Legal Education Commons^™

Nextgen Bar Success: A Student-Tested, Student-Approved Method For Completing Counseling Integrated Question Sets, Kari Milligan

Faculty Scholarship

Legal educators nationwide need to begin teaching students a method for completing Counseling Integrated Question Sets, a novel type of question the National Conference of Bar Examiners (“NCBE”) is introducing on the NextGen bar exam. Counseling Integrated Question Sets require students to answer a series of six multiple choice or short answer questions focused on client counseling or dispute resolution, as they work through an unfolding common fact pattern that also contains rules or elicits rules students have memorized.

Students who matriculated to law school in 2023 will need to answer Counseling Integrated Question Sets in order to obtain their …

How Can You Turn Adversarial Attorneys Into Quasi-Mediators?, John Lande

Faculty Publications

This article grows out of an educational program sponsored by the St. Louis chapter of the Association of Attorney-Mediators, which functioned as a focus group. It describes mediators’ experiences with attorneys in mediation who were cooperative and adversarial.

It describes things that mediators can do to make adversarial attorneys behave as “quasi-mediators.” Attorneys acting as quasi-mediators help their clients realistically understand the other side’s perspectives. The attorneys also promote their clients’ interests by enlisting the mediators’ help and encouraging the other side to adjust their positions. Attorneys who sometimes act as quasi-mediators tailor their techniques to their clients’ preferences and …

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Social Justice, Practical Lawyering, And The Elephant In Solitary Confinement: Why Animal Law Belongs In The Legal Writing Classroom, Conley Wouters

Animal Law Review

Animal law has grown exponentially since its genesis in the late 1970s. It is the subject of survey courses, seminars, clinics, and law reviews. But animal law per se has not made its way into the legal writing discipline, and its absence creates missed opportunities for legal writing instructors to improve our teaching and help our students develop critical lawyering skills. This Article argues that we should seize these opportunities and incorporate animal law into legal writing classes.

The Article begins by summarizing the argument and offering a gen-eral description of how legal writing professors and their students stand to …

Technology Competency Road Map In Rhode Island: Reforming Professional Rules And Continuing Legal Education With Modern Educational Frameworks And Instructional Design Principles To Protect Clients, Myrta L. Ventura

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law School Veterans Clinics: Helping Veterans, Training Students, Improving The System, Jennifer Morrell, Alexander Scherr, Judy Ann Clausen, Hillary Wandler, Morgan Macisaac-Bykowski

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay makes the case for law schools to create clinics and externship courses that address the needs of veterans. Veterans legal work offers excellent opportunities to represent individual veterans to obtain the benefits they earned through service to our country. At the same time, veterans clinic work can enlist students in systemic advocacy that changes how institutions address veterans' needs through appellate, administrative, and class action advocacy. Law students who work in veterans clinics develop skills they can readily transfer to other practice areas while working closely with clients and developing their professional identities. Finally, veterans clinics help law …

A Critical Perspective On Formative Assessment Mandates, Joshua M. Silverstein

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Formative assessment is a hot topic in legal education. Numerous commentators maintain that such assessment improves student learning of legal skills and content. Many law schools have adopted formative assessment requirements. And the American Bar Association recently proposed changing law school accreditation standards to mandate formative assessment in the first year. This essay challenges these trends. There is a paucity of evidence that formative assessment enhances learning among law students. Much of the broader assessment literature has limited relevance in legal education. And conducting formative assessment entails serious costs that are frequently overlooked by its proponents. In sum, the evidence …

United States Senior District Judge William E. Smith – A Judge For All Seasons, Patricia A. Sullivan

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Grading Legal Research, Julie Tedjeske Crane

Faculty Scholarship

Law school grading practices often conflict with legal research instruction goals. Small class sizes render norm-referenced (curved) grading unreliable, and the emphasis on ranking students detracts from learning essential skills. Drawing on scholarship on legal education and other disciplines, this article examines several grading approaches that may better serve students and instructors, including criteria-referenced, specification-based, and equitable grading systems. It offers practical suggestions for improving grading practices, such as working with colleagues on assessment design, being intentional about grading formative work, and using anonymous grading. The article concludes with a call for more discussion about grading in legal research courses.

Legal Practice Practicums: Making A Case For Change: A Way Forward, John O. Sonsteng, Michael Sonsteng, Kenneth Rubenzer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Law, Conflict, And Hybrid Warfare: A Teaching Imperative For A Changing World, Cynthia Alkon, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers increasingly find themselves at the frontlines of the battlefield, just not in the traditional sense. Hybrid warfare is a conflict form that combines traditional military offensive measures with nontraditional methods, including the harnessing of legal systems to achieve strategic goals. Lawyers have always been at the frontline of typical legal risk assessment, thinking about a client's risk of liability or regulation costs generally. Now, lawyers must stand at the ready for a lot more: lawyers must be prepared for cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns using artificial intelligence, the use of court systems to suppress reporting or shield bad actors, and so …

Self-Compassion And Law Student Professional Identity Formation, Janice Craft

Law Faculty Publications

The American Bar Association’s Standards for Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar require law schools to provide students with “substantial opportunities” for “[t]he development of a professional identity.” The Standards do not require a particular curriculum or mode of instruction but offer two guideposts for legal educators: one, that “professional identity focuses on what it means to be a lawyer and the special obligations lawyers have to their clients and society,” and two, that professional formation “should involve an intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.” The guidance and concomitant …

What Belongs In A Constitutional Law Casebook?, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Teaching Firearms Law: One Big Opportunity And Three Pedagogical Challenges, Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles, Darrell A.H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court’s groundbreaking 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller ushered in a new era for the Second Amendment: one in which the right to keep and bear arms, long dormant as a matter of practical impact and even “embarrassing” as a matter of legal scholarship, vaulted into the front ranks of constitutional law. The Court itself has only revisited the Amendment a few times since then—albeit once by revolutionizing the doctrine. Meanwhile, lower courts have issued thousands of decisions giving shape to the right, while scholars have generated work that is increasingly deep, diverse, and challenging. …

Best Practices For Creating Hypotheticals For Legal Research And Writing, Olivia Smith Schlink, Aimee Self-Pittman, Theresa Tarves, Melissa Strickland

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Visible Learning: Adapting Primary And Secondary Pedagogical Approaches To Legal Education, Dawn Young

Faculty Publications & Other Works

As a new generation of students, Generation Z, enter law school, educators must continually adapt and improve to be the most effective in their roles. While traditional teaching methods like Socratic dialogue, the case method, and experiential learning are all valuable to varying degrees, law professors can gain further insight by exploring additional teaching approaches.

As law professors welcome Gen Z to their classrooms, how can they ensure they are adapting to the needs of this cohort? Could gaining an understanding of Gen Z’s prior educational experiences provide law professors with additional insight?

This Article argues that law professors can …

Preparing Students For The Artificial Intelligence Era: The Crucial Role Of Critical Thinking Skills, Samantha A. Moppett

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

As artificial intelligence transforms the legal profession, the role of critical thinking skills among legal professionals becomes increasingly vital. This Essay argues that while AI will automate many routine le-gal tasks, successful legal practice in the AI era will require lawyers to possess robust critical thinking abilities to effectively evaluate AI out-puts, develop strategic solutions, and handle complex analytical work that AI cannot replicate. However, at this crucial juncture, evidence suggests a significant deficit in critical thinking skills among incoming law students. This deficit poses particular challenges as the legal profes-sion increasingly integrates generative AI tools that can handle routine …

Entrenchment Of Employment Inequality In The Academic Workforce: The Implications Of “An” Appropriate Bargaining Unit, Katherine Ashley

Dalhousie Law Journal

The academic workforce has changed dramatically in recent years. Formerly, universities were staffed primarily by tenured faculty, making possible the collegial governance models under which they operate statutorily. There has been a shift away from this model, however, and universities now rely more heavily on part-time professors. Postsecondary institutions are among the most heavily unionized workplaces in Canada. Yet, while academic unionization is widespread, the unionization model is inconsistent: some unions are faculty associations, while others are not; some unions represent only full-time professors; others represent part-time instructors; others represent both; and some also include other types of academic employees. …

Masthead & Table Of Contents

Dalhousie Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Beyond A Boundary Of Systemic Anti-Black Racism In The Workplace In Canada, Adelle Blackett

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this lecture, I will, however, focus on one of the legacies of slavery, that is, the largely untold story of racial segregation in the world of work in Canada. We have come so effectively, and rightly, to focus on the effects of discrimination, that we may have inadvertently walked past the history. Reclaiming this history will comprise the first part of my talk.

The second part of my talk will reference the emergence of the duty of fair representation. I will seek to illustrate the weight of the erasure of anti-Black racism through this duty. In other words, far …

Forging Ahead Or Proceeding With Caution; Developing Policy For Generative Artificial Intelligence In Legal Education, Nachman Gutowski, Jeremy W. Hurley

Scholarly Works

Generative Artificial Intelligence is rapidly being integrated into every facet of society, including a growing impact on law schools. It has become abundantly clear that there is a need to develop well-defined governing policies for its use and adoption in legal education. This article offers an introductory analysis of related approaches currently taken in various law schools, exploring the factors influencing these policies and their ethical implication. A comparative review of institutional policies reveals both similarities and unique approaches. Common themes include the need for balance between limited use and outright reliance, as well as the need for transparency and …

Restorative Justice In Legal Education, Lindsey Pointer, Aparna Polavarapu, Alanna Ojibway

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Can Employers Save Us From Student Loans? Credentialism, Arms Races, And Debt Forgiveness, Tammy Harel Ben Shahar, Omer Kimhi

Washington and Lee Law Review

America is drowning in student loan debt. About 45 million Americans owe the astounding sum of $1.75 trillion in outstanding student debt, and many of them default on their payments. While most agree that something must be done, attempts to alleviate the problem have met political backlash and legal challenges. In June of 2023, the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s comprehensive student loan debt forgiveness plan, and recently the administration initiated the politically contested “Saving on a Valuable Education” plan (“SAVE”). Amidst this political tug of war, this Article aims to offer a critical and nuanced analysis of …

Integrating Academic Success, Krishnee Coley, Laura A. Webb

Law Faculty Publications

Over the past few years, Richmond Law has taken several intentional steps to address one of ASP’s perennial challenges: the students who most need help may not be the ones who find their way to optional ASP sessions. By integrating academic success into orientation programs and collaborating with doctrinal professors, we’ve succeeded in reaching all our 1L students despite the lack of a mandatory 1L ASP course.

Operationalizing A Pedagogy Of Antiracism In Legal Education, Doron Samuel-Siegel

Law Faculty Publications

To reckon with structural racism in legal education, legal educators collectively must do much more than we have done thus far. A true reckoning will occur only once we provide an education that ensures racially minoritized students can learn free of the harms of traditional legal education, and that all students are equipped to contribute to the dismantlement of structural racism in the law and legal profession. A pedagogy that centers these two goals counteracts the effects of structural racism while also creating conditions for its dismantlement, making it a pedagogy of antiracism.

This article is about moving toward the …

Human-Centered Advocacy: Requiring Trauma-Informed Lawyering Through Mandatory Continuing Legal Education, Meghan Sheldon

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paradoxical Pedagogy: Teaching Trauma-Informed Principles Within A System Built On Emotional Detachment, Sarah Mcconnell, Leah Lunetta

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civic Virtue: Judge William E. Smith's Gifts To Rwu Law, Michael J. Yelnosky

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Lecture January 24, 2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.