Legal Education Commons^™

Values As Part Of The Clinical Experience, Jaime Baker Roskie

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This essay is based on a short talk I gave at the “Practically Grounded” conference hosted by Pace Law School’s Land Use Law Center. This piece discusses the University of Georgia (UGA) Land Use Clinic, specifically why and how I interact with my students in the classroom about values as part of the clinic experience. It attempts to tie my own teaching methods to those suggested in Best Practices for Legal Education.

Dean's Column: Kay Kindred, A Nevada "First", Rachel J. Anderson

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This article documents selected aspects of the life of Professor Kay Kindred, the first female African-American law professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Experiential Learning In The First Year Curriculum: The Public Interest Partnership, Nantiya Ruan

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The newest learning initiatives in legal education focus much attention on the necessity for teachers to support students' development of professional identity, including "civic professionalism,"which" link[s] the interests of educators with the needs of practitioners and with the public the profession is pledged to serve." See William M. Sullivan et al., Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007). With that movement in mind, for the past five years in my legal research and writing (LRW) class, my students have partnered with non-profit organizations to provide them with legal research and advocacy documents to further the organization's public interest …

Social Reconstruction Of Race & Ethnicity Of The Nation's Law Students: A Request To The Aba, Aals, And Lsac For Changes In Reporting Requirements, Kevin Brown, Tom I. Romero Ii

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No abstract provided.

Legal Education Comes To Nevada: The Creation Of The William S. Boyd School Of Law, Mary Berkheiser

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No abstract provided.

State Of The Law School: Achieving Academic Success In Nevada, John Valery White

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In the coming years, the William S. Boyd School of Law will continue to pursue its standing goal of becoming a great law school for Nevada. That project is considerably more complex today, due to significant changes taking place in the legal profession. Though our first decade's successes have created a solid foundation from which the law school can take on these challenges, the changes to the profession are rapid and many are likely long-lasting. The school's graduates face a world with a considerably tighter job market. Law schools are being asked to provide greater skills training even as the …

Providing Effective Feedback, Jennifer Carr

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This article discusses the process of giving effective feedback in an academic context. Effective feedback gives students a clear explanation of what they should do, concrete steps for doing it, and the ability to ascertain whether those steps have adequately addressed the problem. The author discusses five steps that go into providing effective feedback to students.

Getting Real About Legal Realism, New Legal Realism And Clinical Legal Education, Katherine R. Kruse

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Jerome Frank’s call for a “clinical lawyer-school” is cited so frequently in clinical scholarship that it borders on the canonical. Like many calls for reform in legal education, Frank’s plea for clinical lawyer-schools was based on a critique of the appellate case method of legal instruction. However, unlike most critiques, the legal realist critique was embedded within a jurisprudential challenge to the meaning of law itself, arising from American Legal Realism. Running through legal realist jurisprudence was a distinction between the “law in books” and the “law in action,” with the idea that law is not found primarily in statutes …

Ethical Issues In Business And The Lawyer's Role, Carol Morgan, Robert Rhee, Tamar Frankel, Mark Fagan

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This is a transcript of a panel discussion on teaching Business Ethics.

Alternative Learning Formats In A Land Use Seminar, Michael Lewyn

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No abstract provided.

Do Law Schools Mistreat Women Faculty? Or, Who’S Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Dan Subotnik

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No abstract provided.

They Do Teach That In Law School: Incorporating Best Practices Into Land Use Law, Patricia E. Salkin

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This article, prepared as a follow-up to Salkin & Nolon, Practically Grounded: Convergence of Land Use Pedagogy and Best Practice, 60 J.Legal Education 519 (2011), describes how practice-based assignments can supplement the traditional casebook method of instruction to meet goals and measure outcome assessments for students in the course. The article is based on my own course goals and explains how each assignment relates to individual outcome assessments.

Practically Grounded: Convergence Of Land Use Law Pedagogy And Best Practices, Patricia E. Salkin, John R. Nolan

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The changing dynamics in the field of land use and sustainable community development law demand that land use law professors rethink the way in which we prepare law students to practice law in this area. This needed paradigm shift converges with the growing momentum of the best practices movement which urges law schools to dramatically revise the curricular approach to legal education, arguing that traditional models are no longer effectively serving the goal of producing competent and fully prepared new lawyers. A perfect storm is present and a unique opportunity exists through the application of many “best practices” concepts for …

A Transformational Melancholy: One Law Professor's Journey Through Depression, Marjorie A. Silver

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In the fall 2007 issue of the Journal of Legal Education, Professor James Jones shared his deeply personal, remarkable, ongoing, story of living, struggling and succeeding as a law professor with bipolar disorder (James T.R. Jones, Walking the Tightrope of Bipolar Disorder: The Secret Life of a Law Professor, 57 J. LEGAL ED. 349 (2007). His essay ended with an invitation to other members of the legal academy to contact him or Professor Elyn Saks, author of an extraordinary memoir about her life with schizophrenia, (ELYN R. SAKS, THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD (2007)) if interested in forming a confidential support …

The Family Justice Clinic: Increasing Access To Justice For Nevada Families In Need, Ann Cammett, Elizabeth L. Macdowell

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No abstract provided.

The Lady, Or The Tiger? A Field Guide To Metaphor & Narrative, Linda L. Berger

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Metaphor and narrative reassure us that things hang together, providing a sense of coherence to the patterns and paths we employ for perception and expression. In this field guide, I hope to illustrate - with images and stories when possible - how better understanding of metaphor and narrative can guide those engaged in legal rhetoric and persuasion.

The article briefly summarizes cognitive theory relating to metaphor and narrative, provides snapshots of their use in the field, in real-life legal persuasion, and suggests ways to adapt metaphor and narrative to a specific example of legal persuasion. In the field guide section, …

Law School Gifts Keep Giving - Clinical Programs Train Students While Serving The Legal Needs Of Ordinary Nevadans, Mary Berkheiser

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No abstract provided.

Boyd Law's Thomas & Mack Clinic Scores Important Ninth Circuit Victory, Anne R. Traum

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No abstract provided.

Towards A New World Of Externships: Introduction To Papers From Externships 4 And 5, Alex Scherr, Harriet N. Katz

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The scholarly literature on externships is growing and deepening, addressing concerns of importance to field placement programs and to clinicians in general. This Introduction places the issues raised by the subsequent four articles on externships into the context of current national debates about the externship method. These issues, which both extend and diverge from current thinking about externship pedagogy, include: 1) the impact of a harsh economic climate; 2) the educational potential of placements in corporate counsel offices; 3) the argument for compensating students in for-credit placements; and 4) the value of course design for teaching power dynamics in supervisory …

For Jack, Man Of The Book, Laura Dooley

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No abstract provided.

What Balance In Legal Education Means To Me: A Dissenting View, Lawrence Raful

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No abstract provided.

The Accidental Clinician And The Experienced Director: A Conversation On The Value Of Externships, Marjorie A. Silver, Mary Jo Eyster

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In the summer of 2010, Mary Jo Eyster and Marjorie Silver conversed, via email, about the ways in which externship programs add unique value to the student’s education, separate and apart from their cost-effectiveness as compared to the in-house clinic. The result is this paper, a dialogue between a stand-up teacher who chose to teach the externship seminar and a seasoned clinician.

Mary Jo and Marjorie agree that the well-designed, well-executed program should drive the design, teaching and administration of externships and their accompanying seminars. They share the goals that each of them privilege in the programs they have designed, …

Report And Recommendations On The Status Of Clinical Faculty In The Legal Academy, Katherine R. Kruse

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"Report and Recommendations on the Status of Clinical Faculty in the Legal Academy" identifies and evaluates the most appropriate modes for clinical faculty appointments in the legal academy, concluding that legal education is best served when full-time clinical faculty are appointed predominantly on a unitary tenure-track model. Drawing on data collected through a survey of clinical program directors and faculty, the Report analyzes the five most identifiable clinical faculty models: unitary tenure track; clinical tenure track; long-term contract; short-term contract; and clinical fellowships. It determines that, despite great strides in the growth of clinical legal education in the last 30 …

Law Students Compete In Society Of Advocates, Sara Gordon

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This article discusses the Society of Advocates (SOA) at the Boyd School of Law. The SOA is an organization whose members represent the school in interscholastic advocacy competitions throughout the United States.

Studying And Teaching “Law As Rhetoric”: A Place To Stand, Linda L. Berger

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This article proposes that law students may find a better fit within the legal culture of argument if they are introduced to rhetorical alternatives to counter narrowly formalist and realist perspectives on how the law works and how judges decide cases. To support this proposal, the article describes and evaluates an upper-level elective course in Law & Rhetoric, which I have offered at two law schools since 2003.

The article makes a two-part argument: first, introducing law students to rhetorical alternatives allows them to envision their role as lawyers as constructive, effective, and imaginative while grounded in law, language, and …

The Potential Contribution Of Adr To An Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students For Real World Lawyering, Jean R. Sternlight

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This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes and proposes a modest menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can largely achieve without investing substantial additional resources. This Article emphasizes the special contributions that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can provide to legal education more generally. ADR instruction is an important corrective to a curriculum that routinely conveys the erroneous implication …

The Legal Writing Institute: Celebrating 25 Years Of Teaching & Scholarship, Mary Beth Beazley

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Professor Beazley joins a panel of the elite of legal writing professors at Mercer University, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Legal Writing Institute in this transcript of the proceedings.

Where Have All The (Legal) Stories Gone?, Nancy B. Rapoport

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This essay examines whether law schools are doing a good job of teaching the art of storytelling to law students.

There's A Pennoyer In My Foyer: Civil Procedure According To Dr. Seuss, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

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This is what it purports to be: a Seussian take on civil procedure. It’s a short, fun essay that covers (1) the iron triangle of civil procedure - the role of lawyers, judges, and juries, and (2) prominent civil procedure doctrines, such as personal jurisdiction, Erie, pleading, discovery, and joinder.

From Imperial Scholar To Imperial Student: Minimizing Bias In Article Evaluation By Law Reviews, Rachel J. Anderson

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This Article is intended to serve as a roadmap for law professors and law review editors alike in their efforts to find a better way for students to evaluate articles. Further, this Article aims to offer low-cost ways to improve the institution of student-run law reviews by strengthening editors' evaluation skills and processes. This Article is divided into three main parts. Part II of this Article, Manifestations of Systemic Bias, develops a theory of the safe-dissent continuum and employs this theory to determine whether there is empirical support for claims of bias in article evaluation and the legal discourse. Part …