Legal Education Commons^™

Volume 37, No. 4

The Weldon Times

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

Editor in Chief: Suzanne Kittell

Layout Editor: Kate Rothschild

Editors: Hannah Choo, Paul Neville, Alex Hartwig

Volume 38, No. 4

The Weldon Times

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

Editor in Chief: Max Rothschild

Layout Editor: Kate Rothschild

Editors: Suzanne Kittle, Phil Moreria, Alex Gorlewski

Note: The issue was misprinted as Volume 37, no. 4

Testing, Diversity, And Merit: A Reply To Dan Subotnik And Others, Andrea A. Curcio, Carol L. Chomsky, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

The false dichotomy between achieving diversity and rewarding merit frequently surfaces in discussions about decisions on university and law school admissions, scholarships, law licenses, jobs, and promotions. “Merit” judgments are often based on the results of standardized tests meant to predict who has the best chance to succeed if given the opportunity to do so. This Article criticizes over-reliance on standardized tests and responds to suggestions that challenging the use of such tests reflects a race-comes-first approach that chooses diversity over merit. Discussing the firefighter exam that led to the Supreme Court decision in Ricci v. DiStefano, as well as …

Educating Main Street Lawyers, Luz E. Herrera

Faculty Scholarship

Discussion about the value of a law degree has focused on the financial success of lawyers. Both defenders and critics of the existing legal education model largely ignore the implications that the cost of legal education and high lawyer fees have on access to justice. While a lawyer’s ability to make a decent living must be addressed when determining the value of a legal education, we fail to take into account the fact that there are millions of individuals in the U.S. who cannot find a lawyer to represent them when they need one. For advocates who believe that our …

Volume 38, No. 3

The Weldon Times

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

Editor in Chief: Suzanne Kittell

Layout Editor: Kate Rothschild

Editors: Hannah Choo, Paul Neville, Alex Hartwig

Volume 38, No. 2

The Weldon Times

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

Editor in Chief: Suzanne Kittell

Layout Editor: Kate Rothschild

Editors: Hannah Choo, Paul Neville, Alex Hartwig

Volume 38, No. 1

The Weldon Times

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

Editor in Chief: Suzanne Kittell

Layout Editor: Kate Rothschild

Editors: Hannah Choo, Paul Neville, Alex Hartwig

The Learned-Helpless Lawyer: Clinical Legal Education And Therapeutic Jurisprudence As Antidotes To Bartleby Syndrome, Amy D. Ronner

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Thinking Like A Lawyer, Designing Like An Architect: Preparing Students For The 21st Century Practice, Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck, Kevin G. Mulcahy

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Various law schools—Chicago-Kent Law School, New York Law School, Vermont Law School, and Georgetown Law Center among them—are beginning to offer innovative classes in which students learn to build legal expert systems intended to enhance access to the legal system. Working in platforms that do not require technical expertise, students are able to build apps that incorporate rules-based logic, factor balancing, and mathematical operations to implement the reasoning of a regulatory regime. In this essay, we suggest that teaching students to design apps furthers pedagogic goals associated with the traditional law school curriculum and clinical teaching. In designing legal expert …

The Teaching Of Law Practice Management And Technology In Law Schools: A New Paradigm, Richard S. Granat, Stephanie Kimbro

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The teaching of law practice management in law schools is becoming more critical for our profession. Employment with a traditional law firm used to provide the training and mentorship necessary to practice law. As a result of fewer employment prospects with traditional law firms, law students are now faced with the prospect of entering into law practice without this critical training and knowledge base soon after they become members of the bar.

Additionally, the Internet and information technology is transforming the practice of law and, as a result, the management of law firms is also being transformed. Lawyers must understand …

Developing An E-Curriculum: Reflections On The Future Of Legal Education And On The Importance Of Digital Expertise, Oliver Goodenough

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Legal education is in the midst of significant change, where much of how and what we have taught is under scrutiny. As we reform our curriculums in this moment of change, we should be guided by considerations of value added, values added, economic sustainability. It is no longer enough for our programs to target bar passage, doctrinal coverage, a shared language of argument, and skills and perspectives, important as these may be. Practice in the foreseeable future requires us to add new knowledge and competencies. Law and technology is an area that is ripe for expansion, with the possibility of …

Law Schools As Knowledge Centers In The Digital Age, Vern R. Walker, A.J. Durwin, Philip H. Hwang, Keith Langlais, Mycroft Boyd

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explores what it would mean for law schools to be “knowledge centers” in the digital age, and to have this as a central mission. It describes the activities of legal knowledge centers as: (1) focusing on solving real legal problems in society outside of the academy; (2) evaluating the problem-solving effectiveness of the legal knowledge being developed; (3) re-conceptualizing the structures used to represent legal knowledge, the processes through which legal knowledge is created, and the methods used to apply that knowledge; and (4) disseminating legal knowledge in ways that assist its implementation. The Article uses as extended …

Teaching Law And Digital Age Legal Practice With An Ai And Law Seminar, Kevin D. Ashley

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article provides a guide and examples for using a seminar on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Law to teach lessons about legal reasoning and about legal practice in the digital age. Artificial Intelligence and Law is a subfield of AI/ computer science research that focuses on computationally modeling legal reasoning. In at least a few law schools, the AI and Law seminar has regularly taught students fundamental issues about law and legal reasoning by focusing them on the problems these issues pose for scientists attempting to computationally model legal reasoning. AI and Law researchers have designed programs to reason with …

Volume 37, No. 6

The Weldon Times

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

Editor in Chief: Max Rothschild

Layout Editor: Kate Rothschild

Editors: Suzanne Kittle, Phil Moreria, Alex Gorlewski

Negotiation From Strength: Advantage Derived From The Process And Strategy Of Preparing For Competitive Negotiation , R. Hanson Lawton

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Seeking Integrity: Learning Integratively From Classroom Controversy (With Patti Alleva), Patti Alleva, Laura L. Rovner

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The Carnegie Report* makes a compelling case that preparation for legal practice should involve learning experiences that help to integrate the three basic apprenticeships or dimensions of professional work — thinking, performing, and valuing like a lawyer. This challenge has not been ignored by the legal academy. In recent years especially, many law schools have attempted to foster learning experiences that integrate legal doctrine, lawyering skills, and professional values. These efforts span the spectrum from broad-based curricular change to the addition or revision of individual courses. Not to be overlooked, however, are the immediate integrative learning opportunities presented by unexpected …

Top Ten Law School Home Pages Of 2012, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

For the fourth consecutive year, we try to identify law school home pages that are well-executed and adopt best practices. We evaluated all ABA-accredited home pages based on objective criteria. The attempt is to find the best-designed, best-performing sites.

Beyond Skills Training, Revisited: The Clinical Education Spiral, Carolyn Grose

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Library Services For The Self-Interested Law School: Enhancing The Visibility Of Faculty Scholarship, Simon Canick

Faculty Scholarship

This article suggests a new set of filters through which to evaluate law library services, in particular those that support faculty scholarship. These filters include recent profound changes in legal education and the motivators of today’s law professors. By understanding the needs of self-interested deans and professors, libraries can fill new roles that are consistent with our core values. Libraries can also focus on dissemination and promotion of faculty work, especially through innovative open access projects.

Of Carts And Horses: Organizing Remedies For The Classroom, Elaine W. Shoben

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Financial Retrenchment And Institutional Entrenchment: Will Legal Education Respond, Explode, Or Just Wait It Out?, Ian Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

Both markets and ideas have turned against the American legal profession. Legal hiring has contracted, and law school enrollments are decreasing. The business models of big law and legal education are under pressure, current levels of student indebtedness seem unsustainable, and a hero has yet to emerge from our fragmented regulatory structures. In the realm of ideas, the information revolution has sparked deep critiques of structured knowledge and expertise, opening the roles of the law and the university in society to reexamination. We are less enamored of the scholar-lawyer and gaze with longing at technocrats. I hope that clinical law …

Does Testing = Race Discrimination?: Ricci, The Bar Exam, The Lsat, And The Challenge To Learning, Dan Subotnik

Scholarly Works

Aptitude and achievement tests have been under heavy attack in the courts and in academic literature for at least forty years. Griggs v. Duke Power (1971) and Ricci v. DeStefano (2009) are the most important judicial battle sites. In those cases, the Supreme Court decided the circumstances under which a test could be used by an employer to screen employees for promotion when the test had a negative racial impact on test takers.

The related battles over testing for entry into the legal academy and from the academy into the legal profession have been no less fierce. The assault on …

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 …

Managing U.S. News & World Report--The Enron Way, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Fortitude At Forty, Or Why A Seemingly Content, Overly Ambitious, And Detrimentally Optimistic Forty-Something Year Old Decided To Upend His Life And Go To Law School

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Heretical View Of Teaching: A Contrarian Looks At Teaching, The Carnegie Report, And Best Practices, Gary Shaw

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Practicing On Purpose: Promoting Personal Wellness And Professional Values In Legal Education, Gretchen Duhaime

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reforming Legal Education: Law Schools At The Crossroads, Debra Curtis, David Moss

Faculty Scholarship

In today's volatile law school environment, curriculum reform has emerged as a significant focus. It is commonly understood that law schools effectively teach certain analytical skills, but are less successful in other areas, and often scramble to adapt to evolving aims. This book demonstrates how law schools are successfully reforming their curriculum - and lays the framework to show how all schools of law can engage in a continuous reform model that proactively shapes our profession. It is expected that faculty and professional staff engaged in legal education will utilize this book as a primary resource to guide their respective …

Educating New Lawyers, Tara L. Casey

Law Faculty Publications

In this article, the author discusses how law schools have been challenged recently to place greater emphasis on preparing students for the realities of legal practice through skills training and community-based learning.

Compelling Orthodoxy: Myth And Mystique In The Marketing Of Legal Education, Kenneth Lasson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “In many ways, the story of modern legal education reads like a grim fairy tale, whose moral dénouement is no less compelling, and perhaps more consequential, than its fabulist forbearers. In this regard the marketing of legal education may aptly be illustrated by fable, such as that of The Trees and the Bramble Bush, which concerns the folly of electing a king. When some beautiful trees decide to look for a leader, they offer the throne to the olive, the fig and the vine; each in turn refuses, preferring to keep to its own fruitful role. The bramble steps …