Legal Education Commons^™

Ethical Implications Of Law Practice Technology, Eliza Boles

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The following CLE materials were prepared by Eliza Boles for presentation on December 6, 2022. Materials were approved by the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education for two hours of mandated ethics credit.

Leadership For The Transactional Business Law Student, Joan Macleod Heminway

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We do not always acknowledge this in legal education, but our students are learning to be leaders, because lawyers are leaders. That is as true of transactional business lawyers as it is of litigators, lawyers who hold political or regulatory appointments, lawyers engaged with compliance, and lawyers in general advisory practices. Yet, most law schools do little, if anything, to teach law students about leadership, or allow them to explore the contours and practices of lawyer leadership.

This edited transcript explains the importance of teaching leadership skills, traits, and processes to transactional business law students and offers insights on how …

Deflect, Delay, Deny: A Case Study Of Segregation By Law School Faculty, Briana Rosenbaum

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Many histories of school desegregation litigation center on the natural protagonists, such as the lawyers and plaintiffs who fought the status quo. Little attention is paid to the role that individual faculty members played in the perpetuation of segregated legal education. When the antagonists in the historiographies do appear, it is usually as anonymous individuals and groups. Thus, “the Board of Regents” refused to change its policy and “the University” denied a person’s application.

But recently discovered and rarely accessed historic documents provide proof of the direct role that some law school faculty members played in the perpetuation of segregation. …

Applying Motivation Theory To Improve 1ls' Motivation, Self-Efficacy, And Skill Mastery, Nathan A. Preuss

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This article discusses how understanding two motivation and learning theories- expectancy-value and attribution-can help instructors to improve first-year law students' motivation, self-efficacy, and mastery of the knowledge and skills needed for success in law school as well as in their future careers

Cocurricular Learning In Management Education: Lessons From Legal Education’S Use Of Student-Edited Journals, Matthew I. Hall, Matt Theeke

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In this essay, we draw on insights from U.S. legal education’s century-long experiment using student-edited journals as a cocurricular learning tool, to develop the argument that management education should consider introducing a new category of student-edited, practitioner-oriented journals. Student-edited journals are potentially well-suited for management education because they encourage students to learn professionally relevant skills and to develop a greater understanding of research and its role in professional education. Enlisting students to help edit practitioner journals could also benefit business professionals by increasing the availability of practitioner-oriented research. In doing so, management education can use this cocurricular learning activity to …

Reflections On A Crit Clinic, Elizabeth L. Macdowell, Nina L. Terzian

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No abstract provided.

Introducing Students To Ethics And Professionalism Challenges In Virtual Communication, Carol Morgan, Katherine M. Koops, James E. Moliterno, Carol Newman

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As the practice of law, and the conduct of business generally, focuses increasingly on virtual communication, the ethics and professionalism challenges inherent in email, videoconference, text, and telephone communication continue to evolve. These challenges are particularly prevalent in transactional practice, which involves frequent communication with a variety of parties through a variety of communication channels. Exposing law students to these challenges through exercises and simulations contributes to the continued development of their professional identity as lawyers.

This article presents a variety of exercises that introduce students to client confidentiality, inadvertent disclosure, and other ethical issues that often arise in the …

Tributes To Family Law Scholars Who Helped Us Find Our Path, Thomas Oldham, Paul M. Kurtz

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At some point after the virus struck, I had the idea that it would be appropriate and interesting to ask a number of experienced family law teachers to write a tribute about a more senior family law scholar whose work inspired them when they were beginning their careers. I mentioned this idea to some other long-term members of the professoriate, and they agreed that this could be a good project. So I reached out to some colleagues and asked them to participate. Many agreed to join the team. Some suggested other potential contributors, and some of these suggested faculty members …

Moving Toward A Competency Based Model For Fostering Law Students’ Relational Skills, Susan L. Brooks, Marjorie A. Silver, Sarah Fishel, Kellie Wiltsie

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Legal education has long been criticized for failing to provide adequate professional training to prepare graduates for legal practice realities. Many sources have lamented the lack of sufficient attention to the range of competencies necessary for law graduates to be effective practitioners and develop a positive professional identity, including those that are intra-personal, such as self-awareness, critical self-reflection, and self-directedness; those that are interpersonal, such as deep and reflective listening, empathy, compassion, cross-cultural communication, and dialogue; and those that engage with the social/systemic dimension of lawyering, such as appreciating the role of multiple identities, implicit bias, privilege and power, and …

The Lawyers Justice Corps: A Licensing Pathway To Enhance Access To Justice, Eileen Kaufman

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The idea for establishing a Lawyers Justice Corps emerged out of efforts to solve a problem: how to license lawyers at a time when COVID-19 had expanded the need for new lawyers while also making an in-person bar exam dangerous, if not impossible. We-the Collaboratory on Legal Education and Licensing for Practice'-proposed the Lawyers Justice Corps to provide a different and better way of certifying minimum competence for new attorneys while at the same time helping to create a new generation of lawyers equipped to address a wide range of social justice, racial justice, and criminal justice issues. When implemented, …

The Deborah Jones Merritt Center For The Advancement Of Justice, Claudia Angelos, Mary Lu Bilek, Joan W. Howarth

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When invited to write an essay on clinical legal education honoring our friend, we were struck by the importance of a focus on clinical legal education in any collection of work paying tribute to Professor Deborah Jones Merritt. Legal education has benefited from a fifty-year movement for clinical education. This movement necessarily interrogates and seeks to overcome the anachronistic, inherited Langdellian paradigm that dominates and continues to define the curricula and policies of our law schools. But the movement for clinical education has been exponentially confounded by contemporary legal education’s shape as a pyramid of statuses and privileges accumulated over …

Justice Ginsburg, Civil Procedure Professor And Champion Of Judicial Federalism, Rodger D. Citron

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No abstract provided.

“Portability Of The Ube: Where Is It When You Need It And Do You Need It At All?”, Suzanne Darrow- Kleinhaus

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No abstract provided.

Maybe Law Schools Do Not Oppress Minority Faculty Women: A Critique Of Meera E. Deo’S “Unequal Profession: Race And Gender In Legal Academia” (Stanford University Press 2019), Dan Subotnik

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No abstract provided.

A Merritt-Orious Path For Lawyer Licensing, Eileen Kaufman, Carol L. Chomsky, Andrea Anne Curcio

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More than two decades ago, Professor Deborah Merritt turned her attention to responding to the then-proliferating efforts to raise state passing scores for the bar examination. Writing with Lowell Hargens and Barbara Reskin, two professors of sociology, Professor Merritt challenged the methodology of the studies that purported to show the need to “raise the bar.” In the process, she presciently raised broader concerns about the validity of the bar exam to assess lawyer competence and the impact of the bar exam on the diversity of the legal profession. In the years since, Professor Merritt has continued to critique the bar …

Nine Ways Of Looking At Oklahoma City: An Essay On Sam Anderson’S Boom Town, Rodger D. Citron

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No abstract provided.

The Struggle With Basic Writing Skills, Ann Nowak

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No abstract provided.

A Tribute To Professor Catherine Mahern, Lawrence Raful

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No abstract provided.

Who Wants To Be A Prosecutor? And Why Care? Law Students' Career Aspirations And Reform Prosecutors' Goals, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Stephen Daniels

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Often called "progressive" or "reform" prosecutors, a number of reform-minded prosecutors have been elected recently across the United States-promising a distinctive vision of criminal justice and signaling that their role will be more attuned to issues of race and equity than "law and order." Furthering this vision requires dramatic changes to the working cultures-the norms, practices, and even personnel-of their offices. Diversity plays a major role.

One central challenge is identifying, attracting, and hiring newly minted lawyers who can, over time, be socialized into and sustain a changing organizational culture. This article empirically examines that challenge, which involves two sides …

Law School Memories: Building Empathy By Connecting To One's Earlier Self, Drew Simshaw

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No abstract provided.

Raising The Impact Factor Of The Library: Using The U.S. News & World Report’S Upcoming Academic Impact Law School Rankings To Boost The Academic Standing Of Law Librarians, Paul Mclaughlin

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This article recommends that law libraries and their librarians use the upcoming U.S. News & World Report’s academic rankings for law schools as an opportunity to enhance academic law libraries’ standing in the legal profession and to elevate law librarians’ statures within law schools.

The Bar Exam And The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Need For Immediate Action, Claudia Angelos, Sara Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol M. Chomsky, Andrea Anne Curcio, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Eileen R. Kaufman, Deborah Jones Merritt, Patricia Salkin, Judith W. Wegner

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The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has profoundly disrupted life in the United States. Among other challenges, jurisdictions are unlikely to be able to administer the July 2020 bar exam in the usual manner. It is essential, however, to continue licensing new lawyers. Those lawyers are necessary to meet current needs in the legal system. Equally important, the demand for legal services will skyrocket during and after this pandemic. We cannot close doors to the profession at a time when client demand will reach an all-time high.

In this brief policy paper, we outline six licensing options for jurisdictions to consider for …

Diploma Privilege And The Constitution, Claudia Angelos, Sara Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol M. Chomsky, Andrea Anne Curcio, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Eileen R. Kaufman, Deborah Jones Merritt, Patricia Salkin, Judith W. Wegner

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The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns are affecting every aspect of society. The legal profession and the justice system have been profoundly disrupted at precisely the time when there is an unprecedented need for legal services to deal with a host of legal issues generated by the pandemic, including disaster relief, health law, insurance, labor law, criminal justice, domestic violence, and civil rights. The need for lawyers to address these issues is great but the prospect of licensing new lawyers is challenging due to the serious health consequences of administering the bar examination during the pandemic.

State Supreme Courts are …

Shouting Into The Wind: How The Aba Standards Promote Inequality In Legal Education, And What Law Students And Faculty Should Do About It, Mary Beth Beazley

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This Article will analyze how we might return ABA Standard 405(b) to its appropriate role as a protector of equitable treatment of full-time law faculty. First, it will analyze some of the reasons that full-time legal writing and clinical faculty are treated differently; second, it will explain how the current system hurts equality, particularly gender equality; third, it will examine how these inequalities hurt the next generation of lawyers; fourth, it will describe how the inequalities hurt the supposed goals of legal education; and finally, it will suggest what law faculty, the ABA and AALS, and law students can do …

Papercuts: Hierarchical Microaggressions In Law Schools, Nantiya Ruan

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The Article investigates law schools as locations of workplace fairness by examining its hierarchical structure and the power dynamics at work. Others have researched and written on the myriad ways in which “legal skills faculty” are treated unfairly as compared to those that primarily teach non-skills (or doctrinal classes) because of the subject matter that they teach and the assumptions that are made about their credentials and ability to contribute to the law school mission. Likewise, other scholars have critically examined the discrimination experienced by law school faculty members based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities. What has …

Sociolegal Research, The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, And Studying Diversity In Judicial Clerkships, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Xiangnong Wang

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No abstract provided.

Revolutionary Dreamers: A Public Interest Call To Action At Uc Irvine School Of Law's Decennial, Ariela Rutbeck-Goldman, Citlalli Ochoa, Jamila Benkato

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No abstract provided.

The Bar Exam And The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Need For Immediate Action, Patricia E. Salkin, Eileen Kaufman, Claudia Angelos, Sara J. Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol L. Chomsky, Andrea A. Curcio, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Deborah Jones Merritt, Judith Welch Wegner

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The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has profoundly disrupted life in the United States. Schools and universities have closed throughout much of the country. Businesses have shuttered, and employees are working from home whenever possible. Cities and states are announcing lockdowns in which citizens may leave their homes only for vital errands or exercise.

Medical experts advise that at least some of these restraints will continue for 18 months or more—until a vaccine is developed, tested, and administered widely. It is possible that localities will be able to lift some of these restrictions (such as lockdowns and school closures) intermittently during those …

Diploma Privilege And The Constitution, Patricia E. Salkin, Claudia Angelos, Sara J. Berman, Mary Lu Bilek, Carol L. Chomsky, Marsha Griggs, Joan W. Howarth, Eileen Kaufman, Deborah Jones Meritt, Judith Wegner, Andrea Curcio

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The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns are affecting every aspect of society. The legal profession and the justice system have been profoundly disrupted at precisely the time when there is an unprecedented need for legal services to deal with a host of legal issues generated by the pandemic, including disaster relief, health law, insurance, labor law, criminal justice, domestic violence, and civil rights. The need for lawyers to address these issues is great but the prospect of licensing new lawyers is challenging due to the serious health consequences of administering the bar examination during the pandemic.

State Supreme Courts are …

Teaching With Feminist Judgments: A Global Conversation, Bridget J. Crawford, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Linda L. Berger

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This conversational-style essay is an exchange among fourteen professors-representing thirteen universities across five countries-with experience teaching with feminist judgments.

Feminist judgments are 'shadow' court decisions rewritten from a feminist perspective, using only the precedent in effect and the facts known at the time of the original decision. Scholars in Canada, England, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, India, and Mexico have published (or are currently producing) written collections of feminist judgments that demonstrate how feminist perspectives could have changed the legal reasoning or outcome (or both) in important legal cases.

This essay begins to explore the vast pedagogical potential …