Legal Education Commons^™

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 …

Queer Dispute Resolution, Daniel Del Gobbo

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The article is organized as follows. Part H traces the conceptual shift in legal theory from thinking about the juridical subject as a bearer of rights to a bearer of interests. This provides the necessary context for my reframing the bearer of interests as a bearer of desires. Part III begins to explore the implications of this move, drawing on what I call the "ethic of positivity" in parts of queer theory that celebrates the potential for sexual desires to transcend identity categories. This theory suggests that the ethical promise of settlement derives from the potential of the subject's interests …

A Justice School: Teaching Forced Migration Through Experiential Learning, Lauren Gilbert

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This article demonstrates how experiential learning in law school can prepare students for the practice of law and, if done well, instill in them a life-long commitment to social justice. I use my efforts to integrate a public service component into my immigration courses to illustrate this. Despite institutional obstacles encountered along the way, the success of this effort ultimately turned on working collaboratively with student leaders with a shared commitment to equal justice, winning the support of well-placed individuals within our administration, and ensuring that the experience for students was rewarding. Our signature achievement has been the Karnes Pro …

Teaching Communication Skills In Transactional Simulations, Eric J. Gouvin, Katherine M. Koops, James E. Moliterno, Carol E. Morgan, Carol D. Newman

Faculty Scholarship

This Article describes the role of communication exercises in transactional law and skills education, and provides several examples of such exercises. After a discussion of fundamental differences between communication in the context of litigation and transactional law, the Article discusses exercises designed to improve written communication skills, including the use of e-mail, in the context of transactional law. It follows with a similar discussion of exercises focusing on oral communication skills, including listening, interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and presentations. The Article concludes with examples of exercises combining oral and written communication skills in the context of simulated transactions.

Law School Specialty Program Rankings: Is The Tail Wagging The Dog?, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

In addition to its annual ranking of law schools, U.S. News ranks nine law school specialty programs. This year, U.S. News asked survey participants to rate specialty programs on a new 5-point scale mirroring the method used to assess the academic reputation of schools among peers and lawyers/judges. The program rankings show a noticeable bunching of law schools ranked highest by U.S. News also at the top of most specialty programs and an overpopulation of lowest ranked schools at the bottom.

To examine the strength of the relationship between a school’s peer assessment and specialty program reputation, scores for each …

Challenges To Legal Education, Clinical Legal Education, And Clinical Scholarship, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

This essay analyzes the challenges to legal education and what those challenges may mean both to clinical legal education and to clinical scholarship. Since the Great Recession, several law schools have closed, some have merged, and still other law schools approved by the American Bar Association (ABA) have been found out of compliance with ABA Accreditation Standards and either have been directed to take specific remedial action, have been placed on probation, or have lost ABA-approval. While enrollment has rebounded at some law schools, other law schools have continued to experience much smaller entering classes than the entering class in …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Law School Coursework And Bar Exam Outcomes, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

The recent decline in bar exam passage rates has triggered speculation that the decline is being driven by law students taking more experiential courses and fewer bar-subject courses. These concerns arose in the absence of any empirical study linking certain coursework to bar exam failure.

This article addresses speculation about the relationship between law school coursework and bar exam outcomes. It reports the results of a large-scale study of the courses of over 3800 graduates from two law schools and the relationship between their experiential and bar-subject coursework and bar exam outcomes over a ten-year period. At both schools, the …

One Legal Argument, Robin Boyle-Laisure

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

A governing rule may be composed of a single legal argument, or multiple legal arguments, particularly if the client’s question requires analysis of multiple elements or factors. Each legal argument that an attorney builds will have the same components. Those components are

• A statement identifying the legal issue to be addressed.

• The rule governing the legal issue and, where needed, an explanation of the relevant authorities or cases supporting that rule.

• An application of the law to the facts of your client’s case.

• A final conclusion or prediction about how a court might rule on …

The "Pink Ghetto" Pipeline: Challenges And Opportunities For Women In Legal Education, Renee Nicole Allen, Alicia Jackson, Deshun Harris

Faculty Publications

The demographics of law schools are changing and women make up the majority of law students. Yet, the demographics of many law faculties do not reflect these changing demographics with more men occupying faculty seats. In legal education, women predominately occupy skills positions, including legal writing, clinic, academic success, bar preparation, or library. According to a 2010 Association of American Law Schools survey, the percentage of female lecturers and instructors is so high that those positions are stereotypically female.

The term coined for positions typically held by women is "pink ghetto." According to the Department of Labor, pink-collar-worker describes jobs …

Developing A Culturally Competent Legal Research Curriculum: Best Practices For Weaving Cultural Competency Topics, Including Diversity, Into Your Lectures, Assignments, And Classroom Discussions, Shamika Dalton, Clanitra Stewart Nejdl

Publications

No abstract provided.

Retrospective: 30 Lessons Learned (And A Few Strokes Of Luck) At The Crossroads, James S. Heller

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Mindfulness In Legal Ethics And Professionalism, Peter H. Huang

Publications

Mindfulness involves paying attention with curiosity in an intentional, open, and compassionate way to life as it unfolds moment to moment. Law students, lawyers, law professors, legal clients, and indeed all people can improve their lives through mindfulness. Mindfulness can lead to individual benefits and personal transformation. Mindfulness can also lead to societal benefits and social change. This invited symposium contribution exemplifies how mindfulness can facilitate the positive personal and professional development of law students by presenting excerpts of law students’ answers discussing mindfulness to questions from the final examination of the course: Legal Ethics and Professionalism. Notably, none of …

Persons And The Point Of The Law, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This short essay is a comment and reflection on a manuscript by Professors John Breen and Lee
Strang, "A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States." It is based on remarks presented at a February 14, 2020 conference, sponsored by the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies and the Center for Law and Religion at St. John's University School of Law. It
addresses, among other things, Breen and Strang's argument that a Catholic law school should have a distinctive "intellectual architecture" and proposes that a distinctive moral anthropology -- that is, an account of what the …

Fake News, Alternative Facts, And Disinformation: The Importance Of Teaching Media Literacy To Law Students, Marin Dell

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Flying Without Wings, Eleanor Lanier

Scholarly Works

Because of Georgia’s unique court structure and political challenges, state advocates were unable to secure funding for a spot in the WINGS nest. But there is good news. The bonds we forged over our many years of advocacy on guardianship issues, and our effort to pull together the (unsuccessful) WINGS application, helped a few of our ideas take flight. This article highlights one highly successful and easily replicable effort that can be undertaken for a local court, in a region or at the state level, depending on resources and interest.

Reflecting Clinics At 50: Reports From The Field, Russell C. Gabriel

Scholarly Works

For lawyers, learning law by practicing law is customary. In the world of legal education, learning from practice is situated in both acceptance and opposition. There are practical arguments in its favor—the practicing bar wants law graduates to be “practice ready,” and theoretical arguments—understanding how law operates in the real world yields a clearer understanding of law itself, how it maintains social and economic structures, and how it impacts individuals. At the University of Georgia, law students, hungry for a legal education and a bar license, have been learning from practice in the Law School’s clinical programs for over fifty …

Clinical Syllabi As Demonstration Of Best Practices Implementation, Jean Goetz Mangan, Fernanda Mackay

Scholarly Works

This Article posits that the University of Georgia School of Law for Clinical Programs course syllabi demonstrate implementation of recommendations found in leading works that advocate for change in traditional legal education. This Article reviews some high points of legal education reform with a focus on clinical legal education and then discusses the role of syllabi in the classroom and the potential within the document that many professors miss. This Article then turns to using syllabi to measure the extent that the clinics are implementing instruction that addresses all three apprenticeships as defined in the Carnegie Report.. To assess the …

Why Is The Protective Order Project Still In Business; Or, If The Family Justice Clinic Has Been At It So Long, Why Hasn’T Anything Changed? Domestic Violence As A Continuing Societal Concern, Christine M. Scartz, Chelsea Reese

Scholarly Works

This Article explores the Georgia Law Family Violence and the continuing societal concern surrounding domestic violence.

Access To The Civil Court System For Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse In Georgia: Observations And Recommendations From The Clinical Legal Education Experience, Emma M. Hetherington, Michael Nunnally

Scholarly Works

Founded in January 2016, the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic (the CEASE Clinic) represents survivors of child sexual abuse in juvenile court dependency matters and civil litigation and is the first of its kind in the nation. The CEASE Clinic was established through a generous donation by Georgia Law alumnus Marlan Wilbanks (JD ‘84) in response to a new Georgia law known as the Hidden Predator Act (the HPA) that went into effect on July 1, 2015. The HPA extended the statute of limitations for civil claims arising out of acts of child sexual abuse by providing a …

Teaching Tomorrow’S Lawyers Through A (Semi-) Generalist, (Mostly-) Individual Client Poverty Law Clinic: Reflections On Five Years Of The Community Health Law Partnership, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Design options when starting a live-client clinic from scratch can be somewhat overwhelming. Should the clinic focus on systemic impact or individual representation? Appellate work or hearings? Should the clinic specialize or cover multiple legal issues? Another set of issues concerns how the clinic should find and accept its clients, and whether students should have a role in the intake process. The list of choices goes on. In this Essay, written for the Georgia Law Review’s Online Issue celebrating 50 years of clinics at the University of Georgia School of Law, I describe how I have navigated these and other …