Legal Education Commons^™

Learning And Serving: Pro Bono Legal Services By Law Students, David L. Chambers, Cynthia F. Adcock

Articles

All lawyers' codes of professional ethics in the United States expect members of the bar to perform legal services for low-income persons. In practice, as we all know, many lawyers perform a great deal of such service while others do little or none. By much the same token, the accreditation rules of the American Bar Association urge all law schools to provide students with opportunities to do pro bono legal work; by much the same token, some schools in the United States have extensive programs for their students but many do not. In 1998, the Association of American Law Schools …

Building Pediatric Law Careers: The University Of Michigan Law School Experience, Melissa Breger, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Frank E. Vandervort, Naomi Woloshin

Articles

There are several obstacles to training and supporting pediatric lawyers. Children are a relatively new group of clients and law schools have not traditionally provided pediatric training. The required training is particularly challenging to deliver because it is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring faculty and students to look outside of the law school to obtain necessary knowledge. The greatest obstacle to developing the careers of pediatric lawyers is the low pay and low prestige typically afforded children's lawyers. As a result, law students reasonably question the likelihood of developing a successful career in the field. The number of available jobs is limited …

Hard Choices: Thoughts For New Lawyers, David C. Vladeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Rarely do law schools challenge students to examine their assumptions about what being a lawyer really means. Seldom do law schools undertake a probing examination of the role that lawyers play in society and the choices that lawyers have to make in terms of how they spend their working lives. For example, how many of you have a clue about the basic facts of our profession? How many lawyers there are in the United States? What do they do? What percentage work for the government? For large law firms? For small firms? For legal services organizations? For public interest groups? …

The African American, Latino, And Native American Graduates Of One American Law School, 1970-1996, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams

Articles

In the spring of 1965, only one African American student and no Latino students attended the University of Michigan Law School. At the time, Michigan, like most American law schools, was a training place for white males. In 1966, the law school faculty adopted a new admissions policy that took race into account as a plus factor in the admissions process. This policy of affirmative action has taken many forms over the years, but, across the decades of the 1970's, the 1980's and the 1990's, about 800 African Americans, 350 Latinos, 200 Asian Americans and 100 Native Americans have graduated …

Doing Well And Doing Good: The Careers Of Minority And White Graduates Of The University Of Michigan Law School, David L. Chambers, Richard O. Lempert, Terry K. Adams

Articles

Of the more than 1,000 law students attending the University of Michigan Law School in the spring of 1965, only one was African American. The Law School faculty, in response, decided to develop a program to attract more African American students. One element of this program was the authorization of a deliberately race-conscious admissiosn process. By the mid-1970s, at least 25 African American students were represented in each graduating class. By the late 1970s, Latino and Native American students were included in the program as well. Over the nearly three decades between 1970 and 1998, the admissions efforts and goals …

The Changing Face Of Legal Education: Implications For The Practice Of Law And The Courts, John W. Reed

Other Publications

This is the last Conference of the Sixth Circuit in the 1900's. Though the Third Millennium technically does not begin until 2001, the turn of the "odometer" from the 1999 to 2000 leads us all to think of this as the end of a century and of a millennium. The pivotal date is yet sixth months away, but the pundits are already issuing their lists, both profound and trivial - the greatest inventions, the best books, the worst natural catastrophes, the trial of the century (of which there are at least a half dozen), the most influential thinkers, and on …

The Role Of Clinical Programs In Legal Education, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

In clinic, students get a glance at the lawyer they will be someday. They gain confidence that, indeed, they will be a "good" lawyer. They understand the context in which their classroom learning will be applied. In short, they are able to integrate their law school experience.

Specialist Certification For Lawyers: What Is Going On?, Judith Kilpatrick

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Moving Ground, Breaking Traditions: Tasha's Chronicle, Angela I. Onwuachi-Willig

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Note uses a fictional dialogue to analyze and engage issues concerning stereotypes, stigmas, and affirmative action. It also highlights the importance of role models for students of color and the disparate hiring practices of law firms and legal employers through the conversations and thoughts of its main character, Tasha Crenshaw.

An Interdisciplinary Seminar In Child Abuse And Neglect With A Focus On Child Protection Practice, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

Given the myriad of professionals involved in protecting children from abuse and neglect, legal practice in the field of child protection requires an understanding of the various disciplines these professionals represent. Professor Scarnecchia argues that such an understanding is necessary in order for the attorney to serve as a zealous advocate for her client. In hopes of creating this understanding in students at the University of Michigan, an interdisciplinary seminar in child abuse and neglect has been created. Professor Scarnecchia details the substantive content of the seminar, discussing specific issues that arise in protecting children. She explains that by using …

In Defense Of Lawyers, Alfred C. Aman Jr.

Alfred Aman Jr. (1991-2002)

No abstract provided.

Making Elite Lawyers: Visions Of Law At Harvard And Beyond, Daniel A. Cohen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Making Elite Lawyers: Visions of Law at Harvard and Beyond by Robert Granfield

Indiana Lawyer's Who's Who (Crossword Puzzle), Michael S. Maurer

Alfred Aman Jr. (1991-2002)

A crossword puzzle created by Michael S. Maurer with questions related to prominent legal professionals in Indiana, including Dean Aman.

Law Is Still A Noble Profession, Alfred C. Aman Jr.

Alfred Aman Jr. (1991-2002)

No abstract provided.

Taiwan's Legal System And Legal Profession, Hungdah Chiu, Jyh-Pin Fa

Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies

No abstract provided.

Lawyers Need Courageous Imagination, Alfred C. Aman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Pro Bono Legal Work: For The Good Of Not Only The Public, But Also The Lawyer And The Legal Profession, Nadine Strossen

Michigan Law Review

I agree with Judge Edwards that "the lawyer has an ethical obligation to practice public interest law - to represent some poor clients; to advance some causes that he or she believes to be just." I also concur in Judge Edwards' opinion that "[a] person who deploys his or her doctrinal skill without concern for the public interest is merely a good legal technician - not a good lawyer."

Rather than further develop Judge Edwards' theme that lawyers have a professional responsibility to do pro bono work, I will offer another rationale for such work, grounded in professional and individual …

Commentary On Judge Edwards' "Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education And The Legal Profession", James L. Oakes

Michigan Law Review

Perhaps this little piece should be entitled Grace Notes rather than Commentary because I agree with so much of what Judge Edwards had to say in the Michigan Law Review. When I first read his piece, I have to say I was quite skeptical of his methodology, namely, running a survey past a group of former law clerks who, by virtue of their own super achievement, primarily in so-called elite law schools, quite easily could have ethereal points of view. But in typical Edwardsian fashion, the judge made appropriate disclaimers, and the clerks' comments seemed to me, for the most …

Stewardship, Donald B. Ayer

Michigan Law Review

While I agree with much that Judge Edwards has proposed, I thus submit that his formulations of the problem are partial - a bit like those of the blind men examining different parts of the elephant. The law's current unhappiness is only partly described as that of law schools and practicing lawyers going in different directions, of law practice becoming too commercial, or of law schools failing to serve the needs of the practicing lawyers and judges with practical teaching and scholarship. All of these observations, while correct as far as they go, miss the root of the problem, which …

The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education And The Legal Profession: A Postscript, Harry T. Edwards

Michigan Law Review

In this essay I offer a postscript to "The Growing Disjunction." It is not possible for me to "respond" directly to the other participants in this symposium, because I had no opportunity before publication to read what they have written. I will therefore limit myself to two tasks. First, I will briefly discuss several issues raised in the article. Second, and most important, I wish to share a representative sample of the responses I have received regarding the article. These responses, I think, provide good evidence of the magnitude of the problem that we face.

A Response From The Visitor From Another Planet, J. Cunyon Gordon

Michigan Law Review

In order to admit, as I do, that the related planets of practice and academia are conjoined, one has to realize, as I have, that the legacy of the heavily doctrinal education Edwards wants to preserve may be precisely the lawyers he upbraids - lawyers who generally do not live, work, and behave ethically (with fairness, compassion, and creativity) in a complex, heterogeneous society. This recognition in turn compels the conclusion I reach that the outsiders - with their challenges to the status quo's values, their upstart theories and innovative pedagogies, and even their Star Trek-and-the-law scholarship - may help …

Mad Midwifery: Bringing Theory, Doctrine, And Practice To Life, Barbara Bennett Woodhouse

Michigan Law Review

I share Judge Edwards' concern about the health of legal education and about lawyers as a force in society. I differ, however, in defining the sickness and prescribing the cure, at least when it comes to teaching. In my view, we need to integrate, not to dichotomize and polarize further, the practical and the impractical, the doctrinal and the theoretical. His critique, and my intuitive response to it, challenged me to examine and articulate where we disagree, based on what I have learned in my five years in the classroom and what it is I hope to accomplish in my …

Students As Teachers, Teachers As Learners, Derrick Bell, Erin Edmonds

Michigan Law Review

Judge Edwards divides his analysis of the cause of the crisis in ethical lawyering into an overview and three parts. The overview and first two parts deal mainly with the role of law schools and legal curriculum in what he views as the deterioration of responsible, capable practitioners. This article takes issue with some of the assumptions, analyses, and conclusions those sections contain. The third part of Edwards' article analyzes the role of law firms in causing that same deterioration. This article agrees with and will elaborate upon that part of Edwards' treatment.

We approach Judge Edwards' article, we hope, …

Lawyers, Scholars, And The "Middle Ground", Robert W. Gordon

Michigan Law Review

The Judge seems to be arguing that both teachers and firm lawyers have been seduced from their real vocation by the fatal attraction of neighboring cultures: the practitioners by the commercial culture of their business clients, the academics by the disciplinary paradigms and prestige of theory in the rest of the university. The "deserted middle ground" is the ground of professional practice - practical, yet also public-minded. Perhaps without straining his thesis too far we could ascribe to Judge Edwards a "republican" view of the legal profession, in which legal scholars, practitioners, judges, legislators, and administrators - despite their separate …

The Deprofessionalization Of Legal Teaching And Scholarship, Richard A. Posner

Michigan Law Review

The editors have asked me to comment on Judge Edwards' double-barreled blast at legal education and the practice of law. This I am happy to do. It is an important article, stating with refreshing bluntness concerns that are widely felt but have never I think been so forcefully, so arrestingly expressed. Nevertheless I have deep disagreements with it.

Plus Ҫa Change, Paul Brest

Michigan Law Review

Harry Edwards and I both finished law school in 1965, and his article presents an occasion to consider how much the legal academy has changed during the intervening years. Animating Judge Edwards' complaints about the contemporary legal academy is a nostalgia for happier days. His images are of decline - of a growing disjunction between the academy and practice, of law schools' abandoning their proper missions, of their movement toward pure theory. My own view is quite different. Except for some noteworthy demographic transformations and a healthy broadening of the academic agenda, legal education has changed little during these almost …

The Mind In The Major American Law School, Lee C. Bollinger

Michigan Law Review

Legal scholarship is significantly, even qualitatively, different from what it was some two or three decades ago. As with any major change in intellectual thought, this one is composed of several strands. The inclusion in the legal academic community of women and minorities has produced, not surprisingly, a distinctive and at times quite critical body of thought and writing. The emergence of the school of thought known as critical legal studies has renewed and extended the legal realist critique of law of the first half of the century. But more than anything else it is the interdisciplinary movement in legal …

Clerks In The Maze, Pierre Schlag

Michigan Law Review

It must be very difficult to be a judge - particularly an appellate judge. Not only must appellate judges reconcile often incommensurable visions of what law is, what it commands, or what it strives to achieve, but judges must do this largely alone. What little help they have in terms of actual human contact, apart from their clerks, typically takes the form of two or more advocates whose entire raison d'être is to persuade, coax, and manipulate the judge into reaching a predetermined outcome - one which often instantiates or exemplifies only the most tenuous positive connection to the rhetoric …

Judge Edwards' Indictment Of "Impractical" Scholars: The Need For A Bill Of Particulars, Sanford Levinson

Michigan Law Review

I can summarize my response as follows: Although Judge Edwards' article certainly seems to be leveling a heartfelt indictment, it lacks a sufficiently precise bill of particulars to know exactly whom he has accused of doing what. Nor does one know exactly what penalty Judge Edwards would exact from the miscreants. Unless he supplies such a bill, his indictment should be dismissed, though, presumably, without prejudice to its reinstatement should he wish to do the hard work of supplying evidence for the charges he set out.

The Disjunction Between Judge Edwards And Professor Priest, Louis H. Pollak

Michigan Law Review

With characteristic vigor, Judge Harry Edwards, in his essay The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession, has censured the law schools and, secondarily, the bar, for what he sees as profoundly disturbing trends pulling academics and practitioners farther and farther apart. Judge Edwards' censure is not proffered off the cuff. He has carefully polled his former law clerks on their perceptions of their law school years and of their postclerkship professional experiences - whether in private practice, in government, or in teaching. In the text and footnotes of his essay, Judge Edwards quotes his law clerks' …