Legal Education Commons^™

The Pedagogy Of "Yes We Can": Teaching Reformative Legal Justice In The Age Of Obama, Leroy Pernell

Journal Publications

These brief comments, delivered as part of the 5th Annual Fred Gray Sr. Civil Rights Symposium, Faulkner University, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law October 21, 2009, do not challenge whether law schools and the profession sufficiently make the case for public service and commitment to societal good; admittedly most existing standards and curricula do. Rather, these comments address the opportunity for legal education to tap, and expand on, a heightened psychological and emotional commitment that might be engendered in law students following the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.

Lrw Program Design: A Manifesto For The Future, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

All of us have, at one time or another, had occasion to consider, or reconsider, our program model. The trigger may have been a new dean; the prospect of a sabbatical inspection; a budget crisis or financial windfall; a faculty champion or saboteur; some-thing we learned at a Legal Writing Institute (LWI) or Association of Legal Writing Directors conference; or merely the cycle of bureaucratic reorganization. Those reconsiderations have led to a great diversity of Legal Research and Writing (LRW) program models: two-, three-, four-, and all-semester programs; adjunct-, contract-, and tenure-track staffing; and directors, co-directors, and no directors. Reconsiderations …

Time To Blossom: An Inquiry Into Bloom’S Taxonomy As A Hierarchy And Means For Teaching Legal Research Skills, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

Within law librarianship and legal education, there has been far too little scholarly engagement on the underlying pedagogy at the heart of legal research instruction. To correct this deficiency, law librarianship needs to open a dialogue and should consider adapting Bloom’s Taxonomy as a common schema for a collaborative effort.

This paper was initially presented at the "Conference on Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching," held at the University of Colorado Law School on June 21-22, 2009, as part of its Boulder Summer Conference Series. It follows the author's own recently published challenge to law librarianship and legal research instructors to …

Opposition To Clinics Tests Attorney-Client Privilege; Students Working On Pro Bono Cases Leave Schools Vulnerable To Confidentiality Challenges, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This National Law Journal article draws attention to past attempts by government and private parties to pierce the protections of the attorney client relationship, specifically confidentiality, when it comes to the representation of clients by law school clinics. Several law school clinics and innocence projects have defended themselves against actions by prosecuting attorney offices and opposing parties who have attempted to obtain information that is traditionally protected by state and federal confidentiality rules. Law school clinics, public interest organizations, innocence projects, government agencies and Public Defender organizations can better protect themselves from future attempts by opposing parties to invade the …

How Judicial Hostility Toward Environmental Claims And Intimidation Tactics By Lawyers Have Formed The Perfect Storm Against Environmental Clinics: What's The Big Deal About Students And Chickens Anyway?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since 1976, when the first environmental clinic was started at the University of Oregon’s law school, clinics have proliferated. Today, approximately one out of five law schools has an environmental clinic. With respect to clinics in general, the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers lists “nearly 1400 full-time faculty teaching clinical courses.” Yet far from being an uncontroverted part of the academic landscape, clinics—particularly environmental clinics—have endured political blowback from challenging the environmentally destructive behavior of major economic interests. The effectiveness of environmental clinics is no greater than established environmental organizations—perhaps less effective given the length of …

Top 10 Law School Home Pages Of 2009, Roger Skalbeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The website home page represents the virtual front door for any law school. It’s the place many prospective students start in the application process. Enrolled students, law school faculty and other employees often start with the home page to find classes, curricula and compensation plans. Home page content changes constantly. Deciding which home pages are good is often very subjective. Creating a ranking system for “good taste” is perhaps impossible.

The ranking report "Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2009" includes a tabulation of fourteen objective design criteria to analyze and rank 195 law school home pages. The intent …

Closing The Legislative Experience Gap: How A Legislative Law Clerk Program Will Benefit The Legal Profession And Congress, Dakota S. Rudesill

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Most federal law today is statutory or rooted in statutes, which are created through a complicated process best understood through work experience inside legislatures. This article demonstrates that America’s most influential lawyers are not getting it. My new empirical analysis of the work experience of the top 500 lawyers nationwide as ranked by Lawdragon.com finds that work experience in legislative bodies is dramatically less common among the profession’s leaders than is formative work experience in courts, government executive agencies, private practice, and academe. This article continues the empirical study of the professional experience of the legal profession’s elite published in …

Finding The Middle Ground In Collection Development: How Academic Law Libraries Can Shape Their Collections In Response To The Call For More Practice-Oriented Legal Education, Leslie A. Street, Amanda M. Runyon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To examine how academic law libraries can respond to the call for more practice-oriented legal education, the authors compared trends in collection management decisions regarding secondary sources at academic and law firm libraries along with law firm librarians’ perceptions of law school legal research training of new associates.

An Autobiography Of A Digital Idea: From Waging War Against Laptops To Engaging Students With Laptops, Diana R. Donahoe

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is an autobiographical account of my attempt to bridge the digital divide to meet students' changing needs. When I first began teaching at Georgetown University Law Center in 1993, I employed many traditional teaching techniques and used printed textbooks. However, laptops soon began peppering my classroom; at first there were only a few, and then suddenly almost every student was hiding behind a laptop. I noticed that my students were looking down at their screens, typing furiously, instead of watching me while I discussed my material written on the blackboard or projected overhead. When I realized that I was …

A Populist Manifesto For Learning The Law, Eric E. Johnson

Faculty Articles

In this article, I examine the questions above and conclude that there are intelligent, well-formed arguments for taking a more populist approach to teaching law. The pedagogical view I present in this article can be summed up as three interrelated propositions: • Law professors should cease to regard as sacrosanct the process of learning law through the reading of judicial opinions. • Law professors should let go of old taboos about student study-aids and other shortcuts to learning. • Law professors should strive, insofar as possible, to make learning doctrine easier and less time-consuming. In its briefest form, my argument …

Harvard And Yale Ascendant: The Legal Education Of The Justices From Holmes To Kagan, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

With the nomination of Elena Kagan to be a justice of the United States Supreme Court, it is quite possible that eight of the nine justices will have graduated from only two law schools—Harvard and Yale. This article frames this development in the historical context of the legal education of those justices confirmed between 1902 and 2010. What this historical review makes clear is that the Ivy League dominance of the Supreme Court is a relatively recent occurrence whose beginnings can be traced to Antonin Scalia’s 1986 confirmation. Prior to that time, although Harvard and Yale were consistently represented among …

A Critical Survey Of The Law, Ethics, And Economics Of Attorney Contingent Fee Arrangements, Adam Shajnfeld

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Doing Good While Doing Deals: Early Lesson In Launching An International Transactions Clinic, Deborah Burand

Articles

That is not to say that the launch of this clinic was easy. Four of the most challenging issues the ITC faced in its first year of operation were: 1) developing a client pool, 2) defining client projects so as to be appropriate to student clinicians’ skill levels and capacity, 3) making use of efficient and inexpensive technology to foster international communication with clients and transaction management, and 4) tapping supervisory attorney talent capable of supporting student clinicians in their international transactional work. The first two issues were the biggest challenges that we faced in launching the ITC and so …

If I Had A Hammer: Can Shepardizing, Synthesis, And Other Tools Of Legal Writing Help Build Hope For Law Students?, Edward R. Becker

Articles

Are lawyers mechanics? In 1920, photographer Lewis Hines took a striking photo of a powerhouse mechanic sure-handedly wielding a large wrench to tighten bolts on a steam pump. This picture may bring to mind many things, but I suspect that many legal writing professors in our (past or present) incarnations as practicing attorneys would not look at this image and think, "My job is a lot like that." Similarly, I assume that many of our students do not think of a lawyer's role in this way. Indeed, many of our students might have chosen to pursue a career in law …

What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us: The Need For Empirical Research In Regulating Lawyers And Legal Services In The Global Economy, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Launch Of An International Transactions Clinic: Doing Good While Doing Deals, Deborah Burand

Articles

September 2008 marked the launch of the International Transactions Clinic (ITC) at the University of Michigan Law School, the first legal clinic of its kind to combine an international and transactional focus. As Law School Dean Evan Caminker said upon the launch of the ITC, “[t]his is an exciting opportunity to involve a new generation of bright legal minds in cross-border transactions that will train our students for a lifetime of international business dealings, and that can also make an enormous difference in the lives of people in the developing world.”

A Brief Reflection On The Stages Of The Clinical Year: Group Process With Existentialist Roots, Richard J. Wilson

Working Papers

This short article focuses on "units," or stages of group process, part of my shared experience in law teaching and in adult education at St. Mark’s Church, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. The article explores the context of the functional education program of church teaching and its common elements with clinical law teaching. The unit structure from church teaching translates well, I conclude, into the structure of clinical legal education.

Mainstreaming Civil Rights In The Law School Curriculum: Criminal Law And Procedure, Tamara F. Lawson

Articles

No abstract provided.

Taking It To The Streets: A Public Right-Of-Way Project For Disability Law, Elizabeth Pendo

Articles

I teach a course in Disability Discrimination Law, which is designed as a civil rights course focused on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). When the ADA was passed in 1990, it was celebrated by many as one of the most significant civil-rights victories of this century. The ADA was enacted to "provide clear, strong, consistent, [and] enforceable standards [for] addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities" and prohibits discrimination in employment, public services and transportation, privatelyowned places of public accommodations, and telecommunications. Although the ADA is not the first federal law addressing disability, its passage made clear that the continued …

The Excitement Of Interdictory Ideas: A Response To Professor Anders Walker, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

The very first time that I taught criminal law, I would occasionally tell my six-year-old son, Thomas, about selected cases and situations that I had come across. Thomas enjoyed these discussions—more than I would have guessed: he was captivated by the horror of Dudley & Stephens, he was uncomfortably intrigued by shaming punishments, he was appropriately outraged at all manner of outcomes that seemed to him too harsh or too lenient. But most of all, he wanted to test his own burgeoning intuitions about right and wrong, good and evil, the permitted and the forbidden, against my "criminal law stories." …