Legal Profession Commons^™

Reframing The Socratic Method, Jamie Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

While innovations in law teaching are everywhere, these innovations are being constructed upon and limited by the ancient architecture of the case-based Socratic method, which still endures and persists throughout first-year and upper-level courses. This article highlights how the Socratic method limits the depth and breadth of innovations in law teaching and can be reframed to better catalyze other teaching innovations, create more practice-ready lawyers, and cultivate more inclusive and inviting law classrooms. Within the existing framework of law teaching – the same casebooks, class sizes, and teaching style – the case-based Socratic method can be reframed in three straight-forward …

"The Hindrance Of A Law Degree": Justice Kagan On Law And Experience, Laura Krugman Ray

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Risks, Goals, And Pictographs: Lawyering To The Social Entrepreneur, Alicia E. Plerhoples

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Scholars have argued that transactional lawyers add value by mitigating the potential for post-transaction litigation, reducing transaction costs, acting as reputational intermediaries, and lowering regulatory costs. Effective transactional attorneys understand their clients’ businesses and the industries or contexts in which those businesses operate. Applied to the start-up social enterprise context, understanding the client includes understanding the founders’ values, preferences, and proclivity for risk. The novel transactions and innovative solutions pursued by emerging social entrepreneurs may not lend themselves well to risk avoidance. For example, new corporate forms such as the benefit corporation are untested, yet appeal to many social entrepreneurs …

Creating A Legal Research Audit: Assessing Competency, Gail Partin, Sally Wise

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Finding Mercy Many Miles From The Office, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This piece is part one of a two-part book review of Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy”. It was originally published as a Blog contribution to the National Association for Public Defense in February of 2015.

Dunning-Kruger And You: Evaluating Your Technological Competence With The Legal Tech Audit, Jason Tubinis

Continuing Legal Education Presentations

There’s an enormous skill set you must develop as an attorney. One skill that is too often neglected, though, is the ability to utilize technology to ease the burden of all your tasks for the benefit or your firm, your client, and most importantly, yourself.

This paper is a public service announcement, a reminder to question your preconceptions about what you do and how you do it. It’s a cautionary warning, the one discussed previously about the new ABA comment regarding an attorney’s duty of competence regarding technology. Just because you’re doing fine with technology doesn’t mean you can’t be …

Teaching And Assessing Professional Communication Skills In Law School, Denitsa R. Mavrova Heinrich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Wanting To Do More But Bound To Do Less: A Law Librarian's Dilemna, Paul Mclaughlin

Law Library Faculty Scholarship

The role of the law librarian has changed from managing the contents of a library’s collection of books to knowing how to find information sources located around the world contained in a variety of formats, taking part in instruction, and participating in networking activities. Law librarians are constrained by legal and professional codes. If they are cautious, law librarians can assist, instruct, and reach out to public patrons and students while operating within the professional guidelines that govern them.

Wanting To Do More But Bound To Do Less: A Law Librarian’S Dilemma, Paul Mclaughlin

Scholarly Works

The role of the law librarian has changed from managing the contents of a library’s collection of books to knowing how to find information sources located around the world contained in a variety of formats, taking part in instruction, and participating in networking activities. Law librarians are constrained by legal and professional codes. If they are cautious, law librarians can assist, instruct, and reach out to public patrons and students while operating within the professional guidelines that govern them.

Enigma: A Variation On The Theme Of Legal Writing’S Place In Contemporary Legal Education, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Angst, Technology, And Innovation In The Classroom: Improving Focus For Students Growing Up In A Digital Age, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Many professors in legal education have noticed increased angst in students, who fear that well-paying jobs are scarce. Often, that angst is manifested in the classroom. Some educators blame the phenomenon on the distractions of technology—but more specifically, the author finds that technology has brought all of our stressors to the fore, affecting concentration and the ability to absorb information. This article addresses the extent to which technology has changed the ways that people navigate the world within the span of only a few generations, and how the author continues to adjust her teaching techniques in her technology-oriented classroom in …

Technology And Legal Research: What Is Taught And What Is Used In The Practice Of Law, Rebecca Sewanee Trammell

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Law schools are criticized for graduating students who lack the skills necessary to practice law. Legal research is a foundational ability necessary to support lawyering competency. The American Bar Association (ABA) establishes standards for legal education that include a requirement that each law student receive substantial instruction in legal skills, including legal research. Despite the recognized importance of legal research in legal education, there is no consensus of what to teach as part of a legal research course or even how to teach such a course.

Legal educators struggle to address these issues. The practicing bar and judiciary have expressed …

Writing Reasoned Decisions And Opinions: A Guide For Novice, Experienced, And Foreign Judges, S. I. Strong

Faculty Articles

The primary focus of this Article is on providing practical advice on how to write a reasoned decision or opinion (Section IV). However, experts in education theory have found that adult learners do best when they understand why certain information is being presented, so the discussion of how to write reasoned judgments will be preceded by a brief section on why such judgments are necessary or useful (Section III). This Article also considers what a reasoned decision or opinion actually is as a preliminary matter (Section II), since it is impossible to write such a document without a true appreciation …

Law School Culture And The Lost Art Of Collaboration: Why Don't Law Professors Play Well With Others, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

I have an Erdős number. Specifically, I have an Erdős number of 5. For the uninitiated, the concept of an “Erdős number” was created by mathematicians to describe how many “degrees of separation” an author of an article is from the great mathematician Paul Erdős. If you coauthored a paper with Erdős, you have an Erdős number of 1. If you coauthor a paper with someone with an Erdős number of 1, you have earned an Erdős number of 2. Coauthoring a paper with someone with an Erdős number of 2 gives you an Erdős number of 3, and so …

More Than Decisions: Reviews Of American Law Reports In The Pre-West Era, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

In the early nineteenth century, both general literary periodicals and the first American legal journals often featured reviews of new volumes of U.S. Supreme Court and state court opinions, suggesting their importance not only to lawyers seeking the latest cases, but to members of the public. The reviews contributed to public discourse through comments on issues raised in the cases and the quality of the reporting, and were valued as forums for commentary on the law and its role in American society, particularly during debates on codification and the future of the common law in the 1820s. James Kent saw …

Is This The Law Library Or An Episode Of The Jetsons?, Ronald E. Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

In this brief essay penned for the inaugural online edition of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, Professor Wheeler discusses his vision for the future of law libraries and the future of legal research, legal research instruction, law teaching, and law related technologies.

You've Got Rhythm: Curriculum Planning And Teaching Rhythm At Work In The Legal Writing Classroom, Debra Moss Curtis

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fostering A Respect For Our Students, Our Specialty, And The Legal Profession: Introducing Ethics And Professionalism Into The Legal Writing Curriculum, Melissa H. Weresh

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Increased Importance Of Legal Writing In The Era Of “The Vanishing Trial”, Edward D. Re

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building The Canon Of Utah Constitutional Law: Lessons From The Utah Public Interest Standing Doctrine, Jordan Dez

Utah Law Review

In the current era of Utah constitutional case law, the legal community will have to be creative—and even deviceful—to piece together compelling briefs to argue cases under the Utah Constitution. In contrast to the early days of New Judicial Federalism where the court introduced new interpretations into the Utah constitutional dialogue from nothing more than a party’s citation to sister state law, sophisticated briefing is now necessary to succeed on a Utah Constitutional claim. Even where there is little case law or unfavorable prior precedents, practitioners may still find success by raising arguments grounded in the text of the Utah …

Respectful Language In Cba Publications And Communications, Gina Csanyi-Robah, Sean Rehaag

Editorials and Commentaries

No abstract provided.

Preface, Ken I. Kersch, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

In an essay in the Texas Law Review not too long ago, Sandy Levinson lamented the degree to which law reviews—most prominently the Michigan Law Review—were sharply cutting down on the space they were devoting to book reviews. This was especially unfortunate as law professors were publishing more and more books. The publication of a book, as opposed to a journal article, was for many a deliberate choice involving an effort to address subjects at greater length, in greater depth, and on a broader scale for a wider scholarly (and perhaps educated popular) audience. Thematic review essays on books, whether …

Vol. 46, No. 02 (January 27, 2014)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Vol. 46, No. 01 (January 20, 2014)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

On Legal Scholarship, Danielle K. Citron, Robin West

Shorter Faculty Works

Academic critics contend that legal scholarship is overly argumentative or too “normative,” simply stating what the law should be, as well as what the law is. It isn’t about pure scholarship’s pursuit of knowledge within the discipline of a recognized academic field. Critics from the bar and the judiciary proffer the opposite complaint: legal scholarship is too academic and not professional enough, enamored with fads, unmoored from any discipline and of little use to the practicing lawyer or sitting judge. Law schools’ legions of cost-conscious critics complain that paying high salaries to professors with low course loads drives up tuitions. …

Legal Writing, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, And Professionalism, Shelley Kierstead

Articles & Book Chapters

“Professionalism as a personal characteristic is revealed in an attitude and approach to an occupation that is commonly characterized by intelligence, integrity, maturity, and thoughtfulness.”

“Words are the principal tool of lawyers and judges, whether we like it or not.”

The quotes above refer to two quintessential aspects of lawyers’ work. First, as members of a self-regulated profession, we must aspire to a level of professionalism that is characterized by intelligence, maturity, and thoughtfulness. Second, regardless of the tasks we undertake, words are critically important to lawyers. Not only must we be able to conduct comprehensive and coherent legal analysis; …

Writing (And Reading) Appellate Briefs In The Digital Age, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

In this essay, Professor Beazley briefly reviews a slice of the voluminous research about how human beings read digital as opposed to paper text. In particular, she discusses studies of knowledge workers (defined to include those who use or generate knowledge in their work)4 and those who engage in active reading (defined as a reading process that includes nonsequential reading, searching a text, comparing texts, annotating, bookmarking, and the like).She concludes by making suggestions for legal readers, legal writers, courts, and database providers as to how best to accommodate the process of digital reading.

Crowdsourced Coursebooks, Stephen E. Henderson, Joseph Thai

Faculty Articles

Given increasing criticism and dropping admissions, American legal education is likely to change, hopefully reversing the unsustainable trend of increasing expense without increasing value. Much debate focuses on restructuring the curriculum to make it more “practical” and skills-infused; here we instead propose a rethinking of the basic unit of law teaching, the casebook. Casebook authors and publishers are cautiously venturing into electronic editions, but they fail to harness the power of social learning to make textbooks dramatically smarter as well as cheaper. Working with a technology startup, we are developing an online platform that reinvents both authorship and learning. The …

Influences Of The Digest Classification System: What Can We Know?, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

Robert C. Berring has called West Publishing Company’s American Digest System “the key aspect of the new form of legal literature” that West and other publishers developed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Berring argued that West’s digests provided practicing lawyers not only the means for locating precedential cases, but a “paradigm for thinking about the law itself” that influenced American lawyers until the development of online legal research systems in the 1970s. This article discusses questions raised by Berring’s scholarship, and examines the late nineteenth and early twentieth century legal environment in which the West digests were …

Solving Your Ethical Conundrums: Researching The Rules Of Professional Conduct, Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

Ms. Janto provides a practical guide to researching issues of attorney professional responsibilities using both print and online resources, emphasizing Virginia rules and decisions.