Legal Education Commons^™

One Semester, One Deal: A Transactional-Practice Focused Syllabus, Kari Sanderson

Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law

No abstract provided.

Training Law Students To Model Civility When Social Media Makes Civility Harder To Maintain, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Anti-Bias Cle: A Serious Problem Deserves More Meaningful Response, Rima Sirota

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay addresses the problematic convergence of two recent trends: (1) the expansion of jurisdictions requiring anti-bias training (ABT) as part of mandatory continuing legal education (CLE), and (2) the growing recognition among social scientists that such training, at least as currently practiced, is of limited effectiveness.

Forty-six American states require continuing legal education (CLE), and eleven of these states now require lawyer ABT as one facet of CLE requirements. I have previously criticized the mandatory CLE system because so little evidence supports the conclusion that it results in more competent lawyers. The central question tackled by this essay is …

Brown Now: The Surprising Possibility Of Progressive Reform, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For four decades, the Supreme Court has engaged in a determined, systematic and successful effort to transform and tame Brown v. Board of Education. But in this article, written for a symposium on Brown at 70, I suggest a surprising counterweight to the standard narrative. If one takes modern doctrine seriously -- a big if, I concede-- it has the potential to support some progressive goals.

In particular, modern doctrine might provide progressives answers to three questions:

1. Are race-conscious but facially neutral means of increasing diversity at state institutions of higher education constitutional?
2. Are legacy admissions to state run institutions …

We Shall Overcome: The Evolution Of Quotas In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of Samba, Stella Emery Santana

Seattle University Law Review

When were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.

The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within …

Pacific Islands And The U.S. Military: The Legal Borderlands Of The Environmental Movement, Sonia Lei

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change remains an urgent, ongoing global issue that requires critical examination of institutional polluters. This includes the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum: the United States military. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a massive institution with little oversight, a carbon footprint spanning the globe, a budget greater than the next ten largest nations combined, and overly generous exemptions to environmental regulations and carbon reduction targets. This Comment examines how this lack of accountability and oversight plays out in the context of three Pacific islands that have hosted U.S. military bases for decades. By considering the environmental impact of …

Pioneers Of Progress: Celebrating The Women Of Roger Williams University School Of Law On Its 30th Anniversary, Natalie Rogge, Aidan Boisvert

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (January 2024): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Externships For Equity, Lauren K. Valastro

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

This article examines the crucial role of externships in improving employment outcomes for marginalized law students, who often face systemic barriers to success in the legal field. Despite advancements, these students continue to have lower employment rates after graduation, largely due to institutional failures. Externships offer a low-cost, high-impact opportunity for students to gain the competencies employers seek, thus significantly enhancing their chances of securing employment. By analyzing data, the essay highlights the positive effect of externships on marginalized students' hiring outcomes. It also addresses broader questions on how legal employers evaluate candidates and proposes that expanding and supporting externship …

After Affirmative Action: Contextual Admissions And The Future Of African American Law School Enrollment, Nathan L. Bennett Fleming

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appoint Judge Ana De Alba To The Ninth Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

The United States Senate must rapidly appoint Eastern District of California Judge Ana de Alba to the Ninth Circuit. This appellate tribunal is a preeminent regional circuit, which faces substantial appeals, has the largest complement of jurists, and clearly includes a massive geographic expanse. The nominee, whom President Joe Biden designated in spring 2023, would offer remarkable gender, experiential, ideological, and ethnic diversity realized primarily from serving productively with the California federal district, and state trial, courts after rigorously litigating for one decade in a highly regarded private law firm. For over fifteen years, she deftly excelled in law’s upper …

Cognitive Decline And The Law, Case Western Reserve University School Of Law, Law-Medicine Center

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Un Ésprit Sérieux, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Advanced Online Continuing Legal Education: How To Leverage Technology-Mediated Education For Lawyers' Lifelong Learning, Seth C. Oranburg

Scholarly Articles

Continuing legal education ("CLE") is theoretically important not only for lawyers but also for society. CLE aims to keep lawyers' knowledge of ever-changing law and technology up to date so that lawyers can continue advancing law on its long bend toward justice. CLE can socialize lawyers to the rapidly changing human phenomenon we call culture so that they remain keenly aware of what justice requires. And CLE could help attorneys fulfill their duty of technological competence by keeping attorneys' understanding of legal technology current. For these reasons, as well as others, most states mandate that lawyers take several hours of …

Merging The Bench, Bar, And Law Schools: How A Student Scholars Program Achieves Professional Identity Through Scholarly Writing, Mentorship, And Presentation, John C. Foley, Robin Boyle-Laisure, Troy Kessler

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Legal education is transforming. The American Bar Association's accreditation standards now require law schools to provide students with substantial opportunities for the development of professional identities together with an education that results in competencies in oral and written communication. As the professional identity formation requirement changes law school curricula, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes in the practice of law resulting in an emphasis on remote advocacy and presentation skills. This article explains the design and implementation of an innovative co-curricular program that addresses the new educational standard and the realities of practicing law today. In the Student Scholars …

In-House Counsel(Or): The Case For Providing Integrated Mental Health Support Services To Law Students, Eric W. Shannon

Faculty Publications

While some American law schools currently provide onsite mental health support services to their student populations, many still do not. This essay is the first to argue that all law schools should provide onsite mental health support services to their students—ideally, by way of a mental health professional integrated within the law school’s staff (an “integrated mental health professional,” or “IMHP”) who is familiar not only with the unique pressures of law school generally, but also with the school-specific environment. It explores current data on law student well-being as well as external considerations including ABA recommendations and standards for law …

Critical Race Thinking In A Pro-Black Space: An Asian American Law Professor's Reflections On Teaching At An Hbcu, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been the subject of both scholarly criticism and praise. Some of these colleges have shut down in recent years. Many HBCU law schools could face the same fate due to bar passage and other issues. However, with the recent Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admission, Inc. (SFFA) v. Harvard invalidating long-standing race-conscious admissions policies in higher education, HBCUs have become even more relevant in the educational landscape. As admission to historically White institutions (HWIs) become more elusive and as racial diversity at these places plumets, HBCUs are expected to admit …

Having Fun While Learning: Pedagogical Techniques For Teaching Contract Drafting, Robin Boyle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Welcome everyone. Thank you very much for coming. It’s so exciting that we’re all together. I was looking forward to this conference. I’m Robin Boyle and I haven’t been here in a long time, unfortunately. So, it’s wonderful to come back and to see all of you.

My foray into contract drafting began about twenty years ago, when I started teaching Drafting Litigation Documents and Contracts (3 credits), which had a contract drafting component. The school also created a standalone Contract Drafting course (2 credits). The books that I’ve been using over the years have been very helpful. I …

Outside The Margins: Journal Alternatives For Professional Skill And Identity Development, Eric W. Shannon

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Every summer I hear from students who did not receive an offer to join their preferred journal—or sometimes any journal at all. Overall student interest in journal staff member positions generally outnumbers available spots in publications. Still other students opt out of participating in the writing competition entirely because of significant out-of-school responsibilities or other constraints on their time.

The appeal of journal membership is in many ways self-evident. It affords the space, time, and resources to sharpen legal research and writing skills. It can facilitate exploration of subject-matter areas of interest and help staff members decide on an …

The Music & The Movement: Race, Rhythm, And Social Justice, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

From Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" to J. Cole's "Be Free," music has played a vital role in energizing social justice movements and elevating the legal and social issues facing Black people. An examination into the legal, historical, and social contexts for the music created during ten key movements in Black history reveals the role of lyrics and rhythm. Through the lens of music, ten movements—Freedom, Lynching, the Great Migration, Civil Rights, Black Power, Black Feminism, Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, Black Love, and Black Lives Matter—demonstrate that Black music is more than entertainment. It is …

The Stories We (Don’T) Tell: Using Case Briefing To Explore Bias And Oppression In The Law, Ashley B. Armstrong

Faculty Publications

Traditional case briefing focuses on the text of the opinion—how courts frame and resolve legal issues. This Essay explores how to teach case briefing to investigate bias and oppression in the law. By discussing socio-historical context during class or assigning reimagined judicial opinions alongside the original opinion, teaching case briefing this way asks students to consider the stories that judges don’t tell (and why). This Essay proffers two examples that illustrate these approaches: United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973) and Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co., 350 F.2d 445 (1965).

Breaking The Rules, Rima Sirota

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Breaking the Rules” is a legal research and writing assignment that I crafted for students completing their first year of law school. The assignment honors new students’ desire for skills that will allow them to effectively challenge the status quo of settled but discriminatory legal rules. Part I of this article is an essay that contextualizes and explains the assignment; Part II provides the assignment itself.

The Consumer’S Choice To Boycott, Agnes Bresee

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of employees losing their jobs upon voicing their political opinions concerning Israel, Harvard and Columbia law students’ job offers being rescinded upon expressing support for Palestine, and the names and social media profiles of individuals who support Palestine being collected and listed on Canary Mission, such backlash may leave many Americans wondering what form of resistance to settler-colonialist apartheid is acceptable in the twenty-first century. Recently, the movement to collectively boycott brands like Starbucks, which sued its Worker’s Union for a tweet expressing support for Palestine; Disney, which donated money to Israel; and McDonald’s, where a location …

Civil Appeals Mediation Program 2023 Mediation Colloquy "Thinking 101" And Mediation

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

A Different Approach To Agency Theory And Implications For Esg, Jonathan Bonham, Amoray Riggs-Cragun

Seattle University Law Review

In conventional agency theory, the agent is modeled as exerting unobservable “effort” that influences the distribution over outcomes the principal cares about. Recent papers instead allow the agent to choose the entire distribution, an assumption that better describes the extensive and flexible control that CEOs have over firm outcomes. Under this assumption, the optimal contract rewards the agent directly for outcomes the principal cares about, rather than for what those outcomes reveal about the agent’s effort. This article briefly summarizes this new agency model and discusses its implications for contracting on ESG activities.

Overseeing The Administrative State, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has reduced the regulatory power of the Administrative State. Pending cases offer vehicles for the Court to go still further. Although the Court’s skepticism of administrative agencies may be rooted in Constitutional principles or political expediency, this Article explores another possible explanation—a shift in the nature of agencies and their regulatory role. As Pritchard and Thompson detail in their important book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court was initially skeptical of agency power, jeopardizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s ambitious New Deal plan. The Court’s acceptance …

The Sec, The Supreme Court, And The Administrative State, Paul G. Mahoney

Seattle University Law Review

Pritchard and Thompson have given those of us who study the SEC and the securities laws much food for thought. Their methodological focus is on the internal dynamics of the Court’s deliberations, on which they have done detailed and valuable work. The Court did not, however, operate in a vacuum. Intellectual trends in economics and law over the past century can also help us understand the SEC’s fortunes in the federal courts and make predictions about its future.

A Hard Pill To Swallow: The Abysmal Mental Health Standards Of Detained Immigrant Children In The United States, Rama Bankesly

Seattle University Law Review

After setting foot into the U.S., unaccompanied children must learn to navigate academic and legal systems while receiving little support and carrying the heavy burden of effects of trauma on their mental health. They need access to mental health care from qualified professionals, but as this Comment will explain, they systematically fail to receive care, as can be seen in cases like Doe v. Shenandoah Valley Juv. Ctr. Comm’n. In Shenandoah, an unaccompanied child arrived in the U.S. and was placed in a facility that failed to provide remotely adequate mental health care and in fact was subjected …

Reactive Hypotheticals In Legal Education: Leveraging Ai To Create Interactive Fact Patterns, Sean Steward

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Good legal hypotheticals require carefully constructed scenarios designed to mimic the challenges and dilemmas that students will face in their future legal careers. Hypotheticals help students take abstract concepts such as negligence or res ipsa loquitor and ground them in the reality that these rules were meant to control. Yet, despite our best efforts, creating hypotheticals with a rich tapestry of facts, personalities, and complexities that characterize real-world legal practice remains challenging and time-consuming. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can solve this problem. By leveraging emerging AI technology, legal educators can create richer, more realistic hypotheticals that react to students and keep …

Artificial Intelligence And Ethical Considerations For The New Legal Learner: An Annotated Bibliography, Sarah Starnes

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This annotated bibliography focuses on providing relevant and helpful resources to those who may be new to using artificial intelligence and want to understand the legal and ethical implications. For attorneys to adhere to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and ethically practice law in conjunction with artificial intelligence, it is vital to learn as much as possible. The articles, cases, advisory opinions, and court rules within this annotated bibliography provide insight into the current state of practicing law with AI.