Legal Education Commons^™

What Law Must Lawyers Know?, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

What constitutes the body of legal knowledge that every lawyer must
possess? I used to know, or think I did, but no longer. I suspect no one else
knows either. This difficult question is not just an intriguing theoretical
matter but also an urgent, practical problem. Licensing regulators assume
that minimal competence in any profession requires certain fundamental
knowledge, skills, and abilities.Bar examiners must determine what
knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary for minimum competence as
an attorney and then design tests and other requirements to attempt to align
licensure with minimum competence. Today’s tangled attorney licensing
puzzle cannot be …

Race, Racism, And American Law': A Seminar From The Indigenous, Black, And Immigrant Legal Perspectives, Monte Mills, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Andrew King-Ries

Articles

Flagrant racism has characterized the Trump era from the onset. Beginning with the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has inflamed long-festering racial wounds and unleashed white supremacist reaction to the nation’s first black President, in the process destabilizing our sense of the nation’s racial progress and upending core principles of legality, equality, and justice. As law professors, we sought to rise to these challenges and prepare the next generation of lawyers to succeed in a different and more polarized future. Our shared commitment resulted in a new course, “Race, Racism, and American Law,” in which we sought to explore the roots …

Junk Tales: Incorporating Drug Addicts' Narratives In Law School Courses, Sara Schotland

Criminal Law Practitioner

No abstract provided.

Building A Better Bar Exam, Marsha Griggs

Texas A&M Law Review

In the wake of declining bar passage numbers and limited placement options for law grads, a new bar exam has emerged: the UBE. Drawn to an allusive promise of portability, thirty-six U.S. jurisdictions have adopted the UBE. I predict that in a few years’ time, the UBE will be administered in all states and U.S. territories. The UBE has snowballed from an idea into the primary gateway for entry into the practice of law. But the UBE is not a panacea that will solve the bar passage problems that U.S. law schools face. Whether or not to adopt a uniform …

Foreword: Behind The Classroom: An Examination Of Law Schools In The 21st Century, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Allowing Autistic Academics The Freedom To Be Autistic: The Ada And A Neurodiverse Future In Pennsylvania And Beyond, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article focuses on those Autistics who have the ability, in terms of intellect credential, and measurable skill, to enter the workplace. In particular, this Article addresses Autistics who are academics and teach at the collegiate level, specifically in the American legal classroom. I have chosen a narrow subset of a broad community to make a targeted argument for employment protection which can help expand the law for the entire Autistic community. While we are different than neurotypically developed persons, "[m]any with [Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)] have a high attention to detail and the ability to sustain intense concentration in …

The Rise Of The Creative Law School, Gregory W. Bowman

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Code Of Capital. How The Law Creates Wealth And Inequality. Pistor, Katharina. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019 [Book Review], Dana Neacsu

Law Faculty Publications

In “The Little King,” Salman Rushdie’s prize-winning take on corruption and the opioid crisis, as published in The New Yorker (July 29, 2019), the law is described as “an ass,” but a useful one:

"The law is useful, in fact. It tells you who is the correct person you need to convince. Otherwise, you can waste money convincing people who don’t have the stamp. Waste not, want not. We are like this only. We know what is the oil that greases the wheels" (Rushdie, 59, 2019).

The Code of Capital. How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality is a prize-winning …

The Judicial Dean, J. Rich Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Train Wrecks: 3m National Teaching Fellows Explore Creating Learning And Generative Responses From Colossal Failures, William B. Strean, Patrick T. Maher, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

We all fail. We also like to look good and avoid looking bad. So, even though we know that taking risks and trying new approaches are important for enhancing our teaching and students’ learning (Strean, 2017), we rarely talk about our failures. Our claim in this paper is that our insecurities create a substantial barrier to improving and enriching our teaching practices. If we do not find time to take big risks, and then to explore and critically reflect on failures that result sometimes from those risks, we lose out on the chance to become better teachers; more fundamentally, we …

Administrative Law, Diana Ginn, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Administrative law is concerned with the relationship between courts and those who make decisions in the course of exercising administrative powers. In particular, administrative law focuses on the way in which and the extent to which courts review or oversee administrative decision making. Administrative powers are largely created by statute. Such legislation is often referred to as the "enabling legislation”. An action taken under the Crown's prerogative powers is also considered to be administrative action; however, the focus of these materials is on action taken under enabling legislation.

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Jonathon Penney, Danielle Citron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyber harassment and sexual privacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, law has an equally important expressive role. In this article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role—its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …

Celebrating 30 Years Of The Indigenous Blacks & Mi’Kmaq Initiative: How The Creation Of A Critical Mass Of Black And Aboriginal Lawyers Is Making A Difference In Nova Scotia, Naiomi Metallic

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Drawing on my own experience as alumni of the Indigenous Blacks & Mi’kmaq Initiative at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University—one of the only dedicated access program in a Canadian law school for Black and Aboriginal students—I argue that such programs create optimal conditions for fostering greater awareness of critical race issues within the legal profession. The reason for this is that such programs create a critical mass of Black and Aboriginal law students and alumni, who support and encourage each other and, as a result, acquire confidence and skill in raising, and educating others about, critical race …

The Three Ages Of Modern American Lawyering And The Current Crisis In The Legal Profession And Legal Education, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

During the first months of 2018, two short pieces on legal education were published. One reported on the results of a survey of college graduates, law school graduates, and holders of other advanced degrees. The study found that today’s law graduates were less likely than pre-recession counterparts to report that the J.D. degree was worth the cost and more likely to have second thoughts about the decision to go to law school. The findings prompted Aaron Taylor, executive director of the Access Lex Center for Legal Education Excellence, to conclude that there are “two distinct worlds of law graduates” made …

Happy Golden Anniversary, St. Mary's Law Journal!, Stephen M. Sheppard

Faculty Articles

Half a century ago, a handful of dedicated St. Mary's law students and faculty begat a premiere experience in legal education, the St. Mary's Law Journal. As the Journal marks its 50th anniversary, it continues to represent the diligence, imagination, practicality, and sheer effort of our faculty and students,

A Retrospective On Race: The View From Long Island, Deborah W. Post

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Using Mindfulness Meditation To Foster Reflection In Externships, Alison F. Lintal

Faculty Scholarly Works

In an externship setting, where students are asked to combine theory and practice, intentional reflection is key to processing what has been learned from experience. Students are asked to maintain an open curiosity about practice and to connect with their inner experiential world as part of this process. There is a natural connection between reflection and contemplative practice. Teaching reflection to law students can be enhanced by introducing mindfulness practices which share similar attributes such as open awareness, observation, and acceptance of both positive and negative outcomes. This article describes the ways in which mindfulness techniques can be introduced into …

Navigating The Moral Minefields Of Human Rights Advocacy In The Global South, Sandra L. Babcock

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Human rights advocacy in foreign countries raises complex ethical, moral, and political questions. Legal scholars have challenged the legitimacy and accountability of international human rights activists that impose foreign agendas on local partners in the Global South. Development economists have raised related concerns about the impact of foreign assistance on government accountability. In this article, I use narrative storytelling techniques to illustrate the fraught strategic judgments and moral choices that permeate human rights advocacy. These narratives are drawn from my international human rights clinic’s twelve-year engagement in justice reform work in Malawi, where my students and I have been instrumental …

The 2019 Revealed-Preferences Ranking Of Law Schools, Christopher J. Ryan, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 2017, we published A Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools, which presented the first (intentionally) objective ranking of law schools. Other law school rankings are subjective because their purpose is to tell prospective law students where to matriculate. Our “revealed preferences” ranking is objective because its purpose is to ask where prospective law students actually choose to matriculate. In other words, subjective rankings tell students what they should want, but our objective ranking reveals what students actually want. These rankings were originally based on an average of the previous five years of LSAT and GPA quartile and median averages …

Il Était Une Fois… Analyse Juridique Des Contes De Fées, Marine Ranouil And Nicolas Dissaux, Eds. Paris: Dalloz, 2018. [Book Review], Dana Neacsu

Law Faculty Publications

Il était une fois… Once Upon a Time, edited by Marine Ranouil and Nicholas Dissaux, inhabits the most tempting theory of Gramscian hegemony: Law codifies the people’s desires, especially those imparted to them through books; through the written word. Reading it brought to mind Bertrand Barère and his explanation of the French Revolution of 1789. Books did it all because they brought enlightenment into all classes of society. This seems pretentious and partially inaccurate. The Revolution was also ignited by filth and hunger, which made the masses part with their innate fear of death and bravely fight for such …