Legal Education Commons^™

Assessing The Viability Of Race-Neutral Alternatives In Law School Admissions, Eboni Nelson, Ronald Pitner, Carla Pratt

Faculty Articles

The past several years have been challenging times for law schools. Many have experienced declines in student enrollment due to a shrinking applicant pool. The declining number of applicants presents increased challenges for law schools, particularly concerning their efforts to educate students in racially diverse learning environments. In light of recent challenges to the constitutionality of race-conscious affirmative action, it is imperative to engage in a project, such as this, that examines the relationship between racial categories and race-neutral identity factors in law school admissions. Understanding the relationship between racial groups and certain race-neutral identity factors will help law schools …

Seeking Inclusion From The Inside Out: Towards A Paradigm Of Culturally Proficient Legal Education, Anastasia M. Boles

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Equality Adds Quality: On Upgrading Higher Education And Research In The Field Of Law, Susanne Baer

Articles

Much has been attempted, and many pro1ects are still underway aimed at achieving equality in higher education and research. Today, the key argument to demand and support the integration of gender in academia is that equality is indeed about the quality on which academic work is supposed to be based. Although more or less national political, social and cultural contexts matter as much as academic environments, regarding higher education and research, the integration of gender into the field of law seems particularly interesting. Faculties of law enjoy a certain standing and status, are closely connected to power and politics, and …

Newsroom: Johnson Wins 2nd Term As Mbwa President 09/28/2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Keynote Address: The Honorable Carlton W. Reeves, United States District Court For The Southern District Of Mississippi, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Rwu Law: The Magazine Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (Issue 9) (2016), Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Trajectory Of A Law Professor, Meera E. Deo

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Women of color are already severely underrepresented in legal academia; as enrollment drops and legal institutions constrict further, race and gender disparities will likely continue to grow. Yet, as many deans and associate deans, most of whom are white, step down from leadership positions during these tumultuous times in legal education, opportunities have arisen for women of color to fill those roles in record numbers. However, there are individual and structural barriers preventing access to the leadership level. Significant hurdles have long prevented women of color from entering law teaching. Thus, this Article provides evidence to support the thesis that …

Implicit Bias And The Legal Profession's "Diversity Crisis": A Call For Self-Reflection, Nicole E. Negowetti

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Diversity Challenge: Exploring The 'Invisible College' Of International Arbitration, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As diversity can affect the perceived legitimacy of a state’s dispute resolution system and the quality of judicial decisions, diversity levels in the national bench and bar have been an area of transnational concern. By contrast, little is known about diversity of adjudicators and counsel in international arbitration. With a lack of accurate, complete, and publicly available data about international arbitrators and practitioners, speculation about membership in the “invisible college” of international arbitration abounds. Using data from a survey of attendees at the prestigious and elite biennial Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration permitted one glimpse into the …

From Access To Success: Affirmative Action Outcomes In A Class-Based System, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart

Publications

Scholarly discussion about affirmative action policy has been dominated in the past ten years by debates over "mismatch theory'"--the claim that race-conscious affirmative action harms those it is intended to help by placing students who receive preferences among academically superior peers in environments where they will be overmatched and unable to compete. Despite serious empirical and theoretical challenges to this claim in academic circles, mismatch has become widely accepted outside those circles, so much so that the theory played prominently in Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas. This Article explores whether mismatch occurs in …

Teaching The Newly Essential Knowledge, Skills, And Values In A Changing World, Eliza Vorenberg, Cynthia F. Adcock, Eden E. Harrington, Elizabeth Kane, Lisa Bliss, Robin Boyle, Conrad Johnson, Susan Schechter, David Udell

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World has contributions from many authors:

• Section A, Professional Identity Formation, includes:
  • Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Values of Professional Identity Formation, by Larry O. Natt Gantt, II & Benjamin V. Madison III,
  • Integrating Professionalism into Doctrinally-Focused Courses, by Paula Schaefer,
  • Learning Professional Responsibility, by Clark D. Cunningham, and
  • Teaching Leadership, by Deborah L. Rhode.
• Section B, Pro Bono as a Professional Value, is by Cynthia F. Adcock, Eden E. Harrington, Elizabeth Kane, Susan Schechter, David S. Udell & Eliza Vorenberg.
• Section C, The Relational Skills of the …

Academic Extremism Threatens Democratic Values (Commentary), Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

Veritas vos liberabit, chanted the scholastics of yesteryear — "the truth will set you free." It's hard to see how that mantra could be echoed by latter-day counterparts in the academy. Consider the recent resolution by the American Studies Association that advocated an academic boycott of Israel. Its argument — that Israeli universities are complicit in state policies violating Palestinians' human rights — belies the truth: Israel has long been the most diverse, inclusive and tolerant of any Middle Eastern country.

The American Legal Profession In The Twenty-First Century, Stephen M. Sheppard

Faculty Articles

Lawyers in the United States work in public service, private counseling, and dispute resolution, but many also work outside of traditional legal practice. The million-member American bar, second largest in the world, grows more diverse by gender, and ethnicity and older on average. All members of this learned profession must qualify by education or examination and by proof of good character and fitness before taking an oath to serve as an attorney. Thence, there are few limitations on the form of legal practice, though many law firms require an associateship before an attorney becomes an owner of the firm. Economic …

Balancing Between Two Worlds: A Dakota Woman’S Reflections On Being A Law Professor, Angelique Eaglewoman

Faculty Scholarship

There were many paths I considered as a young woman and none of them included becoming a law professor. My journey to my present life as a Dakota woman law professor is about balancing between the worlds I travel back and forth in. There is my tribal world, where I feel replenished and part of an on-going community experience stretching back to time immemorial. I feel that I am part of an unfolding history of endurance, strong Native women, and a participant in sustaining our traditional Native ways. On the other hand, there is the non-Indian world, where I often …

Retaining Color, Veronica Root

Journal Articles

It is no secret that large law firms are struggling in their efforts to retain attorneys of color. This is despite two decades of aggressive tracking of demographic rates, mandates from clients to improve demographic diversity, and the implementation of a variety of diversity efforts within large law firms. In part, law firm retention efforts are stymied by the reality that elite large law firms require some level of attrition to function properly under the predominant business model. This reality, however, does not explain why firms have more difficulty retaining attorneys of color — in particular black and Hispanic attorneys …

The Hastie Fellowship Program At Forty: Still Creating Minority Law Professors, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

This article provides a history of and information about the structure of the William H. Hastie Fellowship Program at the University of Wisconsin Law School. This article is part of a series of articles published by the Wisconsin Law Review commemorating Professor James E. Jones Jr., emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and the founder of the Hastie Fellowship Program. Forty years after this pioneering program was established, the Hastie Fellowship Program continues to represent the preeminent pipeline program that has enabled more than 30 minority lawyers to become tenure-track law professors at law schools …

Promoting Language Access In The Legal Academy, Gillian Dutton, Beth Lyon, Jayesh M. Rathold, Deborah M. Weissman

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

"Promoting Language Access in the Legal Academy," details the progress made by the legal profession in meeting the needs of individuals with limited English language proficiency. The authors outlines the current need, summarizes various approaches taken by law schools, and emphasizes the value of training bilingual law students as well as mobilizing a cadre of undergraduate interpreters.

Considering Class: College Access And Diversity, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart

Publications

Each time that the continued legality of race-conscious affirmative action is threatened, colleges and universities must confront the possibility of dramatically changing their admissions policies. Fisher v. University of Texas, which the Supreme Court will hear this year, presents just such a moment. In previous years when affirmative action has been outlawed by ballot initiative in specific states or when the Court has seemed poised to reject it entirely, there have been calls for replacing race-conscious admissions with class-based affirmative action. Supporters of race-conscious affirmative action have typically criticized the class-based alternative as ineffective at maintaining racial diversity. This …

Measuring The Racial Unevenness Of Law School, Jonathan Feingold, Doug Souza

Faculty Scholarship

In "Measuring the Racial Unevenness of Law School," Jonathan Feingold and Doug Souza introduce and analyze the concept of racial unevenness, which refers to the particularized burdens an individual encounters as a result of her race. These burdens, which often arise because an individual falls outside of the racial norm, manifest across a spectrum. At one end lie obvious forms of overt and invidious racial discrimination. At the other end, racial unevenness arises from environmental factors and institutional culture independent from any identifiable perpetrator. As the authors detail, race-dependent burdens can arise in institutions and communities that expressly promote racial …

Bridging The Law School Learning Gap Through Universal Design, Jennifer Jolly-Ryan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Retaining Diversity In The Classroom: Strategies For Maximizing The Benefits That Flow From A Diverse Student Body, Chris Chambers Goodman

Pepperdine Law Review

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the United States Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether diversity is a sufficiently compelling government interest to justify an affirmative action program that considered race and ethnicity in allocating law school admission offers. The Court determined that diversity was a compelling interest, resolving the conflict in the federal circuits on that issue. In this article, Goodman argues that the courts must examine the tightness of the fit between the goal of either achieving diversity or of realizing the benefits that flow from a diverse student body, and the means used to try to accomplish either …

The Promise Of Grutter: Diverse Interactions At The University Of Michigan Law School, Meera E. Deo

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School on the grounds of educational diversity. Yet the Court's assumption that admitting diverse students into law school would result in improved race relations, livelier classroom conversations, and better professional outcomes for students has never been empirically tested. This Article relies on survey and focus group data collected at the University of Michigan Lav School campus itself in March 2010 to examine not only whether, but how diversity affects learning. The data indicate both that there are sufficient numbers of students of color …

On Legal Education And Reform: One View Formed From Diverse Perspectives, Robert J. Rhee

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article identifies two interconnected problems in legal education. First, legal education and practice are more disconnected than they should be, a reality which distinguishes law schools from other professional schools. The major flaw of legal education as the failure to produce more market-ready lawyers who have a mix of skills and knowledge to add value in a complex and challenging practice environment. Second, law school imposes large direct and opportunity costs on its students. These costs combine with the problem of a deficiency in academic training and post-graduation financing of additional training in the workplace to impose a growing …

Against Practice, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

This Review examines the theory/practice dichotomy in legal education through the prism of the Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law. Descriptively, it argues that the Foundation's investigation of law school curricular deficiencies in the areas of clinical-lawyer skills, professionalism, and public service overlooks the relevance of critical pedagogies in teaching students how to deal with difference-based identity and how to build cross-cultural community in diverse, multicultural practice settings differentiated by mutable and immutable characteristics such as class, gender, and race. Prescriptively, it argues that the Foundation's remedial call for the curricular integration of clinical lawyer …

Just What The Doctor Ordered: The Need For Cross-Cultural Education In Law School, Andrew King-Ries

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article urges law schools to follow their medical counterparts by incorporating cross-cultural education into their curricula.

Part II discusses the Grutter v. Bollinger decision and the Supreme Court's recognition of the benefits of diversity to legal education.

Part III highlights the changing demographics of the United States and how those demographics require immediate response from the legal academy.

Part IV considers the experience of medical education. This section begins by exploring a study of the medical profession conducted by the Institute of Medicine. The section then addresses medical schools' response to the Institute of Medicine report and the subsequent …

Freeriders And Diversity In The Legal Academy: A New Dirty Dozen List?, Ediberto Roman, Christopher B. Carbot

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: Latinos and Latinas at the Epicenter of Contemporary Legal Discourses. Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, March 2007.

Freeriders And Diversity In The Legal Academy: A New Dirty Dozen List, Ediberto Román, Christopher B. Carbot

Faculty Publications

Latina and Latino student enrollment in U.S. law schools the last few decades has increased. This increase, however, has not resulted in a comparable increase in Latino and Latina law professors. To foster diversity in law school faculties and to increase Latina representation, the “Dirty Dozen List” was published. The List was comprised of the top twelve U.S. law schools located in high Latina populated areas but lacking a single Latina professor on the faculty. The List served to increase awareness of the lack of diversity at some of the nation’s top legal institutions, as well as “shame” these schools …

Deaning For Whom? Means And Ends In Legal Education, Hon. Kristin Booth Glen

Seattle University Law Review

I was an accidental dean. Law school deanship, or any kind of administration, was something that had never occurred to me. But after almost thirty happy and rewarding years as a constitutional litigator, state trial and appellate judge, and frequent law school professor, my dear friend, W. Haywood Burns, asked me to apply for the deanship at City University of New York School of Law (CUNY). Any request from Haywood was a good enough reason for complying. When, to my surprise, I was selected, I had to confront the more profound question of why I should become a law school …

Succeeding In The Candidate Pool: Resources Available For Persons Interested In Becoming A Law School Dean, David A. Brennan

Seattle University Law Review

This presentation covers three areas that fall under my supervision as Deputy Director of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). First, I will discuss the two Deans Databanks that I administer, which relate directly to increasing diversity among the ranks of law school deans in America: the Women Deans Databank and the Minority Deans Databank. In particular, I will address how these two databanks reflect the core values of the AALS and how the databanks function in the deanship process. Second, I will discuss the Law Deanship Manual, an AALS publication that addresses nearly every aspect of what it …

Selected Commentary, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

First, why become a dean? This is the million-dollar question. It is a critically important question to ask yourself. To adequately answer that question, you must ask some related ones: What are the rewards and challenges of deaning? When is the right time--professionally and personally--for me to be a dean? These are as much personal as professional queries.