Legal Education Commons^™

Mainstreaming Community Development: Business Strategies As Radical Approaches To Community Representation, Daniel S. Shah

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article argues that law school clinics are a means of providing positive change in representation in community development. Through a detailed case analysis of the Philadelphia Community Development Credit Union, the article illustrates how most technical assistance providers perpetuate an economic development structure which is contrary to consumer demand. These technical assistance providers carry out the goals and plans of the project funders (a top down approach) rather than focusing on the demands of the consumers. Community development clinics can step outside of the current market structure because they receive funding from independent sources and are thus able to …

Ethics For Skeptics, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the themes of the 2002 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS") has been that we, as teachers, must do better at engaging our students "where they're at." A number of speakers on various panels addressed the consumerist mentality among students, the desire of a population raised on MTV for multimedia lectures that resemble rapidly paced entertainment with high production values, and the suspicion of students toward claims of authority by teachers that are not backed up by respect and hard work. In addition, I would add a further observation as a teacher of ethics …

Teamwork Builds A Modern Traditional Library, Mitchell Counts, Robert Linz

Publications

No abstract provided.

Tribute To Paul Oberst, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr., William H. Fortune, Alvin L. Goldman, Edward T. Breathitt, John H. Garvey, John Hatch

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A tribute to Professor Paul Oberst.

Introduction: Favorite Insurance Cases Symposium, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Insurance law scholars and teachers sometimes feel, with a mixture of paranoia and justification, that insurance law simply does not receive its proper respect in the hierarchy of legal education and law generally.

Consider the law school curriculum. In none of America’s nearly 200 ABA-approved law schools in insurance law a required course. Nor is it considered a course that, although not required, prudent students “must” be sure to take before they graduate (e.g. Evidence, Corporations). Enrollments may be respectable but the class is seldom oversubscribed, even where the law school is located in an insurance hub city. Although other …

Biting Off What They Can Chew: Strategies For Involving Law Students In Problem-Solving Beyond Individual Client Representation, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

Problem-solving is most often taught in the context of representing individual clients in small manageable cases where students retain primary control and develop a sense of ownership. Increasingly, law school clinical programs are involving students in broader service projects designed to meet the needs of clients that go unaddressed by the legal system. Student involvement in these projects presents challenges for the traditional model of problem-solving taught in individual case representation. This article explores the challenges of translating the problem-solving techniques employed in direct representation of individual clients into the larger context of problem-solving for a client community by examining …

Building A Tower Of Babel Or Building A Discipline? Talking About Legal Writing, Terrill Pollman

Scholarly Works

High-quality writing is one of the crafts most necessary to a successful career in law. Mature legal professionals, lawyers, judges, and law professors write every day. Often, they write cooperatively--editing and redrafting a shared document. Nevertheless, those trained in the law may lack a common language that enables them to talk with each other about writing. Like the workers building the tower in the biblical story of Babel, legal professionals sometimes find themselves unable to communicate about their work.

Unlike most subjects in the legal academy, legal writing has emerged as an area of serious study in law schools only …

The Rhetorics Of Legal Authority Constructing Authoritativeness, The “Ellen Effect,” And The Example Of Sodomy Law., Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The University Of St. Thomas Law Library: A New Library For A New Era In Legal Education, Edmund P. Edmonds

Journal Articles

In spring 2000, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota, offered me an intriguing challenge: Would I be willing to help create a brand new law library at St. Thomas' new School of Law? That opportunity was, in many ways, the ultimate chance to reconsider the fundamental underlying premises that form one's basic vision of a law library. One's understanding and thinking about these basic ideas forms the foundation on which one makes critical decisions about the law library every working day. What would it be like to have no past history to either inform or encumber those …

Availability Of Works Cited In Recent Law Review Articles On Lexis, Westlaw, The Internet, And Other Databases, Simon Canick

Faculty Scholarship

In this study, a group of recent law articles was examined to determine the proportion of cited resources that are easily findeable online. Searches were conducted in databases such as LEXIS and Westlaw, and on the Internet, for full-text versions of every source cited in seven articles. The results have been broken down into 13 categories, including: federal cases, books, foreign law, and legal periodicals pre-1990. Not surprisingly coverage differs widely between the categories. Overall the study found that 77% of the 1,984 citations in the articles reviewed are available online. This article concludes with a general discussion of why …

Suggested Instructions For Use Of A Law Library, Frederick W. Dingledy

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Address, Cardozo Women's Law Journal Most Influential Woman In The Law Award, Mary Jo White

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article reflects on the progress and challenges faced by women in the legal profession, emphasizing the importance of equal opportunity and the need to redefine success beyond traditional metrics. While significant strides have been made since the late 19th century, when women first gained access to the legal profession, disparities persist in representation and recognition at the highest levels. The author, drawing on her experiences as the first woman to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, argues that women must continue to advocate for greater representation and challenge societal norms while preserving their unique …

Providing Structure To Law Students — Introducing The Programmed Learning Sequence As An Instructional Tool, Robin A. Boyle, Lynne Dolle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the past few decades, legal academics have spawned writings about changing law school teaching methods from the traditional Socratic and case method to alternative approaches. Some of these authors encourage law professors to be aware of individual differences among students. Yet there has been little empirical research conducted in law schools concerning the effectiveness of teaching students according to their individual learning styles. "Learning styles" refers to the ways in which individuals "begin [ ] to concentrate on, process, [internalize,] and [remember] new and difficult [academic] information" or skills. The absence of learning-styles research in law schools spurred …

Teacher, Student, Ticket: John Frank, Leon Higginbotham, And One Afternoon At The Supreme Court--Not A Trifling Thing, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

A path to greatness often begins with a special teacher, and this is such a story. In the fall of 1949, John P. Frank was a new associate professor at the Yale Law School. This story also involves a young student. In autumn 1949, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., was a first year law student at Yale. Higginbotham, a 21-year-old black man from Trenton, New Jersey, had attended Purdue University and, after transferring, graduated from Antioch College in 1949. Leon Higginbotham was one of three black students who entered Yale Law School in fall 1949. Higginbotham met John Frank when he …

Maccrate's Missed Opportunity: The Maccrate Report's Failure To Advance Professional Values Symposium, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

The 1992 Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap (the "Task Force"), Legal Education Professional Development - An Educational Continuum, popularly known as the MacCrate Report (the "Report"), was the most ambitious effort to reform legal education in the past generation. Some commentators have described the Report as "the greatest proposed paradigm shift in legal education since Langdell envisioned legal education as the pursuit of legal science through the case method in the late 19th century.” Although the Report sought to promote education in both lawyering skills and values, its major influence has …

Law Schools As Legal Education Centers, Martin H. Belsky

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Legal education in the early twentieth century was divided into three concurrent paths-study at one of the "elite" law schools, consisting of mostly full-time students already possessing a college degree; study at one of the other mostly part-time practice based schools; and a course of study with a practitioner/mentor outside of formal educational institutions. ... Graduation was a serious event, as students were already thinking about passing the bar exam. ... Some of the reasons that law schools can deliver legal education to elementary and secondary students, obviously apply to junior college, college, and non-law school graduate and professional education …

Twenty-Five Years Later With Promises To Keep: Legal Education In Dispute Resolution And Training Of Mediators, Lela P. Love

Articles

No abstract provided.

Using The Pervasive Method Of Teaching Legal Ethics In A Property Course, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The first-year introductory course in property law is about all that is left of the traditional black-box curriculum. It is where beginning law students cope with and despair of the arcana of English common law; where, with more detachment than, say, in the torts course, analysis of appellate opinions is what "thinking like a lawyer" means, with no more than peripheral and begrudging attention to modem legislation and administrative law; where legal reasoning is a stretching exercise and initiatory discipline. And, incidentally, surviving bravely the rude invasion of teachers of public law, it is where a teaching lawyer can point …

Conflict Of Interest And Competency Issues In Law Clinic Practice, Peter A. Joy, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

Although clinical legal education is an established part of American legal education, few commentators have considered how the ethical issues governing lawyers' conflicts of interest and competency apply in the law school clinic context. This article fills that gap by identifying and explaining the ethical obligations law clinic students and supervising clinical faculty encounter in case and client selection due to conflict of interest and competency considerations. It analyzes various conflicts of interest due to prior, current, or future employment of law clinic students and faculty, and it explores conflicts based on the status of clinical faculty as employees of …

International Law And The Legal Curriculum, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Legal Ethics Must Be The Heart Of The Law School Curriculum Symposium: Recommitting To Teaching Legal Ethics- Shaping Our Teaching In A Changing World, Russell G. Pearce

Faculty Scholarship

Despite what seems to be far greater attention paid to the teaching of legal ethics than to any other law school subject, legal ethics remains no better than a second class subject in the eyes of students and faculty. This essay suggests that all efforts at innovation in legal ethics teaching are doomed to a marginal impact at best. Only recognition that legal ethics is the most important subject in the law school curriculum will lead to real and significant changes in the teaching of legal ethics. If the commitment of the legal profession and of legal academia to producing …

Yale Rosenberg: The Scholar And The Teacher Of Jewish Law, Sherman L. Cohn

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the early 1980s, when he was a young professor at the University of Houston Law Center, the author had the occasion to meet Yale Rosenberg. It was clear from their discussion that Professor Rosenberg had a strong interest in Jewish law as well as a strong knowledge base. They discussed teaching such a course at the University of Houston Law Center. Professor Rosenberg was doubtful about teaching a course in Jewish law at a secular law school, particularly one in Texas. But that conversation began a series of conversations where Yale explored in some depth the course that we …

The Inside Scoop: What Federal Judges Really Think About The Way Lawyers Write, Kristen Konrad Robbins-Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A recent survey indicates that what troubles federal judges most is not what lawyers say but what they fail to say when writing briefs. Although lawyers do a good job articulating legal issues and citing controlling, relevant legal authority, they are not doing enough with the law itself. Only fifty-six percent of the judges surveyed said that lawyers “always” or “usually” make their client’s best arguments. Fifty-eight percent of the judges rated the quality of the legal analysis as just “good,” as opposed to “excellent” or “very good.” The problem seems to be that briefs lack rigorous analysis, and the …

A Midrash On Rabbi Shaffer And Rabbi Trollope, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thomas Shaffer is the most unusual, and in many ways the most interesting, contemporary writer on American legal ethics. A lawyer impatient with legalisms and hostile to rights-talk, a moral philosopher who despises moral philosophy, a Christian theologian who refers more often to the rabbis than to the Church Fathers, a former law school dean who is convinced that law schools have failed their students by teaching too much law and too little literature, a traditionalist who' wholeheartedly embraces feminism, an apologist for the conservative nineteenth-century gentleman who describes his own politics as "left of center," Shaffer is a complex …

Information Technology And U.S. Legal Education: Opportunities, Challenges, And Threats, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Interpretation, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Improving Legal Writing Courses: Perspectives From The Bar And Bench, Constance Krontz, Susan Mcclellan

Faculty Articles

To fine-tune legal writing courses to better prepare law students to enter legal practice, Professors Constance Krontz and Susan McClellan surveyed judges and practicing attorneys who supervise the work of first-year associates or judicial law clerks. They selected attorneys from a variety of practices in Washington State, including offices of public defenders and state prosecutors, the Attorney General's office, and private firms of various sizes. They sought information about the performance of all first-year clerks and associates, without reference to where they obtained their law degrees. Knowledge of the bench and bar's perception of the oral and written performance of …

The Way We Were And What We “B”, Kelly Kunsch

Faculty Articles

This article describes the changes over the past 20 years in the job of reference librarian. Using typical reference questions and quotes from leading law librarians in the early '80s, the author compares current practice and explains the differences in the time, place, and manner of legal reference. Although answering questions may be done today more quickly and efficiently than 20 years ago, the increase in demand and expectations make the job more challenging than ever.

The Canon Has A History, Richard A. Primus

Reviews

Legal Canons, edited by J. M. Balkin and Sanford Levinson, is a collection of fourteen essays on subjects related to canonicity in law and legal education. Balkin and Levinson have two principal aims. One is to expand the category of things that can be canonical: not just texts, they say, but also arguments, problems, narrative frameworks, and examples invoked in conversation or teaching. In their view, what makes something canonical is its ability to reproduce itself in the minds of successive generations.' If generation after generation of legal academics argues about the countermajoritarian difficulty, then the countermajoritarian difficulty is a …

Probability And Statistics In The Legal Curriculum: A Case Study In Disciplinary Aspects Of Interdisciplinarity, Michael Townsend

Articles

This Article considers interdisciplinarity and the legal curriculum in the context of probability and statistics. Section D of Part II begins the discussion by sketching some multidisciplinary, pluridisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. Part III is the workhorse of this Article. The particular example used here is the well-known jury discrimination case of Castaneda v. Partida as described in Section A. This "case study" provides the basis for a crossdisciplinary experience that offers students an opportunity to think about law as a discipline. It is difficult for students to step back and look at law as a discipline when there is …