disruptive innovation theory as a guidepost, this Article analyzes what is happening in the market for legal services and legal education. Disruption theory is also used to try to anticipate future developments in the market for legal education.

Guided by this theory, this Article discusses a new model of education about the law implemented in anticipation of inevitable changes in the market for legal education.The new online educational program is being modeled in the field of immigration law to train more students about immigration law with the goal of increasing the pool of people qualified to apply to become …

How To Include Issues Of Race And Racism In The 1-L Torts Course: A Call For Reform, Jennifer Wriggins

Faculty Publications

Race and racism have always played a significant role in the U.S. tort system as research has long shown and as hundreds of published decisions demonstrate. Do torts casebooks reflect the importance of race and racism in torts? The article first surveys 23 torts casebooks published from 2016 to 2021 to see whether and to what extent they discuss race and racism. Most avoid discussions of race and racism in torts; and although they always discuss tort history, they omit the racial history of torts. Although publishers frequently issue new editions of torts casebooks, newer editions generally have not expanded …

Aristocratic Excellence, Secular Ecumenism, And The Life Of The Modern Law School: Book Review, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

Anthony Kronman and John Sexton have both authored books about the state of higher education: Kronman's entitled, The Assault on American Excellence; Sexton's entitled, Standing for Reason. Both authors have extensive experience as instructors and administrators. Both have academic careers centered around law schools. Both use their books to explore the critical mission of universities in modern society, political and social challenges to that mission, and how to overcome those challenges. Both books are informed, provocative, and ultimately hopeful about the future of higher education. Both, while centered on universities more generally, provide avenues to think about the …

The New Skill On The Block: Using Social Media In The Law School Classroom To Facilitate Learning, Rosa Castello

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The emergence and rapid growth of technology has dramatically changed society, including the way we communicate and interact. People are gravitating toward shorter forms of written communication, like blogs and tweets. And it seems everyone interacts with others in some way on an online social media platform, exchanging ideas, connecting with friends and colleagues, and offering support.

As a Legal Writing professor, I wonder how this change in written communication will impact legal education and the profession and how I can better prepare my students for a professional environment that embraces these changes. Communication is an essential lawyering skill. …

The Cognitive Power Of Analogies In The Legal Writing Classroom, Patricia G. Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

New law students traditionally learn better when they can connect what they are learning to a familiar non-legal experience. Therefore, the use of an analogy, which can be defined as a comparison showing the similarities of two otherwise unlike things to help explain an idea or concept, is an obvious way to facilitate a student’s connection between the new and what is already known. An analogy is a logical step in introducing the complex processes of legal research and analysis by attempting to simplify the alien structure of summarizing that legal research and analysis into a coherent piece of …

From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal …

We Are In This Together: A Faculty-Led Approach To Fostering Innovation In Online Instruction, Courtney Selby, Rachel H. Smith

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

After reviewing this chapter, readers will understand how to:

• Implement a faculty-led approach to improving online instruction at their in­stitutions;
• Convene a faculty task force to spearhead that approach;
• Engage faculty members in productive discussions about the pedagogy of online law teaching;
• Prepare a set of institution-specific recommendations for improved online teaching; and
• Foster a faculty culture invested in innovating online instruction well beyond emergency use.

As so many platitudes tell us, challenges present opportunities. And the challenges of teaching law in a pandemic certainly created an avalanche, a flood, a—pick your natural disaster—of opportunity. Indeed, the sudden switch …

Our Collective Work, Our Collective Strength, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

This essay considers the collective strength of women of color in two contexts: when we are well represented on law school faculties and when we contribute to accomplishing stated institutional diversity goals. Critical mass is broadly defined as a sufficient number of people of color. Though the concept has been socially appropriated, its origins are scientific. While much of the academic literature encourages diversity initiatives designed to reach a critical mass, social change is not a science. Diversity in numbers may positively benefit individual experiences for women of color, however, diversity alone will not change social norms at the root …

A Model For Defunding: An Evidence-Based Statute For Behavioral Health Crisis Response, Taleed El-Sabawi, Jennifer J. Carroll

Faculty Publications

Too many Black persons and other persons of color are dying at the hands of law enforcement, leading many to call for the defunding of police. These deaths were directly caused by excessive use of force by police officers, but were also driven by upstream and institutional factors that include structural racism, institutional bias, and a historic culture of racialized violence. Public outcry against racial inequities has increased as the authority of police departments has expanded to include not only the authority to respond to and investigate criminal activity, but also to respond to calls regarding behavioral health issues and …

The Discounted Labor Of Bipoc Students And Faculty, Taleed El-Sabawi, Madison Fields

Faculty Publications

Black Law Students experienced a different COVID-19 pandemic than their majority counterparts due in part to the emotional and physical toll caused by the violent, public mistreatment of Black persons at the hands of law enforcement. While some law faculty at some institutions were proactive in identifying the struggles that their Black students were facing, most law faculty and administrators did nothing—prompting Black students to take time away from their studies to organize, draft letters, gather signatures, and have very uncomfortable conversations with university administrators and faculty about the need for change. Meanwhile, Black faculty and faculty of color, who …

Recommendations For Online Teaching, St. John's University School Of Law Online & Hybrid Teaching Task Force, Renee Nicole Allen, Jennifer Baum, Catherine Baylin Duryea, Robert Ruescher, Courtney Selby, Eric Shannon, Rachel Smith, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

This is a collection of recommendations drawn from a variety of sources, including our colleagues, students, webinars, books, articles, podcasts, and our own experimentation. It is not our expectation that any individual professor would adopt all of these suggestions and indeed no one of us intends to. Instead, we hope that some of these are helpful to you. Some suggestions deal with the nuts and bolts of teaching online while others with how to accomplish broader goals.

The general recommendations are broadly applicable to all courses taught online, while the individual class-type recommendations are intended to complement and augment the …

Passionate Advocate, Laura Mcnally-Levine

Faculty Publications

Tribute to Judy Lipton

Case Western University Law School Library: 125 Years, Joseph A. Custer

Faculty Publications

Professor Custer describes the first 125 years of the Case Western Law School Library’s history, including its collections, facilities, renovations, staff, budget, evolving research and automation technologies, contributions to legal instruction, and involvement with technological advances in the legal information community.

Tribute To Judy Lipton, Ayesha B. Hardaway

Faculty Publications

Tribute to Judy Lipton

Can Mindfulness Help Law Students With Stress, Focus, And Well-Being: An Empirical Study Of 1ls At A Midwestern Law School, Richard C. Reuben, Kennon M. Sheldon

Faculty Publications

Recent calls for law students, lawyers, judges, and others in the legal profession to try mindfulness training to reduce stress and enhance wellbeing beg the question of whether mindfulness will "work" for those in the uniquely rigorous environment of law. There is no empirical research on mindfulness effects for lawyers - unlike the medical field, where research has found beneficial effects of mindfulness training for doctors, nurses, and other health care providers. To fill this gap in the literature, we conducted an empirical study of forty-seven first year, first semester law students at the University of Missouri School of Law …

The Law School Dean Game: "What's It Like To Be A Law School Dean?", Thomas Geu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The "Pink Ghetto" Pipeline: Challenges And Opportunities For Women In Legal Education, Renee Nicole Allen, Alicia Jackson, Deshun Harris

Faculty Publications

The demographics of law schools are changing and women make up the majority of law students. Yet, the demographics of many law faculties do not reflect these changing demographics with more men occupying faculty seats. In legal education, women predominately occupy skills positions, including legal writing, clinic, academic success, bar preparation, or library. According to a 2010 Association of American Law Schools survey, the percentage of female lecturers and instructors is so high that those positions are stereotypically female.

The term coined for positions typically held by women is "pink ghetto." According to the Department of Labor, pink-collar-worker describes jobs …

One Legal Argument, Robin Boyle-Laisure

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

A governing rule may be composed of a single legal argument, or multiple legal arguments, particularly if the client’s question requires analysis of multiple elements or factors. Each legal argument that an attorney builds will have the same components. Those components are

• A statement identifying the legal issue to be addressed.

• The rule governing the legal issue and, where needed, an explanation of the relevant authorities or cases supporting that rule.

• An application of the law to the facts of your client’s case.

• A final conclusion or prediction about how a court might rule on …

Using Science To Build Better Learners: One School's Successful Efforts To Raise Its Bar Passage Rates In An Era Of Decline, Louis N. Schulze Jr.

Faculty Publications

What measures can law schools take to improve student performance and bar passage? The answer is not what you think.

Recent developments in the science of learning show that most law students learn wrong. In fact, ineffective methods of learning pervade all levels of education. We now know that widely accepted learning and study strategies that were once considered gospel are actually deeply flawed. Yet we still embrace and propagate those myths.

Meanwhile, bar passage rates and law student performance are plummeting. Everyone in legal education is asking “what can we do?” But, “what can we do?” is the wrong …

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles: The Legal Research Manual With Video Modules, 2nd Ed., Christine Iaconeta Dulac

Faculty Publications

The Legal Research Survival Manual with Video Modules, by Robert Berring and Michael Levy, is an eighty-seven-page book written in a conversational, informal tone, packed with all the information new legal researchers need to survive their early days in the law library. The book's intended audience are novice legal researchers, in particular first-year law students. The authors have filled the pages with sage advice but left out material novices are not likely to encounter during the first year of law school. The authors, with the help of two additional experts, have added twelve online videos readers can access for expanded …

Let's Teach Our Students Legal Technology... But What Should We Include?, Randy J. Diamond, Darin Fox, Kenneth J. Hirsh, Heidi Frostestad Kuehl, Michael Robak

Faculty Publications

A "renaissance” is often described as a cultural rebirth, a movement ushering in a modern age and leaving behind the old ways of doing things. There is every indication that we are entering a technology-driven renaissance in the legal profession. Artificial intelligence (AI), “big data,” document automation, e-discovery tools, cloud-based case management systems, and communication and collaboration tools are just a few of the ways that technology is transforming the practice of law in the twenty-first century.

Tweets To A Young 1l, Rachel I. Gurvich

Faculty Publications

A series of eleven tweets ruminating about the author's law school experience received a positive and enthusiastic response from many lawyers, law professors, and law students, and ultimately caught the eye of one of the Green Bag’s editors. This short piece unpacks and contextualizes those tweets. The original tweets appear below, numbered as they first appeared on Twitter.

Dirty Experts: Ethical Challenges Concerning, And A Comparative Perspective On, The Use Of Consulting Experts, David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

U.S. attorneys often hire consulting experts who potentially never get named as testifying experts. The same practice is evident in Australia, where the colloquial distinction is between a “clean” and a “dirty” expert, the latter being in the role of a consultant who is considered a member of the client’s “legal team.” A “clean” expert named as a witness is then called “independent,” signaling that he or she is not an advocate. In contrast to the U.S. discourse concerning consulting and testifying experts, focused on discovery issues, the conversation in Australia betrays immediate ethical concerns that both (i) explain why …

Paul Giannelli: Scholar, Colleague, And Friend, Dale A. Nance

Faculty Publications

Tribute to Paul Giannelli

Teaching And Scholarship Enrichment Through Involvement In Law Reform, R. Wilson Freyermuth

Faculty Publications

One of the most important ways for faculty to enrich their teaching and scholarship is through meaningful connections with the practicing bar. One effective way of developing these connections is through involvement in law reform efforts. This Essay focuses on developing these connections along two dimensions-through the work of the Uniform Law Commission and through involvement with trade organizations or nonprofit groups.

J.D.S And Jobs: The Case For An Aba Accreditation Standard On Employment Outcomes, Scott F. Norberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Allstar Benchmarking: How Collaborating On Collecting And Sharing Data Is A Win-Win, Christine I. Dulac

Faculty Publications

We all know it’s hard to tell a library’s story to its stakeholders. Academic law libraries are expensive enterprises, and it’s challenging to capture the complete picture of the value that their resources, activities, and services provide. Consider as well the ever-increasing demands to augment services, while at the same time having to justify the need for new services and prove their cost-effectiveness In this environment, decision-makers need a clear understanding of what the library wants to accomplish, how it intends to meet its goals, and how it will measure success. What are the most important operations and services? Why …