Legal Education Commons^™

Critical Race Theory And Autobiography: Can A Popular Genre Make A Serious Academic Contribution?, Sylvia R. Lazos

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This Essay reviews “Notes of a Racial Caste Baby, Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action” by Bryan K. Fair, “How Did You Get to Be a Mexican? a White/Brown Man's Search for Identity” by Kevin R. Johnson, and “To be an American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation” by Bill Ong Hing. This Essay examines the potential contributions each book makes to legal scholarship and the popular press. The Essay first describes how each author uses the autobiographical narrative and what these narratives accomplish. The Essay examines each book's legal agenda and assesses how well each author achieves …

Forum Non Conveniens In Federal Statutory Cases, Keith A. Rowley, Lonny Sheinkopf Hoffman

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This article, previously published in Volume 49 of the Emory Law Journal, examines the federal doctrine of forum non conveniens in cases in which the plaintiff asserts a right to relief under federal law. The arguments we advance - particularly our claim that the federal doctrine of forum non conveniens can be better understood not as turning on matters of convenience, as the formal doctrine suggests, but on an assessment of the relative sovereign interests in adjudicating the dispute - remain relevant to an understanding of the federal doctrine. The paper, thus, may be of interest to practitioners, academics and …

A Reflective Rhetorical Model: The Legal Writing Teacher As Reader And Writer, Linda L. Berger

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Like most writing teachers, the legal writing teacher believes that his reading and response to student work is the most important thing he does, an importance that is underscored by the amount of time it takes. Yet, despite its importance and the hours it consumes, the rhetoric of teacher reading and writing remains relatively unexplored. This article proposes that we begin to apply what we have learned about student reading and writing to our own reading and writing. Our process of reading and responding to student work should be as reflective and rhetorical as the reading and writing process that …

Teaching Interdisciplinarily: Law And Literature As Cultural Critique, Deborah Waire Post

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No abstract provided.

Exploring The Law Of Law Teaching: A Feminist Process, Kathryn M. Stanchi

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No abstract provided.

Going From "Us" To "Them" In Sixty Seconds, Nancy B. Rapoport

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Observations by a professor who has decided to become an Associate Dean.

Pro Bono Service At The William S. Boyd School Of Law, Mary E. Berkheiser, Christine Smith

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The mission of the William S. Boyd School of Law is to serve Nevada, and the legal and academic communities by developing and maintaining an innovative educational program that will train ethical and effective lawyers and leaders for Nevada and for the legal profession. To put the school’s mission in motion, we have begun by stressing community service, professionalism and the roles, responsibilities, skills and values of lawyers, and by involving students and faculty in community service projects in ways that will benefit our state.

Teaching Jewish Law In American Law Schools: An Emerging Development In Law And Religion, Samuel J. Levine

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In recent years, religion has gained an increasing prominence in both the legal profession and the academy. Through the emergence of the "religious lawyering movement," lawyers and legal scholars have demonstrated the potential relevance of religion to many aspects of lawyering. Likewise, legal scholars have incorporated religious thought into their work through books, law journals and classroom teaching relating to various areas of law and religion. In this Essay, Levine discusses one particular aspect of these efforts, namely, the place of Jewish law in the American law school curriculum. Specifically, he outlines briefly three possible models for a course in …

Applying New Rhetoric To Legal Discourse: The Ebb And Flow Of Reader And Writer, Text And Context, Linda L. Berger

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Applying New Rhetoric to law school pedagogy, this article suggests an ebb and flow of reader and writer, text and context drawn from New Rhetoric theory, research, and teaching practices. Almost all legal writing scholarship now focuses on some aspect of New Rhetoric. Yet it is likely that the product approach still prevails in the places where the papers are graded, in part because it is the more familiar and straightforward way that papers have always been graded. What follows is an initial attempt to more fully apply New Rhetoric theory and research to the teaching of legal reading and …

Witnessing The Process: Reflections On Civil Procedure, Power, Pedagogy, And Praxis, Deseriee A. Kennedy

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No abstract provided.

Ratings, Not Rankings: Why U.S. News & World Report Shouldn't Want To Be Compared To Time And Newsweek - Or The New Yorker, Nancy B. Rapoport

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This article discusses the many problems with the U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools. It argues, among other things, that the rankings magnify insignificant differences among law schools and that the rankings do not provide helpful consumer information.

Continuing Classroom Conversation Beyond The Four Whys, Jeffrey W. Stempel, Bailey Kuklin

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LAW school classes regularly prove Santayana's aphorism. Although nearly every law teacher desires to keep discussion focused and forward-moving, there are more than a few moments of thundering silence experienced in the classroom. Most of us adjust to this inevitability by positing some pedagogical virtue to still air and contenting ourselves with the knowledge that conversation-stopping “whys?” are usually delivered by us as teachers rather than the students. Perhaps we are underappreciative of the value discomfitting silence has, but we generally prefer that the conversation continue, that we miss the opportunity to feel simultaneously smug and uncomfortable, and that students …

A More Complete Look At Complexity, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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The ability of courts to successfully resolve complex cases has been a matter of contentious debate, not only for the last quarter-century, but for most of the twentieth century. This debate has been part of the legal landscape at least since Judge Jerome Frank's polemic book from which this Symposium derives its title, and probably since Roscoe Pound's famous address to the American Bar Association. During the 1980s and 1990s in particular, the battlelines of the pro-and anti-court debate have been brightly drawn. Some commentators, most reliably successful plaintiffs' counsel and politically liberal academics, defend the judicial track record in …

The Process And The Product: A Bibliography Of Scholarship About Legal Scholarship, Linda H. Edwards, Mary Beth Beazley

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This bibliography of scholarship about legal scholarship was originally prepared for the 1997 Conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. The Conference explored the rapidly developing area of scholarship by legal writing professors and the ways in which this important scholarship can be encouraged. Characteristically, when writing teachers turn their attention to a particular kind of writing project, they begin by examining both the genre and the creative activity the genre employs—that is, the process and the product. This bibliography is one result of that study. The authors hope that it will prove helpful to anyone interested in legal …

Goodbye To The Sat, Lsat? Hello To Equity By Lottery? Evaluating Lani Guinier’S Plan For Ending Race Consciousness, Dan Subotnik

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No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom In Religiously Affiliated Law Schools: A Jewish Perspective. (Symposium On Religiously Affiliated Law Schools), Howard A. Glickstein

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No abstract provided.

Teaching In The Shadow Of The Bar, Joan W. Howarth

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This Essay is a memorial tribute to Professor Trina Grillo. Trina took seriously what many of us know but find too hard to remember: the student who is academically disqualified or who fails the bar examination might be the most brilliant in the class or the most needed within the profession. When we conceive of the bar exam as a particularly grueling and potentially unfair rite of passage between law school and the practice of law, we collude in hiding the pervasive and often negative power of the bar exam. The bar examination permeates and controls fundamental aspects of legal …

A Writer’S Board And A Student-Run Writing Clinic: Making The Writing Community Visible At Law Schools, Terrill Pollman

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In this article the author explains institutional programs she has developed in response to a common problem, students’ frustrations with the limits of a law school’s legal writing program. The author proposes establishing a Writers’ Board, where members of the law school community who care most about legal research and writing training can work together to create opportunities for students to learn more. The Writers’ Board’s primary project is a Writing Clinic that offers diverse ways to improve legal research and writing on campus. Despite problems that are likely to arise when creating a Writers’ Board and Clinic, the author …

Power And The Morality Of Grading - A Case Study And A Few Critical Thoughts On Grade Normalization, Deborah Waire Post

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No abstract provided.

From Product To Process: Evolution Of A Legal Writing Program, Jo Anne Durako, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Diane Penneys Edelman, Brett M. Amdur, Lorray S.C. Brown, Rebecca L. Connelly

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No abstract provided.

The Self-Graded Draft: Teaching Students To Revise Using Self-Critique, Mary Beth Beazley

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In this article, Professor Beazley first explains why the predictability of legal documents, legal writers, and legal readers makes an objective method of self-critique particularly useful in legal writing. She then discusses how she designs self-grading guidelines and explains various methods for incorporating the self-grading process into a legal writing course. Finally, she addresses some of the challenges she faced when assigning the self-graded draft to students, and discusses ways to deal with these challenges. In appendixes, Professor Beazley included two samples of self-graded draft guidelines for use in a three-draft Memorandum Assignment, as well as a short illustration of …

Introduction To Law For Second-Year Students?, Alan Watson

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The casebook method of teaching is, in fact, an exercise in futility. It is the students themselves who are expected to build up a picture of law from the few generally disconnected scraps available to them and with virtually no tools. Students are left to guess what the editors' view of the law is rather than getting to what the law is all about. Instead of looking at the reasoning of a case in the light of the developed conceptual thought that preceded it, and of its place in a structured web of reasoned principle, they are provided in the …

The Convergence Of Analogical And Dialectic Imaginations In Legal Discourse, Linda H. Edwards

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The dialogue over the role of narrative in the making and interpreting of law and in legal practice is often stalemated by confusion about the complex relationships between narrative and other forms of legal reasoning. Are narrative and rules opposing methods for interpretation and persuasion? Does narrative theory assert that lawyers can win cases by presenting a sympathetic story, without regard for the governing rule of law? If so, it is no wonder that conversations about narrative theory are so difficult.

This article explores the relationship between narrative and other forms of legal interpretation and persuasion. It relies on David …

Symbiotic Legal Theory And Legal Practice: Advocating A Common Sense Jurisprudence Of Law And Practical Applications, Jean R. Sternlight

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Lawyers and legal academics are waging a fierce war over the soul of legal education in the United States. The various battles in this war include disputes over the proper emphasis on teaching versus scholarship; the need for clinical, practical, or transaction-oriented education versus the need for theoretical education; and the need for traditional doctrinal work versus the need for interdisciplinary or more liberal arts-oriented education within law schools. The war also plays itself out in discussions over law school hiring and tenure decisions.

In this Article I urge that practice and even the most abstract theory are complementary, not …

Law And Literature Defining Itself, Paul J. Heald

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Earlier this spring, the University of Chicago Law School convinced Martha Nussbaum, University Professor of Philosophy, Comparative Literature, and Classics at Brown University, to join its faculty to teach law and literature. At Michigan and Duke, James B. White and Stanley Fish have long held joint appointments in their respective law schools and English departments. What use can law schools possibly have for literary critics? Although over 60 law schools, including Georgia, currently offer a class in law and literature, the focus of this interdisciplinary enterprise remains somewhat fuzzy.

Critical Thoughts About Race, Exclusion, Oppression And Tenure, Deborah W. Post

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No abstract provided.

Cultural Literacy And The Adversary System: The Enduring Problems Of Distrust, Misunderstanding And Narrow Perspective, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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The meandering road to discovery reform illustrates, among other things, the ineffectiveness of an atomized profession that lacks either sufficient understanding of the adversary system or the resources and forcefulness to address the practical impact of adversarialism. In some ways, lawyers reforming litigation can be characterized as poorer investigators than the sixsome who examined the elephant. The elephant sleuths were guilty of isolation and ignorance. Lawyers and policy makers not only exhibit a lack of information and empathy, but also often show an unwarranted distrust of or contempt for the elements of the profession with which they disagree. Unfortunately, however, …

On Bringing The Justice Mission Conference Back Home, Marjorie A. Silver

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No abstract provided.

Comparative Law: Its Purposes And Possibilities, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Comparative law is much more than “matching laws.” Professor Grossfield’s short, lively book will certainly awaken its German reader to the value, indeed necessity, of comparative law and comparative insights in his or her own practice or scholarly work. This, he aims at the skeptic who may think of comparative law or foreign legal systems as arcane and useless fluff, too luxurious for the hard working “practical-minded” practitioner. Professor Grossfield throws the cold water of realization into this skeptic’s face. The message being that considering comparative approaches and theory about similar problems may indeed be as practical as one can …

Time For Every Purpose Under The Heaven: Service – The National Bar Association Model, Beverly Mcqueary Smith

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No abstract provided.