Legal Education Commons^™

Table Of Contents

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

Collaborating For Transformation, Marjorie A. Silver

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

Experiential Legal Education: How The University Of Kansas School Of Law Alumni Are Contributing To Teaching Professional Skills, Suzanne Valdez

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

Restoring Power: A Law School’S Response To A Superstorm, Melissa H. Luckman, Patricia R. Sturm

Journal of Experiential Learning

No abstract provided.

Using Problem-Enhanced Library Tours Rather Than Scavenger Hunts To Teach Incoming 1ls About Legal Sources And The Research Process, Paul Mclaughlin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Teaching And Assessing Soft Skills, Sophie M. Sparrow

Law Faculty Scholarship

[excerpt from article] It is our job as legal educators to put our law graduates in the best position to succeed as new lawyers.1 And to succeed, law graduates must possess certain qualities or character traits that will enable them to thrive within legal organizations.2 Despite many calls for reform in legal education to include more practice-related skills, including professionalism, many law professors teaching doctrinal courses are reluctant to incorporate teaching professional competencies and behaviors.3 They are unwilling to do so even though they have long decried students’ lack of professional skills.4 Professors complain that students show up late for …

Crafting Relatable Tales: Teaching Students The Importance Of Multidisciplinary Legal Research Using A Story Arc Structure, Paul Mclaughlin

Law Library Faculty Scholarship

Recommended citation: Paul McLaughlin, Crafting Relatable Tales: Teaching Students the Importance of Multidisciplinary Legal Research Using a Story Arc Structure, 43 Southeastern L. Libr. 1, 16-18 (2018).

If You Build It, They Will Come: What Students Say About Experiential Learning, David I.C. Thomson, Stephen Daniels

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Our purpose here is to explore one of the “natural experiments” cited by the Task Force: the Experiential Advantage (EA) program at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law (Denver Law). EA was developed as a part of a greater general focus on experiential learning and is built upon the three “Carnegie Apprenticeships” – “the intellectual or cognitive,” “the forms of expert practice,” and “identity and purpose.” It was implemented at Denver Law starting with students entering in August 2013. To explore this natural experiment, we took a particular route and did so for what we see as good …

From Idealists To Hired Guns? An Empirical Analysis Of "Public Interest Drift" In Law School, John Bliss

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Recent commentaries on American legal education have questioned whether law students are prepared to seek out satisfying, public- regarding, and financially viable careers in a changing profession. To these debates, this Article offers an empirical perspective on how students approach job-path decisions during law school. I address this issue through a five-year multi-method study of a subset of the law student population — elite-school students who state preferences for jobs in the public-interest sector at the beginning of law school but by their second year decide to pursue positions in large private law firms. A widely circulated hypothesis in popular …

Positive Disruption: Addressing Race In A Time Of Social Change Through A Team-Taught, Reflection-Based, Outward Looking Law School Seminar, Alexi Freeman, Lindsey Webb

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Addressing race in the legal classroom has long been a potentially disruptive, even professionally hazardous, act. Despite multiple innovations in the legal curriculum, the decades-long discussion regarding racial inclusion in law schools has led us to the same, largely race-avoidant, place. Now, as we navigate a tumultuous period in which issues of marginalization, structural oppression, and active movement are occupying a prominent space, the need to respond to the growing demands of marginalized communities as well as students’ desires to deepen their understanding of racial injustice is even more pressing. This Article contributes to the literature addressing the inclusion of …

Externship Assessment Project: An Empirical Study Of Supervisor Evaluations Of Extern Work Performance, Margaret Reuter

Faculty Works

Field supervisors’ evaluations of their student externs are packed with lively stories. They deliver a fly-on-the-wall perspective, giving us color about the work entrusted to our students, the behaviors our students exhibited, and the enjoyment the attorneys reaped. The authors decided the evaluations were so fertile that they should be systematically scrutinized to seek meaningful, reliable insights about the extern experience, especially regarding the variety, complexity, and responsibility levels of their work. We also saw a prime opportunity to assess an externship program and find ways to improve it. Thus, the Externship Assessment Project was born. We deployed qualitative data …

Teaching And Scholarship Enrichment Through Involvement In Law Reform, R. Wilson Freyermuth

Faculty Publications

One of the most important ways for faculty to enrich their teaching and scholarship is through meaningful connections with the practicing bar. One effective way of developing these connections is through involvement in law reform efforts. This Essay focuses on developing these connections along two dimensions-through the work of the Uniform Law Commission and through involvement with trade organizations or nonprofit groups.

Legal Education En Español: A Pedagogical Model, Jayesh Rathod

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Law schools in the United States are pursuing various strategies to prepare their graduates to compete in a global marketplace for jobs. One such strategy is the development of courses and programs designed to equip law graduates with the knowledge and skills needed to serve as effective bilingual advocates. As part of this effort, in recent years, teachers and scholars have engaged in curricular experimentation and ongoing theorizing about the optimal methods and approaches for bilingual legal education. This essay builds upon existing theoretical work and outlines a unique, bilingual instructional model that involves adding an optional credit hour – …

What Did They Know And When Did They Know It? Pretesting As A Means Setting A Baseline For Assessing Learning Outcomes, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

Are legal rules intuitive or, at least, consistent with common sense? In this study, 260 law students at five law schools who had not taken contract law, were presented with eight questions based on specific contracts cases or common contracts issues. They were asked what they felt was the fair or right answer to each question and to formulate the rule they would apply. The purposes of the study were to 1) determine whether contract law is what the untrained person believes it is or should be and 2) experiment with a strategy of pretesting to determine what topics within …

The Culturally Proficient Law Professor: Beginning The Journey, Anastasia M. Boles

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Global Diffusion Of U.S. Legal Thought: Changing Influence, National Security, And Legal Education In Crisis, Fernanda Giorgia Nicola Dr.

Contributions to Books

During the twentieth century, the center of production of legal ideas shifted from France to Germany and then to the United States. Here, the dominant legal reasoning framed the law as a phenomenon of social organization that was not confined to a specific legal system. There were both external and internal factors influencing U.S. legal thought which explain this change of wind from continental Europe to the United States. Externally, after World War II the United States garnered influence by positioning itself for political and economic global leadership. Internally, the critique of social purpose functionalism articulated by the legal realists …

Reflections On Us Involvement In The Promotion Of Clinical Legal Education In Europe, Philip Genty

Faculty Scholarship

What is the influence of the United States on European clinical legal education? The first reaction of many would be that this is not a particularly difficult question to answer. After all, clinical legal education is largely a US invention. Although one can find early examples of clinics in European law schools, the large-scale development of law school clinical education happened in the United States beginning in the 1960s. At present, there are clinical programs in each of the 207 American Bar Association (ABA)-approved US law schools. The Clinical Legal Education Association now lists 1,325 clinical teachers in its membership …

The Power Of Imagination: Diversity And The Education Of Lawyers And Judges, Barry Sullivan

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Seven Principles For Good Practice In [Asynchronous Online] Legal Education, Kenneth R. Swift

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Invitation To Explore Online Legal Education And Strategically Realign Legal Education, Alison Becker, Carrie Lloyd

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mini-Law School: Civic Education Making A Difference In The Community, Pat Newcombe, Beth Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

Western New England’s Mini-Law School Program increases civic engagement and awareness and provides opportunities for law schools and educators to help non-lawyers better understand the legal system. This article will discuss the Mini-Law School Program, a creative and extremely successful five-week community outreach program focused on demystifying the law. Our society is in dire need of greater civic education. Public policy surveys consistently reveal disturbing statistics about the public’s lack of civic awareness (e.g., 15 percent of the public knew that John Roberts is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but 66 percent could name an American Idol judge; 70 …

Beyond Legal Reasoning: A Critique Of Pure Lawyering, Jeffrey M. Lipshaw

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This is the Preface to Beyond Legal Reasoning: A Critique of Pure Lawyering (Routledge, 2017) (ISBN: 978-1138221307).

The book provides a critique of the traditional views of “thinking like a lawyer” or “pure lawyering,” aimed at lawyers, law professors, and students who want to understand lawyering beyond the traditional warrior metaphor. Drawing examples from the intersection of real world law and business issues, the book argues the “pure lawyering” of traditional legal education is agnostic to either truth or moral value of outcomes. It offers a critique of pure lawyering’s potential both for illusions of certainty and cynical instrumentalism, and …

Adventures In Higher Education, Happiness, And Mindfulness, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This Article recounts my unique adventures in higher education, including being a Princeton University freshman mathematics major at age 14, Harvard University applied mathematics graduate student at age 17, economics and finance faculty at multiple schools, first-year law student at the University of Chicago, second- and third-year law student at Stanford University, and law faculty at multiple schools. This Article also candidly discusses my experiences as student and professor and openly shares how I achieved sustainable happiness by practicing mindfulness to reduce fears, rumination, and worry in facing adversity, disappointment, and setbacks. This Article analyzes why law schools should teach …

Two Pedagogies In Search Of Synergy, Lisa Schultz, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

Anyone who has taught a first-year legal research course understands the dilemma: How do we weave research skills into the writing program without sacrificing the quality or quantity of either discipline? In fact, it is difficult and time consuming to interweave any serious legal research instruction into a first-year writing course. What the students need to know is not just how to do a little case law research or how to find a statute: they need to also know how to formulate a research plan, how to evaluate a database, what kind of search works in different information environments, and …

Facilitating Meaningful Change Within Us Law Schools, Patrick H. Gaughan

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Despite the widely recognized challenges and complaints facing US legal education, very little is understood about how law schools can adapt faster and better. This Article uses institutional theory, behavioral economics, and psychology to explain why change has proven so difficult for US law schools. Next, using institutional entrepreneurship, the Article explains the theoretical steps necessary to overcome the institutional resistance to change. The Article then discusses the characteristics of opportunities that are most likely to better meet the needs of law students while also providing sustainable benefits to the individually innovating law schools. Using management theory, the Article then …

Mindful Lawyering: The Key To Creative Problem Solving, Kathleen Elliott Vinson, Samantha A. Moppett, Shailini Jandial George

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Mindful Lawyering introduces students to creative problem solving and mindfulness in the context of law school and beyond, presenting checklists, scenarios, and hypotheticals that invite student engagement. The Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter One are available to download here.

Towards A Jurisprudence (And Pedagogy) Of Access: A Reflection On 25 Years Of The Public Interest Practicum, Alex Scherr, Elizabeth M. Grant, Graham Goldberg

Scholarly Works

The Public Interest Practicum (PIP), a course at the University of Georgia School of Law, fosters awareness among law students of the demand for access to justice. For more than 25 years, PIP has served many purposes: to explore a street level jurisprudence; to challenge students’ professional identities; to generate new models of clinical legal education; to inculcate the habit of public service; and to help individuals with legal problems. Through its many iterations, PIP has consistently exposed future lawyers to ways of helping those in need. This reflection traces the history of PIP as a course, contextualizes it within …

Measuring Law School Clinics, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jeffrey Selbin, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter

Faculty Scholarship

Legal education reformers have long argued that law school clinics address two related needs: first, clinics teach students to be lawyers; and second, clinics serve low-income clients. In clinics, so the argument goes, law students working under the close supervision of faculty members learn the requisite skills to be good practitioners and professionals. In turn, clinical law students serve clients with civil and criminal justice needs that would otherwise go unmet.

Though we have these laudable teaching and service goals – and a vast literature describing the role of clinics in both the teaching and service dimensions – we have …

Cardozo, The Canon And Some Critical Thoughts About Pedagogy, Deborah W. Post

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Build A Better Bar Exam, Eileen Kaufman, Andrea Anne Curcio, Carol L. Chomsky

Scholarly Works

As a licensing exam, the purpose of the bar exam is consumer protection–-ensuring that new lawyers have the minimum competencies required to practice law effectively. As critics point out, however, the exam, and particularly the multiple-choice question portion of the exam, has significant flaws because it assesses legal knowledge and analysis in an artificial and unrealistic context, and the closed-book format rewards the ability to memorize thousands of legal rules, a skill unrelated to law practice.

This essay discusses how to improve the exam by changing its multiple-choice content and format. We use two law licensing exams to illustrate how …