Legal Education Commons^™

Training Law Students To Maintain Civility In Their Law Practices As A Way To Improve Public Discourse, Nancy B. Rapoport

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Our current social discourse is broken. Not only have we resorted to name-calling instead of reasoned discussion, but we have also resorted to the fundamental attribution error: we attribute bad motives to people with whose positions we disagree rather than starting with the presumption that, perhaps, buried deep within their positions could be a grain of truth. As Yoni Appelbaum observed in a recent article in The Atlantic, "Recent research by political scientists at Vanderbilt University and other institutions has found both Republicans and Democrats distressingly willing to dehumanize members of the opposite party."' We need to find a …

Learning From Feminist Judgments: Lessons In Language And Advocacy, Linda L. Berger, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Bridget J. Crawford

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Judicial decision-making is not a neutral and logical enterprise that involves applying clear rules to agreed-upon facts. Legal educators can and should help students learn more about how judges actually go about making their decisions. The study of re-imagined judicial decisions, such as the alternative judgments from various Feminist Judgments Projects, can enrich the study of law in multiple ways. First, seeing a written decision that differs from the original can help students think “outside the box” constructed by the original opinion by showing them a concrete example of another perspective written in judicial language. Second, the rewritten judgments show …

What Law Must Lawyers Know?, Joan W. Howarth

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What constitutes the body of legal knowledge that every lawyer must
possess? I used to know, or think I did, but no longer. I suspect no one else
knows either. This difficult question is not just an intriguing theoretical
matter but also an urgent, practical problem. Licensing regulators assume
that minimal competence in any profession requires certain fundamental
knowledge, skills, and abilities.Bar examiners must determine what
knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary for minimum competence as
an attorney and then design tests and other requirements to attempt to align
licensure with minimum competence. Today’s tangled attorney licensing
puzzle cannot be …

Growth And Mindset For A Generation As A Profession, Latisha Nixon-Jones

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No abstract provided.

Ringing Changes: Systems Thinking About Legal Licensing, Joan W. Howarth, Judith Welch Wegner

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Part I examines core assumptions associated with licensing systems as well as associated ambiguities. In particular, it acknowledges multiple understandings about what “competence” is and differing assumptions about how to evaluate or measure it. Part I thus sets forth important predicates for our argument that only a multi-faceted licensing system can do what is needed in assuring minimal competence, and that not all forms of competence are best measured by traditional licensing examinations.

Part II raises the possibility of creating a post-first-year examination designed to assess critical thinking in the context of the first-year curriculum. It also considers ways in …

Flying Without Wings, Eleanor Lanier

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Because of Georgia’s unique court structure and political challenges, state advocates were unable to secure funding for a spot in the WINGS nest. But there is good news. The bonds we forged over our many years of advocacy on guardianship issues, and our effort to pull together the (unsuccessful) WINGS application, helped a few of our ideas take flight. This article highlights one highly successful and easily replicable effort that can be undertaken for a local court, in a region or at the state level, depending on resources and interest.

Reflecting Clinics At 50: Reports From The Field, Russell C. Gabriel

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For lawyers, learning law by practicing law is customary. In the world of legal education, learning from practice is situated in both acceptance and opposition. There are practical arguments in its favor—the practicing bar wants law graduates to be “practice ready,” and theoretical arguments—understanding how law operates in the real world yields a clearer understanding of law itself, how it maintains social and economic structures, and how it impacts individuals. At the University of Georgia, law students, hungry for a legal education and a bar license, have been learning from practice in the Law School’s clinical programs for over fifty …

Clinical Syllabi As Demonstration Of Best Practices Implementation, Jean Goetz Mangan, Fernanda Mackay

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This Article posits that the University of Georgia School of Law for Clinical Programs course syllabi demonstrate implementation of recommendations found in leading works that advocate for change in traditional legal education. This Article reviews some high points of legal education reform with a focus on clinical legal education and then discusses the role of syllabi in the classroom and the potential within the document that many professors miss. This Article then turns to using syllabi to measure the extent that the clinics are implementing instruction that addresses all three apprenticeships as defined in the Carnegie Report.. To assess the …

Why Is The Protective Order Project Still In Business; Or, If The Family Justice Clinic Has Been At It So Long, Why Hasn’T Anything Changed? Domestic Violence As A Continuing Societal Concern, Christine M. Scartz, Chelsea Reese

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This Article explores the Georgia Law Family Violence and the continuing societal concern surrounding domestic violence.

Access To The Civil Court System For Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse In Georgia: Observations And Recommendations From The Clinical Legal Education Experience, Emma M. Hetherington, Michael Nunnally

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Founded in January 2016, the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic (the CEASE Clinic) represents survivors of child sexual abuse in juvenile court dependency matters and civil litigation and is the first of its kind in the nation. The CEASE Clinic was established through a generous donation by Georgia Law alumnus Marlan Wilbanks (JD ‘84) in response to a new Georgia law known as the Hidden Predator Act (the HPA) that went into effect on July 1, 2015. The HPA extended the statute of limitations for civil claims arising out of acts of child sexual abuse by providing a …

Teaching Tomorrow’S Lawyers Through A (Semi-) Generalist, (Mostly-) Individual Client Poverty Law Clinic: Reflections On Five Years Of The Community Health Law Partnership, Jason A. Cade

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Design options when starting a live-client clinic from scratch can be somewhat overwhelming. Should the clinic focus on systemic impact or individual representation? Appellate work or hearings? Should the clinic specialize or cover multiple legal issues? Another set of issues concerns how the clinic should find and accept its clients, and whether students should have a role in the intake process. The list of choices goes on. In this Essay, written for the Georgia Law Review’s Online Issue celebrating 50 years of clinics at the University of Georgia School of Law, I describe how I have navigated these and other …

Drawing Connections Between Artificial Intelligence, Cognition, And Legal Skills, Drew Simshaw

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No abstract provided.

Lawclinics@50: 50 Years Of Clinical Legal Education At Georgia Law, Alex Scherr

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Director of the Veterans Legal Clinic Alex Scherr penned this blog post announcing the LawClinics@50 celebration plans as well as the collaboration with the Georgia Law Review Online platform and sharing the first in a series of articles related to the fiftieth anniversary of legal clinical education at the School of Law.

50 Years Of Clinical And Experiential Learning At Georgia Law, Eleanor Lanier

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This note serves as an introduction of the partnership between the Georgia Law Review Online Platform and the School of Law's Clinical Programs and Experiential Learning faculty to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of clinical legal education at the University of Georgia's law school. It provides a brief history of the program beginnings in 1967 and discusses the program expansions to present which reached a total of 18 different options when the note was published.

New York Leads From The Middle: Crowdsourcing The Bar Exam Cut Score, Joan W. Howarth

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In this article, Prof. Howarth urges states to move to a uniform cut score on the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) through the use of crowdsourcing.

Crafting Relatable Tales: Teaching Students The Importance Of Multidisciplinary Legal Research Using A Story Arc Structure, Paul Mclaughlin

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No abstract provided.

Using Problem-Enhanced Library Tours Rather Than Scavenger Hunts To Teach Incoming 1ls About Legal Sources And The Research Process, Paul Mclaughlin

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No abstract provided.

Rethinking Digital Repositories And The Future Of Open Access, Margaret Schilt, Karen Shephard, Carol A. Watson

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Over the last two years, changes in the legal publishing arena involving digital repository platforms have raised concerns about the future of open access. This article reviews the current status of the various repository platforms and how they impact legal scholarship. The article goes on to analyze the areas that law libraries should focus on in platform selection.

Towards A Jurisprudence (And Pedagogy) Of Access: A Reflection On 25 Years Of The Public Interest Practicum, Alex Scherr, Elizabeth M. Grant, Graham Goldberg

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The Public Interest Practicum (PIP), a course at the University of Georgia School of Law, fosters awareness among law students of the demand for access to justice. For more than 25 years, PIP has served many purposes: to explore a street level jurisprudence; to challenge students’ professional identities; to generate new models of clinical legal education; to inculcate the habit of public service; and to help individuals with legal problems. Through its many iterations, PIP has consistently exposed future lawyers to ways of helping those in need. This reflection traces the history of PIP as a course, contextualizes it within …

How To Build A Better Bar Exam, Eileen Kaufman, Andrea Anne Curcio, Carol L. Chomsky

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As a licensing exam, the purpose of the bar exam is consumer protection–-ensuring that new lawyers have the minimum competencies required to practice law effectively. As critics point out, however, the exam, and particularly the multiple-choice question portion of the exam, has significant flaws because it assesses legal knowledge and analysis in an artificial and unrealistic context, and the closed-book format rewards the ability to memorize thousands of legal rules, a skill unrelated to law practice.

This essay discusses how to improve the exam by changing its multiple-choice content and format. We use two law licensing exams to illustrate how …

Afterword: What's Next? Into A Third Decade Of Latcrit Theory, Community, And Praxis, Steven W. Bender, Francisco Valdes, Jorge R. Roig, Jasmine Gonzalez Rose, Saru Matambanadzo, Roberto Corrada, Shelley Cavalieri, Tayyab Mahmud, Zsea Bowmani, Anthony E. Varona

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In this multi-vocal Afterword, we reflect-personally and collectively to help chart renewed agendas toward and through a third decade of LatCrit theory, community, and praxis. This personal collective exercise illustrates and reconsiders the functions, guideposts, values, and postulates for our shared programmatic work a framework for our daily work as individuals and teams through our portfolio of projects, which in turn emerged as a "reflection and projection of LatCrit theory, community and praxis." These early anchors expressly encompassed (1) a call to recognize and accept the inevitable political nature of U.S. legal scholarship; (2) a concomitant call toward anti-subordination praxis …

Integrating Performance Tests Into Doctrinal Courses, Skills Courses, And Institutional Benchmark Testing: A Simple Way To Enhance Student Engagement While Furthering Assessment, Bar Passage, And Other Aba Accreditation Objectives, Sara J. Berman

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This article explores ways to weave performance tests into the law school curriculum to enhance student engagement and active learning, and to further ABA-mandated assessment and accreditation objectives. Some options include using them as discrete simulation exercises in doctrinal courses, as content for certain dedicated skills courses, or as possible institutional benchmark testing. Section II provides an overview of PTs, suggesting how they can be effective teaching tools. Section III demonstrates how integrating PTs into the law school curriculum, at both the course and institutional levels, may help law schools comply with numerous ABA Standards, including those regarding assessment and …

A Tribute To Douglas Scherer, Howard A. Glickstein

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No abstract provided.

Joe Williams And Discourse Communities-The Journal Of Legal Writing Institute And Community Service, Terrill Pollman

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Professor Pollman writes a tribute to The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute.

Finding The Theory And Method For The Pedagogy Of Teaching Legal Research: A Response To Callister’S “Time To Blossom”, Paul Mclaughlin

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In his article “Time to Blossom,” Callister invites legal research experts to begin a discussion as to what theory and methodology would be most effective for teaching legal research. This article suggests that utilizing a tailored form of systems theory in conjunction with active learning methods would allow legal educators not only to teach students in an effective and understandable manner but also to adapt their teaching methods to correspond to changes in the legal research field.

The Problem With Aba Standard 405(C), Kathryn M. Stanchi

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This essay takes the position that clinicians and legal writing faculty deserve better than "not too bad." Standard 405(c) needs to be called out for what it is: an institutionalized bar to professional advancement divorced from any reasonable measure of merit.

In Praise Of Margaret Howard, Nancy B. Rapoport

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Professor Nancy Rapoport joins a group of distinguished colleagues in paying tribute to Professor Margaret Howard.

The Forest And The Trees: What Educational Purposes Can A Course On Christian Legal Thought Serve?, Randy Beck

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In this short essay, I want to consider the educational purposes a course in Christian legal thought might serve. How could having such a course in the curriculum help accomplish the goals of legal education? One can understand why a law school with a Christian identity would want to offer this sort of course. Such law schools embrace a theology that helps adherents make sense of the world, including the world of human law. The less obvious question I want to consider is why a law school that does not subscribe to a particular theological understanding of the world (or …

Tribute To Sam Davis: A Georgia Perspective, Ronald L. Carlson

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Sam Davis had a twenty-seven year history at Georgia, commencing in 1970. After a distinguished record as a student at the University of Mississippi School of Law, he joined the Georgia law faculty. Sam moved through the academic ranks, ultimately becoming Allen Post Professor of Law. Along the way he served, at various times, as Assistant Dean, as Associate Dean, and he was for a time the University's Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. In 1997 he took over as Dean at the University of Mississippi School of Law. This article comments on his life and professional career, with some …

A Reply To The National Conference Of Bar Examiners: More Talk, No Answers, So Keep On Shopping, Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus

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In Let the Games Begin: Jurisdiction-Shopping for the Shopaholics (Good Luck With That) Mark Albanese defends the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ grading practices as essential to assuring reliability given the variability in grading between UBE jurisdictions. In addressing the claim that it is possible to achieve different outcomes on the same test by the same candidate if taken in different UBE jurisdictions, he describes how NCBE monitors jurisdiction variation to ensure grading consistency. Those of us concerned, however, with the possibility that the jurisdiction in which a candidate takes the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) may make the difference between …