Legal Education Commons^™

From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal …

We Are In This Together: A Faculty-Led Approach To Fostering Innovation In Online Instruction, Courtney Selby, Rachel H. Smith

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

After reviewing this chapter, readers will understand how to:

• Implement a faculty-led approach to improving online instruction at their in­stitutions;
• Convene a faculty task force to spearhead that approach;
• Engage faculty members in productive discussions about the pedagogy of online law teaching;
• Prepare a set of institution-specific recommendations for improved online teaching; and
• Foster a faculty culture invested in innovating online instruction well beyond emergency use.

As so many platitudes tell us, challenges present opportunities. And the challenges of teaching law in a pandemic certainly created an avalanche, a flood, a—pick your natural disaster—of opportunity. Indeed, the sudden switch …

Our Collective Work, Our Collective Strength, Renee Nicole Allen

Faculty Publications

This essay considers the collective strength of women of color in two contexts: when we are well represented on law school faculties and when we contribute to accomplishing stated institutional diversity goals. Critical mass is broadly defined as a sufficient number of people of color. Though the concept has been socially appropriated, its origins are scientific. While much of the academic literature encourages diversity initiatives designed to reach a critical mass, social change is not a science. Diversity in numbers may positively benefit individual experiences for women of color, however, diversity alone will not change social norms at the root …

Cyberspace Back To The Classroom: Taking Lessons Learned From Teaching Street Law During The Pandemic Back To In-Person Instruction, Amy Wallace

Articles & Chapters

In spring 2020, when schools around the world were compelled to close their physical doors, educators, administrators and students were forced to re-invent what it meant to teach and to learn. For fifty years, Street Law programs have been dedicated to hands-on, student centered, interactive teaching strategies. Law students, lawyers and teachers have devoted countless hours to creating fun, practical lessons designed to teach young people about practical law that affects their daily lives and also develop the skills they need to use their newly found legal knowledge to improve their lives and their communities. Remote learning upended all the …

Client-Centered Communication: How Effective Lawyering Requires Emotional Intelligence, Active Listening, And Client Choice, Heather Heavin, Michaela Keet

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

For the lawyer-client relationship to work effectively, lawyers need to provide clients with competent, understandable, and relevant legal advice. This proposition is so central to the lawyer's role that it is difficult to challenge. Yet, we suggest, this proposition belies the complexity of the responsibility, given the decision-making process that clients are going through (or should be going through) when deciding to litigate or to settle through negotiation or mediation. The educational literature contains much advice for lawyers on the benefits of dispute resolution processes, how to select and navigate through them, but much less on how lawyers should guide …

Remote Access Mechanism Exploring Electronic Databases In Law Schools In India: A Lifeline During Covid-19 Lockdown, Akash Singh

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Bar Council of India under Section 4 of Advocates Act 1961 passed by Indian Parliament, governs legal education and practice in India. Law Schools are approved and governed under the rules framed by Bar Council of India. Currently, India has twenty three law schools apart from more than 2000 law departments and colleges in India. Lockdown of academic institutions due to COVID 19 interrupted educational and research activities in law schools too. The paper here and now showcases a comparative study of usage of electronic contents by their patrons during pre-lockdown and lockdown period by remote access mechanism. The paper …

Religious Roots Of Corporate Organization, Amanda Porterfield

Seattle University Law Review

Religion and corporate organization have developed side-by-side in Western culture, from antiquity to the present day. This Essay begins with the realignment of religion and secularity in seventeenth-century America, then looks to the religious antecedents of corporate organization in ancient Rome and medieval Europe, and then looks forward to the modern history of corporate organization. This Essay describes the long history behind the entanglement of business and religion in the United States today. It also shows how an understanding of both religion and business can be expanded by looking at the economic aspects of religion and the religious aspects of …

The Small-Er Screen: Youtube Vlogging And The Unequipped Child Entertainment Labor Laws, Amanda G. Riggio

Seattle University Law Review

Family vloggers are among the millions of content creators on YouTube. In general, vloggers frequently upload recorded videos of their daily lives. Family vloggers are unique because they focus their content around their familial relationships and the lives of their children. One set of family vloggers, the Ace Family, has recorded their children’s lives from the day they were born and continue to upload videos of each milestone, including “Elle Cries on Her First Rollercoaster Ride” and “Elle and Alaïa Get Caught Doing What!! **Hidden Camera**.” Another vlogging couple, Cole and Savannah LaBrant, post similar content, including videos titled “Baby …

Rock And Hard Place Arguments, Jareb Gleckel, Grace Brosofsky

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores what we coin “rock and hard place” (RHP) arguments in the law, and it aims to motivate mission-driven plaintiffs to seek out such arguments in their cases. The RHP argument structure helps plaintiffs win cases even when the court views that outcome as unfavorable.

We begin by dissecting RHP dilemmas that have long existed in the American legal system. As Part I reveals, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have often taken advantage of RHP dilemmas and used them as a tool to persuade criminal defendants to forfeit their constitutional rights, confess, or give up the chance to …

Tomorrow's Law Libraries: Academic Law Librarians Forging The Way To The Future In The New World Of Legal Education, Jessie Wallace Burchfield

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article briefly discusses the historical development of academic law libraries and reviews observations, analyses, and predictions of leading law librarians, examining recent changes and continuing trends. It examines academic law libraries in light of two of the drivers of change identified by Susskind: the “more-for-less” challenge and information technology. It briefly discusses one academic law library's experience with these drivers of change and gives a few examples of academic law librarians who are technology leaders. It notes the initial effects of an ongoing global pandemic that changed the face of public school, undergraduate, and postgraduate education–including legal education–in a …

A Novel Response: How Law Libraries Adapted To The Pandemic, Aamir S. Abdullah

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reloading The Canon: Thoughts On Critical Legal Pedagogy, Chantal Thomas

University of Colorado Law Review

On the first day of the first-year contracts class that I teach, I preview for the students both the general contours of the “blackletter law” that we will be learning throughout the course, and some of the perspectives that I will incorporate in developing our critical thinking and analysis of the law. My aim is to impress upon the students that their understanding of the blackletter law––the technical training that many law students think of as constituting the bulk of their educational mission––varies positively with their understanding of and capacity for critical analysis. I go about this in part by …

Conversations After Class: 'Becoming Critical,' Or The Steps Necessary To Achieve Critical Thought For Law Students, Daniel J. Sequeira

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making The Critical Moves: A Top Ten In Progressive Legal Scholarship, Jorge L. Esquirol

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Bottom Line: Law School Need To Get Serious About The Work Of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Lisa Sonia Taylor, Belinda Dantley

Research Reports & White Papers

North American law schools are adding Diversity, Equity, and inclusion (DEI) roles or responsibilities at an increasing pace. In early 2021 we surveyed DEI professionals at law schools across the country. We agree interested in finding out more about these professionals, their work, and their perceptions about the role they play at their law school.

We took the opportunity to ask DEI professionals about their role in light of the global pandemic and focus on racial injustice after the protests against police violence in the summer of 2020.

Rennard Leaves Us Words Of Thunder, Bill Piatt

Faculty Articles

Rennard Strickland was a quiet, modest, genial man who made many contributions to legal education over the span of his career. Among his most important gifts are the words he wrote and spoke which alerted us to the extent that the legal system contributed to the genocide of Indigenous America.

Creating A More Diverse Workforce: How The Aall George A. Strait Minority Scholarship & Fellowship Program Is Supporting Future Minority Law Librarians, Shamika Dalton, Annalee Hickman, Trina Holloway

Publications

No abstract provided.

Finding New Classroom Tricks In A Virtual Teaching World: One ‘Old Dog’S’ Tale, Daniel Keating

Scholarship@WashULaw

It has been hard to find many silver linings in this dark cloud we call the pandemic, but here’s one: Two colleagues and I, all three of us at different law schools, were having an e-mail discussion about how online instruction had affected us and challenged our “business as usual” approach to teaching. Among the three of us, we have taught for more than 100 years combined. Yet here we were, trading notes on our successes and failures with polls, online discussion boards, and virtual breakout rooms. Finally, the most senior member of our trio summed it up with this …

Municipal Resources, Michael Whitlow

Publications

No abstract provided.

Better Than Our Biases: Using Psychological Research To Inform Our Approach To Effective, Inclusive Feedback, Anne D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

As teaching faculty, we are obligated to create an inclusive learning environment for all students. When we fail to be thoughtful about our own bias, our teaching suffers – and students from under-represented backgrounds are left behind. This paper draws on legal, pedagogical, and psychological research to create a practical guide for clinical teaching faculty in understanding, examining, and mitigating our own biases, so that we may better teach and support our students. First, I discuss two kinds of bias that interfere with our decision-making and behavior: cognitive biases (such as confirmation bias, primacy and recency effects, and the halo …