Legal Education Commons^™

"How Do I Design My Law Course?": A Quick Guide For New Professors, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

How do professors start teaching law? This question is a particular challenge for new law professors, who often lack resources for course design. Written from the perspective of a recently tenured law professor, this Essay offers four major categories of decisions: semester structure, classroom, final exam, and “professorial personality.” It argues that, for each decision, reasonable minds can differ. This Essay also provides some personal reflections on the decision-making to illustrate how one professor might weigh various considerations in course design. A final Appendix is a checklist for new professors.

Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power Of Small-Group Instruction, Michael I. Meyerson

Seattle University Law Review

Legal education is failing its students. Those entering their first year of law school have greater anxiety and less developed reading and writing skills than ever before. The traditional large Socratic class, which was never the most effective teaching method, has become increasingly counterproductive.

This Article contends that small-group instruction provides the opportunity for superior teaching, especially for first-year law students. Recent scholarship in active learning, educational psychology, and students’ mental health demonstrates the limitations of the traditional large Socratic class experience. Building on that theoretical foundation and informed by sustained classroom experience, this Article argues that small-group pedagogy more …

Teaching Telemachus: Learning To Live And Lead In A Flawed World, Sherman J. Clark

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Odyssey By Homer. Translated by Emily Wilson.

From Classroom To Courtroom: Understanding Real Pathways Into Legal Careers, Timothy S. Troxel

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This study examines how legal professionals describe their preparation for legal and law-adjacent careers, with the goal of identifying practical guidance for college students entering the field. Existing literature on legal career preparation often emphasizes measurable qualifications, while offering broad or generalized advice. At the same time, research on career development highlights the importance of experiential learning and mentorship, suggesting a gap between formal guidance and lived experience. To explore this gap, this study conducted interviews with ten legal professionals across a range of roles and experience levels. Participants were asked about their backgrounds, career paths, skill development, and other …

Hbcus And Disparate Law School Rankings, Michael Conklin

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article measures the difference between perceptions of HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) law schools and their objective performance. This is conducted by comparing the disparities between each law school’s U.S. News & World Report subjective peer ranking and objective overall ranking. This novel methodology provides valuable insight into the role race plays in legal education and the practice of law. This comes at a critical juncture where issues such as the Supreme Court’s banning of race-conscious admissions, new findings regarding law school mismatch, the racially motivated rankings boycott, and the Trump administration’s aggressive targeting of colleges are all …

Grading Machines: Can Ai Exam-Grading Replace Law Professors?, Kevin L. Cope, Jen Frankenreiter, Scott Hirst, Eric A. Posner, Daniel Schwarcz, Dane Thorley

Faculty Scholarship

In the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant technical advances, such that legal-advocacy organizations are increasingly adopting them as complements to—or substitutes for—lawyers and other human experts. Several studies have examined LLMs' performance in taking law school exams, finding mixed results. Yet there have been no published studies systematically analyzing LLMs' competence at one of law professors' chief responsibilities: grading law school exams. This paper presents results of an analysis of how LLMs perform in evaluating student responses to legal analysis questions of the kind typically administered in law school exams. The underlying data come from …

Rethinking Legal Education: Demystifying Neurodiversity And Building An Inclusive Future, Jennifer Kindred Mitchell, Charlie Amiot

The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning

This article contributes significantly to the discourse on legal education by arguing that embracing neurodiversity not only enhances the learning environment for all students but also cultivates a legal profession that is truly reflective of societal diversity. Ultimately, neurodiversity should be embraced as an asset. By adopting inclusive practices, legal education can nurture the promise of ND students and improve outcomes for all. This article seeks to inspire a new paradigm that celebrates neurocognitive diversity’s contributions to the legal profession.

Neurodivergent (ND) students comprise approximately a quarter of the law school population, yet traditional legal education often fails to meet …

Fostering An Equitable Scrum: A Conceptual Framework For Using Antiracist Enrollment Management Practices To Counter Job Market Discrimination, Aaron N. Taylor

AccessLex Institute Research

For most law students, attending law school is an investment. At stake are immense amounts of time and money spent pursuing the degree. The most desired payoff is a lucrative and fulfilling career. This chapter argues that law schools must adopt enrollment management practices that attempt to account for the job market their entering students will face at graduation. In proffering this argument, the chapter presents a conceptual framework for aligning class size targets to the future job market and proposes an equity-based approach to tuition discounting that accounts for job market racism. Graduates of color, particularly Black graduates, experience …

Relentless: The Pressures Shortening Law School Deanships And What Must Change, Katie Kempner, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Articles

It is no small thing when a law school loses its dean. The departure triggers a national search, stalls institutional momentum, disrupts fundraising, and requires rebuilding years of relationships with faculty, alumni, and university leadership, all while the institution navigates one of the most turbulent periods in legal education's history. Approximately 25 percent of the nation's law schools transition to a new dean in any given year. That reality prompted this study.

This study combined a survey of 624 current and former law school deans, which yielded 256 responses and data on 294 deanships, with 70 qualitative interviews conducted between …

Report On The 2025-26 Survey Of Applied Legal Education, David A. Santacroce, Robert R. Kuehn, June T. Tai, Sarah Boonin

Other Publications

This report summarizes the results of the Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education’s (CSALE) 2025-26 Survey of Applied Legal Education. The 2025-26 CSALE Survey is CSALE’s seventh triennial survey of law clinic and field placement (i.e., externship) courses and educators. The results provide insight into the state of experiential legal education in areas like program design, capacity, administration, funding, and pedagogy, and the role of clinic and field placement educators in the legal academy. Law schools, legal educators, scholars, and oversight agencies rely on CSALE’s data. The 2025-26 CSALE Survey is composed of two parts. A Survey of …

Critical Analysis Of Legal Education: Faculty Perspectives Of Law School's Role In Producing Practice-Ready Graduates, Sophia M. Akel

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Legal education has long been the subject of harsh, widespread criticism due to concerns about its ability to adequately prepare students for legal practice. Newer attorneys have reported feeling incapable of performing even the most basic functions of their job after graduation from law school (Merritt & Cornett, 2020). Despite this troubling reality, law schools largely continue to function as they always have (Cramton, 1981). To gain insight directly from important figures in legal academia, this study examined law faculty perceptions on legal education’s role in producing practice-ready graduates. A mixed-methods survey design incorporating both quantitative descriptive and qualitative elements …

In Memoriam: Ken Nunn ’67, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Over the holiday break we lost a distinguished friend and alumnus with the passing of Ken Nunn ’67. He was 85.

Anyone who’s ever spent time in Indiana has likely seen or heard Nunn. His appearances in television commercials, on highway billboards, and on radio spots made him one of the most recognizable figures in the Hoosier State. And on days when the weather was just right, it was almost an Indiana University rite of passage to spot him—gray hair, sparkling smile—rolling down Kirkwood Avenue in a convertible.

The Kids Aren’T Alright, Amy B. Levin

Arkansas Law Review

It is not new that students struggle in law school. Research has shown for decades that, while students generally begin law school with healthy well-being, the competitive nature of law school combined with the stress of the Bar and securing post-Bar employment causes increased anxiety, depression, isolation, and related symptoms among students, especially women and underrepresented groups. What is new is the sheer number of law students struggling with serious mental health challenges today—a number that has reached crisis proportions.

This Article is divided into four parts. In Part I, I explore the mental health landscape for high school, college, …

Last Chance Lawyers: Mercer's Habeas Project And Lessons Learned From A New Generation Of Service Learners, Meagan R. Hurley

Articles

Late on a Sunday night, the conference table in Mercer Law’s Habeas Project classroom was buried under transcripts, cases and drafts of a soon-to-be finished appellate brief. Third-year law students Chyna Carter and Valerie Pallos sat shoulder-to-shoulder, tightening arguments, double-checking citations and calculating word counts yet again. They’d spent weeks working with classmates, meticulously researching their client’s case and poring over a voluminous record, in preparation of filing a habeas appeal with the Supreme Court of Georgia.

“We thought we had a convincing argument and just needed to get it reflected on paper,” Carter, now an associate at McLain & …

Fall 2025: Antimatter

The Weldon Times

A student-run publication from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Co-Editors in Chief: Kimberly Gilson, Carleigh MacKenzie

Stare Decisis And The 1l Classroom: Can Legal Reasoning Be Taught Without Judicial Respect For Precedent?, Mark C. Niles

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

I began my career as a law professor in 1998 and, in every year but one, since then I have taught at least one first-year required law school course. I have taught Civil Procedure each of these years and some version of a required Constitutional Law course in about half of them. I want to say just a little bit about stare decisis and its importance in our legal system from the perspective of a law professor teaching first-year students.

I have found that although teaching Civil Procedure involves a focus on a range of substantive issues including judicial …

Summer 2025: Retrograde

The Weldon Times

A student-run publication from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Co-Editors in Chief: Kimberly Gilson, Carleigh MacKenzie

Graphics & Layout: Kimberly Gilson

Boundary-Setting And Choice-Making With No "Adult" In The Room: Professional Identity Formation Opportunities For 1ls In The Transactional Context, Marni Goldstein Caputo, Kathleen Luz

Faculty Scholarship

Law schools are now required by the American Bar Association’s Standard 303(b)(3) to provide students with opportunities for professional identity formation throughout their legal education. It is critical that those opportunities be well-balanced and tied to the realities of practice. Yet until recently, we, as 1L lawyering skills professors at Boston University School of Law, only provided those opportunities in the litigation context. Further, our 1L lawyering skills curriculum was, since its inception, almost entirely steeped in litigation. This litigation focus matches neither the career trajectory nor the upper-level experiential opportunities of the majority of our students. In fact, transactional …

Symposium Introduction: Interrogating The Hidden Curriculum: Implications For Formation Of Professional Identity, David I. C. Thomson

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article provides an introduction to the Symposium, which was held at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law on September 22 - 23, 2023. The Symposium brought together law professors who have taken up the call in the Carnegie Report and the ABA Accreditation requirement that we make broad and integrated effort to provide opportunities for law students to form their professional identities as future attorneys while they are in law school. The law professors invited to participate in the Symposium have worked and written in the area of professional identity for lawyers for many years, and are …

Democratic Lawyering: Upending The "Hidden Curriculum" To Prepare New Lawyers For A New World, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Andrew King-Ries, Monte Mills

Articles

Multiple heightening crises reveal the deficiencies and contradictions of legal education, in particular the values it imparts. Perpetuating myths about U.S. democracy and rule of law, the enduring formalist, liberal legalist cast of law school is increasingly at odds with students’ lived experiences. As liberal democracy and the rule of law falter, no longer is relying on the “hidden curriculum” or the historically nebulous and mythical narratives of the law and our legal system sufficient to prepare tomorrow’s lawyers for the challenges faced by our profession. Instead, with a boost from ABA Standard 303, this article draws on the tradition …

Bakke, Lochner, And Law School: The Nobility Clause Versus A Republican Form Of Medicine, James E. Lobsenz

Maine Law Review

Alan Bakke, an unsuccessful medical school applicant, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the minority admissions program administered by the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. The practice of reserving sixteen special places for minority students out of a total of 100 positions in the entering class, Bakke contended, constituted a denial of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. Bakke's suit afforded the justices of both the California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court a unique opportunity to examine the substantive nature of the "equality" …

U.S. Territories And The Criminal Law Curriculum, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I make a case for why issues concerning the territories should be taught in law school courses and suggest a few ways in which federal criminal adjudication in the territories can and should be incorporated into the criminal law and procedure curriculum.¹⁰ As I advance elsewhere,¹¹ criminal adjudication in the territories functions differently than in the mainland United States.¹² Using the framework of what I call the “territorial criminal legal system,” I have begun mapping the contours of the unique prosecutorial ecosystem produced by the territorial condition.¹³ Chief among the characteristics is the …

Book Review: How To Set Up And Run A Law Clinic, Peggy Maisel, Paul R. Tremblay

Faculty Scholarship

This book answers many questions for those tasked with deciding whether and how to fund a law school clinic. It also provides metrics by which to evaluate the operations of a clinic. And finally, this book addresses not just how best to run a clinic, but in many ways how best to deliver legal services to a community in great need of legal help, whether through a law school program or in the neighborhood. It answers questions every legal aid office in the world with limited resources must answer: how to choose clients, how to decide which services the clients …

When Lsat Doesn't Matter And Other Surprising Finds From A Deep Dive Into Academic Probation In Law School, Kari Milligan, Ryan Jerome Lecount

Faculty Scholarship

Numerous students nationwide are placed on academic probation and ultimately dismissed from law school each year. While students often carefully conceal their probationary status, their lack of visibility within legal communities should not be mistaken for an absence of need. These students are frequently uniquely vulnerable—facing unexpected family emergencies or entering law school unprepared. The consequences of dismissal are dire, with students experiencing adverse mental health effects and financial exigencies. During the 2023–2024 academic year alone, tuition and fees for a single year of law school ranged from $30,000 to $48,000. Yet, little research—particularly quantitative—has been conducted in service of …

Why Academic Law Librarians Quit: Results Of The Law Librarian Exit Survey, Laura J. Ax-Fultz

Faculty Scholarly Works

The pandemic exposed the struggles of workers everywhere. The complexity of handling family, work, illness, and a host of other issues led many to reconsider their employment. The phrase “The Great Resignation” summed up the zeitgeist of the early pandemic. Concurrently, open positions for academic law librarians were increasing. I sought to unravel the apparent surge in open positions by surveying academic law librarians to discover why they resigned from their positions or considered leaving them during the period of January 2020 through June 2023.

These findings were evaluated within the context of a high volume of job postings in …

Flexibility And Resilience Are Essential Legal Skills, Margie Alsbrook

Articles

The legal profession is facing an era of change driven by technological advancements, environmental crises, shifting client expectations, and evolving societal norms. This article argues that flexibility and resilience are not just positive personality traits but essential legal skills that should be intentionally cultivated in law school curricula. By integrating adaptability into legal education—through emphasizing the evolving nature of law, incorporating interdisciplinary approaches, reshaping assessments, and fostering collaborative learning—law schools can better equip students to navigate an unpredictable future. Encouraging law students to embrace flexibility and resilience as a professional skill will not only enhance their long-term success but also …

Winter 2025: Elevate

The Weldon Times

A student-run publication from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Co-Editors in Chief: Faith Thomson, Kimberly Gilson

Shortcomings Of Law School And Big Law, Julian Velasco

Journal Articles

This paper, presented as part of a colloquium on  Lawyers and Their Institutions, considers two important institutions — law schools and "big law," especially transaction practice at elite law firms — and argues that they exert a problematic influence on developing attorneys by inculcating opposing types of disrespect for the law. First, the process of legal education often suggests that the law is fundamentally indeterminate. Second, big law tends to suggest to junior associates that law is largely irrelevant. Such misunderstandings can result in a misconception of the purpose of law and give a false impression of the lawyer's …

Panel Discussion: Mindfulness In The Law School Environment, Erika George, Nicky Boothe, Kellyn O. Mcgee

Faculty Scholarship

A 2016 study of 13,000 lawyers conducted by American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation found that approximately 28 percent struggle with depression, 19 percent anxiety and 23 percent stress.¹² The study found “younger lawyers in the first ten years of practice and those working in private firms experience the highest rates of problem drinking and depression.”¹³ At least one study suggests that 40-70 percent of disciplinary proceedings and malpractice claims against lawyers involve substance abuse or depression.

According to a 2016 Survey of Law Student Well-Being including over 3,300 law …

A Dynamic Alternative: Alumnus Thrives In International Trade Compliance, Catherine Deyarmond

Black History at St. Mary's University - 2025 Collection

Alum Robert Dunlap reflects on his time at St. Mary’s University in the International Relations Joint Degree Program and how it has set him up for his success in his chosen field. Dunlap’s dedication to his education and work has paid dividends in his professional career, allowing him to work in a San Antonio manufacturing business with ties to Mexico, but also for West Pharmaceutical Services, where he has handled new regulations impacting different sites around the world. Dunlap’s success is a shining example of the possibilities of an education at St. Mary's University, but also how alternatives to a …