Legal Education Commons^™

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 …

Religiously Affiliated Law Schools Database, American Bar Foundation

Law School and Faculty Information

The information for this database was collected in the spring of 2014. Variables include:

• School Location
• Public/Private
• Mentions Religion in Mission Statement
• Religiously Affiliated Based on Baylor's Association of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools
• Religiously Affiliated Based on Other Information
• Religious Affiliation

Scholarly Incentives, Scholarship, Article Selection Bias, And Investment Strategies For Today's Law Schools, Dan Subotnik, Laura Ross

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Scholarship In Law Schools, Fabio Arcila Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Education In Crisis, And Why Law Libraries Are Doomed, James G. Milles

Journal Articles

The dual crises facing legal education - the economic crisis affecting both the job market and the pool of law school applicants, and the crisis of confidence in the ability of law schools and the ABA accreditation process to meet the needs of lawyers or society at large - have undermined the case for not only the autonomy, but the very existence, of law school libraries as we have known them. Legal education in the United States is about to undergo a long-term contraction, and law libraries will be among the first to go. A few law schools may abandon …

Legal Academia And The Blindness Of The Elites, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Clinical Collaborations: Going Global To Advance Social Entrepreneurship, Deborah Burand, Susan R. Jones, Jonathan Ng, Alicia E. Plerhoples

Articles

In the summer of 2012, transactional law clinics from three U.S. law schools: George Washington University; Georgetown University; and the University of Michigan launched a collaboration to serve a common client — Ashoka, a global nonprofit organization that supports close to 3,000 social entrepreneurs across 76 countries. While clinic collaborations within universities happen occasionally, clinic collaborations across universities are unusual. This essay focuses on the motivations, operations, lessons, and next steps of this cross-university, clinical collaboration aimed at advancing social entrepreneurship globally. Specifically, this essay examines why the collaboration was launched, how the collaboration is structured, what the collaboration offers …

Scholarship With Purpose: The View From A Mission-Driven School, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

This essay explores the ways that a law school’s unique culture impacts the role of the Associate Dean for Scholarship. Written by the first person to hold this position at Vermont Law School (VLS), this essay focuses specifically on how the Associate Dean for Scholarship supports VLS’s commitment “to developing a generation of leaders who use the power of the law to make a difference in our communities and the world.” This vision of the role, as implemented at VLS, includes: providing support to all faculty, regardless of status; supporting faculty who speak to broad audiences; and embracing a broad …

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 …

What Ails The Law Schools?, Paul Horwitz

Michigan Law Review

In January 2012, law professors from across the country arrived in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS"). It was an opportune moment. The legal economy was struggling. Graduates were begging for jobs and struggling with unprecedented levels of debt. The smart talk from the experts was that the legal economy was undergoing a fundamental restructuring. For these and other reasons, law schools were under fire, from both inside and outside of the academy. Judges - including the keynote speaker at the AALS conference himself! - derided legal scholarship as useless. Law school …

Vol. 63, March 27, 2013, University Of Michigan Law School

Res Gestae

• Teaching Gone Wrong • Letter from the Editor • Detroit: Mid-Size Market • Goodbye, Ma'am Prez Och! • Moran & Friedman's Guide to SCOTUS • RG Mailbag • Halberstam: Squirrel Fan • Debt WIZard • Phid Style Dinners • New LSSS Lunch Series • Mr. Wolverine Letters • Law Student Comics • Photos of Stuff that Happened this year!

Legal Education: Rethinking The Problem, Reimagining The Reforms, Deborah L. Rhode

Pepperdine Law Review

Whether or not law schools are in a crisis, it is certainly true that legal education currently faces a number of significant challenges. The fundamental problem is a lack of consensus over what the problem is. Legal educators and regulators are developing well-intended but inadequate responses to the symptoms, not the causes of law school woes. In addition to identifying the problem, this Article discusses potential reforms. Financial issues represent a significant source of much of the current criticisms face by law schools today. Tuition rates have increased at a pace far outstripping the steep hikes seen at universities as …

The Future Of Legal Education Reform, James E. Moliterno

Pepperdine Law Review

As a historical matter, the legal profession obstinately resists change. Its ponderous, backward-looking and self-preservationist characteristics are embodied in the ABA's Ethics 20/20 Commission, which endeavors to protect, preserve, and maintain. But the profession suffers from such thinking. It must look forward; grow more attuned to outside events and trends; and become a player in how change is assimilated into established ways, and how established ways are replaced by more effective ones. Law schools require reform. The academic focus bears little relation to the reality of practice. Graduates must better able to contribute to clients of law firms and to …

The Future Of Legal Education Reform, James E. Moliterno

Scholarly Articles

The article discusses the criticism raised against legal education including high cost, disconnection between law schools and profession, and lack of employment opportunities. It examines the role of the bar examinations and reflects that the model in place is dysfunctional. It suggests that modern law school should teach students not only legal analysis but also business aspect of law practice such as project management and creative resolutions of disputes.

Thinking Like A Leader:Paula Monopoli

Maryland Carey Law

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. Factors include profound changes in legal education, and motivators of today’s law professors. Understanding the needs of self-interested deans and professors, libraries can fill new roles that are consistent with our core values. In particular we can focus on dissemination and promotion of faculty work, especially through innovative open access projects.

Remedies Reveals The Seamless Web, Candace Kovacic-Fleischer

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION: Remedies is a course that consolidates many of the concepts learned in the first year of law school and some from the second. A typical Remedies course will reintroduce principles from constitutional law, compare and contrast torts and contracts, and apply criminal concepts in civil contexts. Teaching Remedies can be both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because it crosses a wide variety of subject areas. Rewarding because it weaves a variety of subject areas into the "seamless web" of the law, eliciting from students an occasional "aha." Early classes in law school tend to separate courses into discrete subject areas, …

Foundations: Curriculum & Faculty, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

Michigan Law Faculty are the best of the best. As you look through these pages, you will see some of their accomplishments: They serve as senior advisers to policymakers and governments around the world, they argue important cases in courts of every level, and they produce superb research that addresses society's greatest problems.

Our faculty also take teaching very seriously. They are dedicated to using their research and experience to help create a curriculum that will challenge and transform you. Michigan Law's rich curriculum features foundational courses that evolve with the needs of the profession, a wide array of upper-level …

Using A Cultural Lens In The Law School Classroom To Stimulate Self-Assessment, 48 Gonz. L. Rev. 365 (2013), Julie M. Spanbauer

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

The American Bar Association is exerting pressure on United States law schools to improve teaching effectiveness by shifting the evaluation of student learning away from input measures to focus upon output-based assessments. Yet, many legal educators appear to be resistant to and fearful of change, in part, perhaps, due to their comfort with teaching methods such as the Socratic or case-dialogue approach, which demands little accountability for teaching effectiveness and provides more time for the pursuit of the traditional goals of scholarly productivity. This method of teaching as currently utilized in law schools is also innately professor-centric performance art. The …

Providing Dispute Resolution Expertise To The Community, Rishi Batra

Faculty Articles

As schools and other public institutions struggle for funding, law schools and their students have new opportunities to fill unmet needs by providing consulting expertise in facilitation and dispute resolution. Such partnerships can provide valuable service for the institutions while giving students a chance to apply their skills to issues in nearby communities.

The Paradox Of Being An Interim Dean: The Permanent Nature Of A Transitory Position, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Improving Law School "Transparency", Jeffrey E. Stake

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Accelerating The Growth Of The Next Generation Of Innovators, Dana Thompson

Articles

In a recent study on the best practices of business incubators that contribute to the success of startups, one of the best practices asserted is to include a business lawyer on the advisory board of business incubators, who may suggest necessary legal issues for startups to address and connect the incubator startups with legal assistance. Although many college and university incubators may have access to experienced attorneys who are able to provide advice, and who are able to represent student-led ventures, most do not have access to a university law clinic established to provide pro bono, direct legal representation and …

Founding Legal Education In America, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Public Constitutional Literacy; A Conversation, Melissa Hart

Publications

No abstract provided.

Who's Eating Law Firms' Lunch? The Legal Service Providers, Law Schools And New Grads At The Table, William D. Henderson, Rachel M. Zahorsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Transactional Drafting: Using Law Firm Marketing Materials As A Research Resource For Teaching Drafting, Edward R. Becker

Articles

Since I started teaching drafting, I would like to think that I have continued to learn some lessons about teaching both the substance and the skills of transactional drafting. One of those lessons that I am going to be talking about today is one that I stumbled across by happy accident rather than one that I consciously sought. Specifically, I want to talk about and highlight the ways that law students can use law firm marketing materials to increase their understanding of both drafting and lawyering skills in law school and, hopefully, in practice.

Self-Congratulation And Scholarship, Paul Campos

Publications

Professor Jay Silver’s criticism of the reform proposals put forward in Brian Tamanaha’s book Failing Law Schools displays some characteristic weaknesses of American legal academic culture. These weaknesses include a tendency to make bold assertions about the value of legal scholarship and the effectiveness of law school pedagogy, while at the same time providing no support for these assertions beyond a willingness to repeat self-congratulatory platitudes about who professors are and what we do. The high costs for our students of the current scholarly expectations at American law schools are clear. What is not clear is whether those costs are …

The Price Of Legal Education, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Education At A Crossroads: Innovation, Integration, And Pluralism Required!, Karen Tokarz, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Peggy Maisel, Robert Seibel

Faculty Scholarship

Although historically slow to change, law schools are now facing enormous pressure from educators, students, lawyers, judges, clients, and the public to rethink legal education and the lawyer‘s role in society. Now more than ever, there is robust national debate on the threshold contributions law schools should make to the preparation of law graduates for entry into practice. The clamor for reform in legal education is precipitated by a confluence of factors, including new insights about lawyering competencies and experiential legal education; the shifting nature of legal practice in the United States; a decrease in law jobs; changes in the …