Legal Education Commons^™

Class Participation: Random Calling And Anonymous Grading, John M. Rogers

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

My perception is that opposition has been growing to law teachers' demanding student participation in class. At least one new teacher recently suggested to me that no good reason supports calling on students who have not volunteered. Many teachers, not to mention students, find something like an invasion of the student's dignity in that practice. Other teachers worry about the pitfalls of calling on or not calling on members of ethnic or gender groups, so they simply lecture or call only on volunteers. On another, indirectly related issue, my perception is that students often do not trust the anonymity of …

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

Scholarly Works

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 …

Acting Upon Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics By Lisa Lowe- A Review Colloquy, Margaret Chon

Faculty Articles

How might a literature professor converse with a law professor about law? Selecting what she thinks are some of the more extraordinary excerpts from Professor Lowe's seven densely and finely-crafted essays, Professor Margaret Chon meditates on each from the perspective of critical race theory and other legally grounded paradigms. Rather than narrate a linear critique of Professor Lowe's book, Professor Chon tries to construct a partial, if artificial, colloquy. By doing this, the reader can sample the richness of Lowe's text, while gauging Professor Chon’s reactions. With this form, Professor Chon hopes to emulate what Professor Lowe simultaneously analyzes and …

Radical Plural Democracy And The Internet, Margaret Chon

Faculty Articles

By examining the consequences that particular social practices on the Internet have in physical space, this essay attempts to re-pivot the democratic discourse of the Internet so as to include Chantal Mouffe's vision of a radical and plural democracy: one that accounts for missing material markers, one that encourages the proliferation of different democratic struggles, one that acknowledges that "[a]ll inequities existing in our society are now at issue."

Preface: Law In (Case)Books, Law (School) In Action: The Case For Casebook Reviews, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

In the aggregate, these casebook reviews demonstrate the significance of the casebook, with its strengths and weaknesses, not just in shaping the temporary experience of students and teachers in the law school classroom but more profoundly for the longer-term development of the legal profession. Because casebooks still maintain the center of gravity in legal education, they serve as the vehicle through which each succeeding generation of lawyers is socialized into patterns of thinking about law and legal practice. Ironically, any single popular casebook probably has a more direct and profound influence on the legal culture than all of the other …

A Law Professor’S Guide To Natural Law And Natural Rights, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Law professors nowadays mention natural law and natural rights on a regular basis, and not just in jurisprudence. Given that the founding generation universally subscribed to the idea of natural rights, this concept regularly makes a prominent appearance in discussions of constitutional law. One simply cannot avoid the concept if one is to explain Justice Samuel Chase's well-known claim in Calder v. Bull that "[t]here are certain vital principles in our free Republican governments, which will determine and over-rule an apparent and flagrant abuse of legislative power .... An ACf of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) …

A Clinical Textbook?, John B. Mitchell

Seattle University Law Review

A clinical perspective (i.e., centered on practicing attorneys and clients) should be embedded throughout the law school curriculum. Do you need a clinical textbook to impart this clinical perspective? No. There are a number of other alternatives. Many professors are creating their own problems and exercises. Also, standard texts have increasingly begun to include problems and exercises which you can use. And there are companion or supplementary materials--casefiles, exercises, and even novels which professors can assign to add a lawyering perspective to a doctrinal course.

Striving To Teach “Justice, Fairness, And Morality”, Jane H. Aiken

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The MacCrate Report has reinvigorated legal education by identifying fundamental skills and values that are essential to effective lawyering. As we go through the process of ensuring that we train students in these fundamentals, we should not ignore the values identified in the report. At the heart of these values is the injunction that lawyers should strive to promote justice, fairness, and morality. Law schools and law teachers can play a significant role in instilling in our students a passion to ensure justice.

Comparing United States And New Zealand Legal Education: Are U.S. Law Schools Too Good?, Gregory S. Crespi

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article offers a thoughtful comparison of the legal educational systems of the United States and New Zealand. The author highlights the significant differences between these two legal educational systems by contrasting their admissions policies, clinical programs, "law-and-economics" electives, and staffing of required courses. Based on this analysis, the author concludes that although U.S. law schools are clearly "better," such superiority may have been achieved at too high of a cost, in terms of both the substantial resources now devoted to legal education which could otherwise be applied to alternative uses and the problematic effects of the stratified legal educational …

From Dreams To Reality: The Emerging Role Of Law School Academic Support, Paula Lustbader

Faculty Articles

This article reviews the history, rationale, development, and different program structures of Law School Academic Support Programs. It briefly summarizes learning theory and explains how ASP can implement those theories to teach academic skills. Lastly, it suggests that notwithstanding the significance of helping students develop solid academic skills, probably the most important work that ASP professionals do is to provide the non-academic support by making the human connection to students and believing in them.

Less Is More: Teaching Legal Ethics In Context Symposium: 1997 W. M. Mikeck Foundation Forum On The Teaching Of Legal Ethics, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

We who teach legal ethics employ many of the teacher's arts to win our students' appreciation for the course. We do not always succeed. As Deborah Rhode has observed, "[t]here are inherent problems and infinite ways to fail in teaching this subject." Yet, we continue to seek a method for teaching the course effectively. If nothing else, our efforts have led to the development of a substantial body of literature on teaching legal ethics to which this Article will contribute. Its focus is on what, rather than how, to teach. This Article asks: What should be the content of the …

In Memory Of Professor John Broderick, Thomas F. Broden

Journal Articles

John J. Broderick, professor emeritus of the Notre Dame Law School, died February 28, 1997. He was born in New York in 1910. He graduated summa cum laude from Washington and Lee University in 1932 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1936 he graduated summa cum laude from St. John's University Law School and practiced law in New York City and Yonkers, New York until joining the Navy in World War II. In 1947 he became a member of the Notre Dame Law School faculty.

I first knew Professor Broderick as a student in the Law School …

Who Is Black Enough For You? An Analysis Of Northwestern University Law School's Struggle Over Minority Faculty Hiring, Leonard M. Baynes

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article considers the factors that should be used in hiring a person of color to a faculty position and raises the following questions: Apart from potential teaching ability and scholarly productivity, should faculty appointments committees look to other criteria for candidates of color? Provided that we can still consider the race and ethnicity of prospective candidates of color at private institutions, should faculty appointments committees be concerned about how closely identified a candidate is to an essentialized conception, for instance, of Black persons? Should a faculty hiring committee focus its efforts to hire African Americans on a Black person …

Selecting And Designing Effective Legal Writing Problems, Grace C. Tonner, Diana Pratt

Articles

Legal research and writing courses are unlike most substantive first year law school classes in that they teach using the problem method. The success of a legal writing course depends on the quality of the problems. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance for legal writing professors in designing legal writing problems. The article addresses (1) general considerations in problem design, (2) designing expository problems, (3) designing persuasive problems, and (4) sources of problems. In the first section, we discuss problem design as it relates to the overall goals for teaching the basic forms of legal analysis, …

Comparing United States And New Zealand Legal Education: Are U.S. Law Schools Too Good?, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article offers a comparison of the legal education systems of the United States and New Zealand. While it was originally published in 1997 in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and has been largely overlooked in more recent years, it is germane to the current vigorous debate regarding what changes need to be made in American legal education. I highlight in this Article several significant differences between these two systems by contrasting their admissions policies, clinical programs, availability of "law-and-economics" electives, and staffing of required courses. Based on this analysis, I concluded that although American law schools were clearly …

Dedication To Professor Ralph W. Johnson, David H. Getches

Publications

No abstract provided.

Law As The Continuation Of God By Other Means, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Playing Defense, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

Noting that the Romer opinion condemns the motives behind Amendment 2 without pausing even briefly to examine the social context in which it was enacted, Professor Nagel describes the decision as a model of the intolerant impulse in action. He traces this impulse to the Justices' unwillingness to examine their own role--and that of the rest of the constitutional law establishment--in creating the underlying conditions that produced Amendment 2.

In order to identify those conditions, Professor Nagel analyzes the primary document used by Colorado for Family Values during its campaign on behalf of the initiative. He argues that this document …

Book Review Of The Strange Career Of Legal Liberalism, By Laura Kalman, Edward A. Purcell Jr.

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Thinking About The Year 2020, William R. Mills

Other Publications

Posted with permission from the American Association of Law Libraries; copyright 1997.

Book Review Of A Nation Under Lawyers: How The Crisis In The Legal Profession Is Transforming American Society, By Mary Ann Glendon, William P. Lapiana

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Memorial To Dr. Ernst C. Stiefel, Aleta Estreicher

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Fostering Diversity In The Legal Profession: A Model For Preparing Minority And Other Non-Traditional Students For Law School, Lorraine K. Bannai, Marie Eaton

Faculty Articles

Undergraduate institutions, on their own and in partnership with law schools, can and should play a more significant role in expanding the pool of law school applicants from non-traditional backgrounds. The Law and Diversity Program at Western Washington University was conceived out of this desire to prepare non-traditional students for the study of law and thereby help bring more diversity to the legal profession. This article discusses the model used by the Law and Diversity Program to prepare non-traditional students for law school and the program's success in accomplishing its goals. It was the hope of the author to create …

Education's Promise, Laurel Oates, Sam Wineberg

Faculty Articles

This is a story with at least two parts. In the first part, Sam Wineburg, a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Washington, tells his story, the story of instruction in the United States, beginning with one revolution, the scientific revolution, and ending with another, the cognitive revolution. In the second part, Laurel Oates, the Director of Legal Writing at Seattle University School of Law, tells our story, the story of legal education and, in particular, legal writing, and how both have been affected by these revolutions.

Beating The Odds: Reading Strategies Of Law Students Admitted Through Alternative Admissions Programs, Laurel Oates

Faculty Articles

When they enter law school, the odds are against them. Almost always persons of color and often from disadvantaged backgrounds, their LSAT scores are substantially lower than those of their classmates. As a result, these students, law students admitted through alternative admissions programs, have a by far less chance of success than their regularly admitted classmates. Some of these students do, however, beat the odds. While most students who are admitted to law school under an alternative admissions program perform as their LSAT scores predict-in the bottom quartile of their class-a small number perform substantially better. Every year, some alternatively …

Teaching Electronically: The Chicago-Kent Experiment, Richard Warner

Seattle University Law Review

Certain basic goals are widely shared, relatively uncontroversial, and sufficiently important that it makes sense to ask whether computer technology can improve our ability to achieve those goals. Consider the following four goals. This Review will focus primarily on the second goal (understanding the rationales behind the rules). Of course, to improve students' abilities to achieve this goal may also improve their abilities to achieve the first goal (knowledge of black letter rules) as a knowledge of a rule is obviously a precondition of understanding its purpose. Improving students' abilities to understand the rationale behind a rule may also improve …

Intention In Tension Contracts, Cases And Doctrine By Randy E. Barnett, Kellye Y. Testy

Seattle University Law Review

In discussing the choice of Barnett's casebook, this Review focuses on two central pedagogical goals, and describe how Barnett's casebook has either helped or hindered the reviewer's ability to accomplish those goals. Those goals are to actively assist students in (1) learning basic (accepted) contract doctrines and methods of analyzing contract issues; and (2) developing a critical stance toward law in general, and contract law in particular.

An Interdisciplinary Seminar In Child Abuse And Neglect With A Focus On Child Protection Practice, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

Given the myriad of professionals involved in protecting children from abuse and neglect, legal practice in the field of child protection requires an understanding of the various disciplines these professionals represent. Professor Scarnecchia argues that such an understanding is necessary in order for the attorney to serve as a zealous advocate for her client. In hopes of creating this understanding in students at the University of Michigan, an interdisciplinary seminar in child abuse and neglect has been created. Professor Scarnecchia details the substantive content of the seminar, discussing specific issues that arise in protecting children. She explains that by using …

"A Day In My Law Library Life," Circa 1997, Dwight B. King, Frank G. Houdek

Journal Articles

Contributors describe their lives as law librarians by recounting what they did during a single day at their jobs. Given the wide range of positions and libraries represented by the authors, the pieces collectively represent a snapshot - and a historical record - of the law library profession in 1997.

Volume 22, No. 3

The Weldon Times

A student-run newspaper published at the School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Editors: Colin Ground, Elizabeth Kanyikwa, Nicholas Lenco, Derrick White