clinicians with not enough to do

Input Needed for ABA Council's "Mini-Retreat" on the Economy

The ABA Council is seeking input from affiliates regarding a retreat they are planning for June.  See below.  SALT’s Hazel Weiser is coordinating a call among some of us for later this week, and CLEA's Kim Connolly wanted to get your thoughts on this in the meantime.  If you have any, contact her at connolly@sc.edu.  Or you can contact Randy Hertz and Bucky Askew directly.

 

Dear  Kim [Connolly]:  

We (Bucky Askew and Randy Hertz) are writing to you to seek your help in compiling a set of background readings for the "mini-retreat" on the economy that we plan to hold on Saturday, June 6, from 8:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., during the meeting of the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar in Indianapolis.

                The subcommittee that is handling the planning for this event has formulated what the two of us regard as an excellent approach for addressing the complex issues concerning the state of economy in ways that will keep us focused on the context of law schools and the subcontext that is of particular relevance to the Council: accreditation of law schools.  What we are currently planning is to have a two-hour roundtable in which invited speakers will address the effects of the economic downturn on the law schools and the law school accreditation process.  The umbrella theme will be the impact of the accreditation standards, whether some might be interpreted more flexibly than others during the recession, and helpful actions that the Council might take in this situation.  The discussion topics will include, among many others: how to enhance, or at least maintain, diversity while under financial stress; the new job market and its implications for future law school development efforts; need vs. "merit" grants and their consequences; filling entering classes with qualified students; and identifying steps that might reduce the cost of legal education while maintaining quality.  This two-hour roundtable will be followed by a 75-minute discussion in which Council members, staff, and representatives of sister organizations can discuss the issues raised in the roundtable.  The final session, led by a "summarian," will help us focus on reaching conclusions, identifying possible goals, and setting priorities.

                We would like to develop a packet of relevant materials (data, memoranda, brief articles, and so forth) to distribute to all attendees in advance of the mini-retreat.  We are hoping that you might be willing to provide us with any such materials that you regard as useful background readings for a discussion of this sort.

                In order to get these materials to all attendees well in advance, we need to receive them no later than May 8, 2009.  Please send to:

 Maxine Klein

American Bar Association

Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar

321 North Clark Street, 21^st Floor

Chicago, IL  60654-7958.

 If sent electronically to: kleinm@staff.abanet.org

                We are very grateful for your help.  We hope to see you at the mini-retreat.

            All the best.

                Bucky and Randy

Ron Whitener wins M. Shanara Gilbert "Emerging Clinician" Award

The Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education is proud to announce that Professor Ron Whitener from University of Washington has won this year’s M. Shanara Gilbert “Emerging Clinician” Award.  Professor Whitener is Assistant Professor of Law and the Director of the Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic at University of Washington School of Law, where he has been teaching in the clinical program since 1999. 

 

Through the Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic, Ron Whitener has made access to justice a reality for countless clients and has helped to train a new generation of advocates for American Indians.  For many American Indians, the Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic is the only source of representation for those facing criminal charges because tribal courts are not required by law to provide legal representation.  Professor Whitener saw this pressing need, started this clinic, and has helped to expand its reach through fundraising.  In addition, Professor Whitener has helped to build the clinical program at University of Washington and has been a resource to other clinical programs.  Professor Whitener also is an engaged scholar, authoring or co-authoring three journal articles focused on legal and health issues affecting American Indians.

 

Professor Whitener is actively involved in American Indian legal issues.  He began his career as Legal Counsel to the Squaxin Island Tribe, of which he is a member, and he has done lay advocate and other legal training for nearly a dozen other tribes in addition to direct representation of clients.  He frequently speaks about treaty rights, tribal jurisdiction, and other legal issues affecting American Indians.  He has also promoted international clinical legal education efforts through his collaboration with the Afghan Legal Educators Program, a program of the Asian Law Center at the University of Washington.  Afghan law faculty participating in that program visited tribal courts and attended meetings with faculty and students in the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic.

 

The M. Shanara Gilbert Award will be presented at the Conference on Clinical Legal Education at a special ceremony on Friday, May 8, at 9:00 a.m., in Cleveland, Ohio.  The Award is for a recent entrant into clinical legal education who has demonstrated all or some of the following qualities:

 

1) a commitment to teaching and achieving social justice, particularly in the areas of race and the criminal justice system;

 

2) an interest in international clinical legal education;

 

3) a passion for providing legal services and access to justice to individuals and groups most in need;

 

4) service to the cause of clinical legal education or to the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education; and

 

5) an interest in the beauty of nature.

 

This year, as in past years, the Section’s Awards Committee had a very difficult task, choosing among many incredible and superb nominees.  The Executive Committee would like to thank the Awards Committee for its work in the selection process: Gordon Beggs (Cleveland State); Deborah Epstein (Georgetown); Miye Goishi (UC-Hastings); Zelda Harris, Acting Chair for this Award selection (Arizona); and Peter Joy, Chair (Washington University) (please note that Peter Joy did not participate in the deliberations or selection for this Award due to a conflict of interest).

 

We look forward to seeing you in Cleveland and honoring Professor Whitener for his creativity in addressing a pressing legal need for an underserved community and his outstanding contributions to clinical legal education.

 

Sincerely,

 

Carol M. Suzuki

 

CLEA Award Nominations due 4/8

to be presented at the AALS conference in Cleveland --

This is a reminder that CLEA is seeking nominations for the CLEA Award to an Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers.  The deadline for nominations is April 8, 2009.  Please send nominations to Kele Williams at University of Miami School of Law, 1311 Miller Drive, Suite F305, Coral Gables, FL 331346 or kwilliams@law.miami.edu.

 The criteria for the award are commitment to the field of clinical legal education; advancement of the field (by, e.g., work within organizations that affect the contours of legal education, or by writing and speaking about the field, or by serving as a spokesperson for the field in the litigative, legislative, administrative or other arenas); and fostering a spirit of community (by, e.g., planning or leading conferences or sponsoring initiatives).

 --------------

This is a reminder that CLEA is seeking nominations for the CLEA Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project.  Please submit the attached nomination form to Kele Williams at University of Miami School of Law, 1311 Miller Drive, Suite F305, Coral Gables FL 33146 or kwilliams@law.miami.edu.  The deadline for nominations is April 8, 2009.

 An award may be given to an individual law student or law students in a clinical program or a clinical program.

 The criteria for the award are:  1.  A case or project that either: A)   effectively calls attention to and/or significantly redresses a high priority need of low income residents or communities; or (B) makes a notable or meaningful contribution to the advancement of civil rights, civil liberties, legal services for the under-represented, environmental protection, or consumer protection; and 2.  The case or project has been carried out in conformity with the highest standards of professional conduct and competence; and 3.  The case or project serves as an inspiring model for engaging in legal work under challenging conditions in furtherance of the common good.

Three members of the full-time clinical faculty at a law school who are members of CLEA can submit nominations; if there are fewer than six full-time clinical faculty at a law school who are members of CLEA, then a majority of the full-time clinical faculty at a law school who are members of CLEA can submit nominations.

------------

This is a reminder that CLEA is seeking nominations for the Outstanding Student Award.  The deadline for nominations is April 22, 2009.  Please submit nominations to Kele Williams at University of Miami School of Law, 1311 Miller Drive, Suite F305, Coral Gables FL 33146 or kwilliams@law.miami.edu.

CLEA wants to recognize law students who have excelled in a clinical course in law school. To recognize those students, CLEA has created an award to honor a law student at each law school who has excelled in a clinical course.  The award will be given annually at the completion of the academic year.  The award may be presented at the individual law school's graduation or at some other appropriate time, as determined by the clinical faculty at each law school. 

 CRITERIA  The criteria for the award are:  1.  excellence in the field work component of the clinical course determined by the quality of the student's performance in assisting or representing individual clients or in undertaking group advocacy or policy reform projects; 2.  excellence in the seminar component of the clinical course determined by the quality of the student's thoughtfulness and self reflectiveness in exploring the legal, ethical, strategic and other pertinent issues raised by the particular clinic; and 3.  the nature and extent of the student's contribution to the clinical community at that school, if relevant.

Writing effective clerkship recommendations

here's a good piece about writing those pesky clerkship letters

Download Article re rec letters

HT  Bill Araiza,  Brooklyn Law School

2 SSRNs: Hierarchy in the Academy and Social Networks

"Reproduction of Hierarchy? A Social Network Analysis of the American Law Professoriate" 

DANIEL MARTIN KATZ, University of Michigan - Department of Political Science, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Center for Study of Complex Systems
Email: dmartink@umich.edu
JOSHUA GUBLER, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor -- Department of Political Science
Email: jgub@umich.edu
JON ZELNER, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Center for Study of Complex Systems
ERIC A. PROVINS, University of Michigan - Department of Political Science
Email: eprovins@umich.edu
EITAN M. INGALL, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: emingall@gmail.com

As its structure offers one causal mechanism for the emergence of and convergence upon a collective conception of what constitutes a sound legal rule, we believe the social structure of the American law professoriate is an important piece of a broader model of American common law development. Leveraging advances in network science and drawing from available information on the more 7,200 tenure-track professor employed by an ABA accredited institution, we explore the topology of the legal academy including the relative distribution of authority among its institutions. Drawing from social epidemiology literature, we provide a computational model for diffusion on our network. The model provides a parsimonious display of the trade off between "idea infectiousness" and structural position. While our model is undoubtedly simple, our initial foray into computational legal studies should, at a minimum, motivate future scholarship.

"Laptops, Wi-Fi, Social Networks, Blogs, Expert Daily Emails, and Podcasts: A Survey of Learning Enhancement" 

SCOTT A. TAYLOR, University of St. Thomas - School of Law (Minnesota)
Email: sataylor@stthomas.edu

Using a survey of students in an American law school course, I investigated learning enhancement through the use of laptops, social networks, blogs, expert emails, and podcasts. The survey shows that students evaluate laptop use as generally enhancing their learning. Social networks, however, received mixed reviews. Expert daily emails are helpful, but not substantially so. Podcasts of classes are helpful to a limited subset of students who are unable to attend class.

Don't underestimate the importance of seeing successful female professors with children

BALANCING ACT

Role Models and Mentors

Don't underestimate the importance to female graduate students of seeing successful female professors with children

By MARY ANN MASON

.....

Role models, particularly ones with children, can make the difference in whether a female graduate student takes the next big step along the tenure track. While undergraduates are influenced simply by seeing a female faculty member, graduate students need to see that she is able to have children as well as a career.

At the University of California, we surveyed 8,000 doctoral students across all disciplines and found that the fewer female professors they see with children, the less likely they are to view tenure-track faculty careers at research universities as family friendly. Only 12 percent of the students viewed research universities as family friendly if they were in departments in which few of the female professors had children, compared with 46 percent of students in departments where female professors commonly had children.

As a graduate student in linguistics commented: "I can't think of an example of a successful female faculty member at our (or any other) top research university who has a 'normal' family situation. The only time these women appear successful both personally and professionally is if a spouse dedicates his career to helping his wife succeed."

Female role models are important for what they stand for — the possibility of success — whether or not they have a personal relationship with a particular student or young faculty member. Mentors, however, are people who take a personal interest in a young woman's future and provide much-needed help and advice at critical times along the career track — and they are often men.

....

Graduate students in all fields encounter similar barriers and are forced to make the same hard choices. For all of them, role models and mentors play a critical role. The mentor suggests future career directions, directs the student's research, evaluates the student's work, sometimes offers research opportunities, and serves as a role model. A student's first job, the steppingstone to success, is usually facilitated by a glowing reference from a professor, or a good word between colleagues that raises one candidate above others in the competition for a coveted postdoctoral fellowship or a beginning teaching position.

In most fields, to reach the top of the profession, students must begin their training by working with the best professors in that field. In the sciences, the most distinguished professors work on the "hottest" topics — areas that are expected to break significant new ground rather than refine current knowledge. When a topic is hot, several groups of scientists often compete to solve it, and enormous prestige is attached to getting there first. A student who is chosen to work with that cutting-edge group will advance quickly.

Advisers, who should serve as mentors, can both help and hurt students' careers, and women can be at a disadvantage if they get stuck with a faculty mentor who has deep-seated gender biases. For my book, Mothers on the Fast Track, I interviewed "Maura," who had just received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from a prestigious university in four years (nearly record speed for a science or engineering Ph.D.). She told me that her adviser not only failed to offer her help with securing her first job, he didn't even ask about her career plans. Maura was known on the campus as the extremely effective and articulate president of the Graduate Student Assembly, the representative government for all graduate and professional students. To the campus world she seemed self-assured and focused, but her adviser's lack of interest had eroded her confidence. His undermining treatment began early on.

"I took my qualifying exams early, and his only remark was 'I'm surprised you passed!' I wasn't sure if he was surprised because I am a woman, or because I am black."

In the lab, Maura says her adviser picked clear favorites and marginalized female graduate students.

Role models are not always aware of their influence, but a mentor's actions are intentional. Many universities have set up formal mentor programs for women in science, for minority students, and for young faculty members. Those are all important, but not enough. Each of us — as graduate students working with undergraduates, or as faculty members guiding doctoral students and young faculty members — can become a mentor. If we do not do so, we will reinforce the stereotype that the university is a cold and competitive work environment where family life is unimportant.

Some faculty members have taken that sense of responsibility a step further. Alice Agogino, a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering, is both a role model as a successful mother of two, and a creative mentor. She has worked with student groups to raise money for female graduate students in engineering. But even small, symbolic gestures can make a difference, she says, such as when she finally convinced her department to remove several dozen photos of male professors that were prominently displayed.

"I fought for 15 years to take down the photographs of 50 men that were on the walls of the department," she says. "I did not make a stink the first year, but those photos really did get to me." To some critics that may seem silly or petty, but to Alice, those photos sent the wrong message and getting them removed was about creating "an environment and a climate appropriate for women."

read the whole article here

Organizing a Loan Forgiveness Drive

..... Robert Appelbaum, a 1998 Fordham Law school graduate who currently works in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office has a new approach to loan forgiveness.  According to Business Week, Appelbaum started a Facebook group back in January that advocates for cancellation of student loan debt to stimulate the economy. Just two short months later, Appelbaum's group has more than 138,500 members, many of whom are urging their representatives in Congress for new laws that would cancel student debt.

Appelbaum left law school with $80,000 in debt and a starting salary of $36,000 a year. He put his loans in forbearance for five years (which increased his debt to $100,000) As a result, more than a decade out of law school, Appelbaum is still paying off his education. ....

$$$$ for clinics: The Civil Access to Justice Act of 2009

thanks to Peter Joy for forwarding this

“Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the façade of the Supreme Court building.  It is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society . . . it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.”  Justice Lewis Powell

In many parts of the country today, more than 80 percent of those who need civil legal representation are unable to obtain it.  Nationally, 50 percent of eligible applicants for legal assistance from federally funded programs – families who make at or less than 125% of the poverty line, or about $27,500 – are turned away largely because such programs lack adequate funding.  That translates into over one million eligible cases per year.  As the economy continues to decline, the number of individuals needing legal assistance only increases.  This year, requests for services have risen by 30 percent or more in some areas of the country.

The federal commitment to legal services is not as effective as it needs to be.  In 1974, Congress established the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) – a private, non-profit corporation funded by Congress – to fund civil legal aid.  LSC, however, has not been reauthorized since 1981, and federal funding has been slashed since 1995 – from $415 million to $350 in FY’08, with only a recent increase to $390 million for FY’09.  Congress, moreover, has imposed severe restrictions on the use of both federal as well as non-federal funds – impeding attorneys’ ability to provide the most effective legal assistance.

It is necessary to recommit to the principle of “Equal Justice Under Law” and improve both the quantity and quality of legal services in this country.  The Civil Access to Justice Act of 2009 does so in five main ways:

·         Increases the authorized funding level for LSC to $750 million, which is approximately the amount appropriated in 1981, adjusted for inflation, which was the high-water mark for LSC funding.  At the time, this level was seen as sufficient to provide a minimum level of access to legal aid in every county.  Adjusted for inflation, this “minimum access” level would need to be about $750 million today.

 

·         Lifts many of the restrictions currently placed on legal tools that LSC-funded attorneys can use to represent their clients.  The bill lifts the prohibition on collecting attorneys’ fees, permits legal aid attorneys to bring class-action suits grounded in existing law and permits lobbying with non-federal funds.  In the spirit of compromise, the bill does maintain the prohibition on abortion related litigation as well as many of the limits on whom LSC-funded programs can represent, including undocumented immigrants (with limited exceptions such as victims of domestic violence), prisoners challenging prison conditions and people charged with illegal drug possession in public housing eviction proceedings. 

 

·         Lifts all restrictions, except those related to abortion litigation, on the use of non-federal funds.  Lifting these restrictions allows individual states, cities and donors the ability to determine themselves how best to spend non-federal funds to ensure access to the courts.

 

·         Provides for better governance at LSC.  Recent GAO reports highlighted the need for better corporate governance and oversight.  A central feature of the bill is provisions to improve corporate practices.

 

·         Authorizes a grant program from the Department of Education to expand law school clinics.  Not only are law students a significant resource for legal services, but clinics are a bridge to careers in legal services and a professional career involving pro bono for young lawyers.

 

The bill is supported by, among others, the American Bar Association, Brennan Center for Justice, National Legal Aid & Defender Association, National Organization of Legal Service Workers and United Auto Workers.

Please contact Daniel Goldberg in Senator Harkin’s office at 224-3254 if you have any questions.

JOBS: CUNY Defender Clinic

Download Instructor Search Defender Clinic

SG Kagan Recuses - maybe because of Harvard clinic

In one of her first official acts as solicitor general, Elena Kagan recused in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Wednesday in Horne v. Flores, an Arizona education case with civil rights implications. The amicus curiae brief was filed on behalf of Hispanic residents who claim that the state has not done enough to fund education for English language learners. Arizona says a federal court order mandating more school funding for English learners interferes with state prerogatives.

Normally, the solicitor general is the counsel of record on such briefs. But when the brief in the Arizona case was released, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal was listed as the main lawyer in the capacity of acting solicitor general. A footnote said, "The solicitor general is recused in this case."

Calls seeking an explanation from Katyal or Kagan have not yet been returned. But the likely reason for her stepping aside may be found on the face of another brief in the case, filed by the Arizona parents against the state. The counsel of record for the Flores respondents is Sri Srinivasan of O'Melveny & Myers, but also listed is O'Melveny's Walter Dellinger and the "Harvard Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic."

That clinic, one of several Supreme Court clinics created at top law schools in recent years, was launched in 2007 by Kagan and others while she was dean of Harvard Law School. She may have felt her identification with the Harvard clinic was strong enough that her objectivity in making determinations about joining the Arizona parents' brief as solicitor general could be questioned.

Posted by Tony Mauro on March 27, 2009 at 03:51 PM in Supreme Court | Permalink

read the rest here

In one of her first official acts as solicitor general, Elena Kagan recused in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Wednesday in Horne v. Flores, an Arizona education case with civil rights implications. The amicus curiae brief was filed on behalf of Hispanic residents who claim that the state has not done enough to fund education for English language learners. Arizona says a federal court order mandating more school funding for English learners interferes with state prerogatives.

Normally, the solicitor general is the counsel of record on such briefs. But when the brief in the Arizona case was released, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal was listed as the main lawyer in the capacity of acting solicitor general. A footnote said, "The solicitor general is recused in this case."

Calls seeking an explanation from Katyal or Kagan have not yet been returned. But the likely reason for her stepping aside may be found on the face of another brief in the case, filed by the Arizona parents against the state. The counsel of record for the Flores respondents is Sri Srinivasan of O'Melveny & Myers, but also listed is O'Melveny's Walter Dellinger and the "Harvard Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic."

That clinic, one of several Supreme Court clinics created at top law schools in recent years, was launched in 2007 by Kagan and others while she was dean of Harvard Law School. She may have felt her identification with the Harvard clinic was strong enough that her objectivity in making determinations about joining the Arizona parents' brief as solicitor general could be questioned.

Photos Needed from CLEPR Event!

If you were at the CLEPR celebration in San Diego during the AALS Annual Meeting in January and took any photographs at the reception, dinner and presentations, I would like to have copies for the archive and for consideration for use in the film that was created for the event. 

 

You can send me .jpeg or .tif files as an email attachment or  if they are too numerous or too large to send as an attachment, give me link to download them from your website or use a free file transfer program like www.yousendit.com to make them available,.

 

Thank you.

 

Sandy

 

J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy,

Director, CUA Innocence Project Clinic

Director, Law & Social Justice Initiatives ,

Director, National Archive of Clinical Legal Education, and

Ordinary Professor of Law

Columbus School of Law

The Catholic University of America

Cardinal Station

Washington, DC  20064

tel: 202.319.6195

fax: 202.319.4459

email: ogilvy@law.cua.edu

http://www.faculty.cua.edu/ogilvy/

http://law.cua.edu/lawandsocialjusticeinitiatives/

http://lib.law.cua.edu/nacle/

http://www.law.cua.edu/lexternWeb/index.htm

Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Conference, Summer 2009

Colleagues,

We are excited to share with you the conference schedule and registration information for the Summer 2009 Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Conference.  This summer’s conference, entitled “Implementing Best Practices and Educating Lawyers: Teaching Skills and Professionalism Across the Curriculum,” features 40 presentations by around 60 insightful law teachers.   The conference will be June 23-24 at Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington.  We hope to see you there.

Download Institute for Law Teaching & Learning Summer 09 Conference

 

Also, please keep your eyes open for the next issue of The Law Teacher, which we expect to be ready for distribution in early April.

Best,

Gerald Hess                                                                                                                        Michael Hunter Schwartz

ghess@lawschool.gonzaga.edu                                                                                 michael.schwartz@washburn.edu

JOBS: HOFSTRA - VISITING CLINICAL PROFESSOR FOR THE MEDIATION CLINIC

VISITING CLINICAL PROFESSOR FOR THE MEDIATION CLINIC FOR THE 2009-2010 ACADEMIC YEAR

Hofstra University School of Law, located in Hempstead, NY, is seeking to hire a Visiting Clinical Professor to teach and supervise in its Mediation Clinic for the 2009-2010 academic year. The Hofstra Law Clinic was established in 1973 and is a vibrant and integral part of the Law School. The Law School has six additional clinics, including Asylum, Law Reform Advocacy, Community and Economic Development, Securities Arbitration, Child Advocacy, and Criminal Justice.

The Mediation Clinic currently focuses on the use of Transformative Mediation to help parents and children diverted from family court address their conflicts.  The Clinic is unique in its use of Transformative Mediation. Hofstra Law School is the home of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation, the nation’s premier center of expertise on the transformative framework. The Mediation Clinic works closely with the Institute and with Hofstra’s Center for Children, Families and the Law to explore new opportunities for transformative practice in our work with the local community.

The Visiting Professor will be able to draw from the Mediation Clinic’s existing curriculum and established sources of clients. S/he will be responsible for all aspects of running the Clinic,
including: course planning and teaching; training, supervision and mentoring of student mediators; clinic administration; and community education and outreach. If desired, the Visiting Professor can also teach non-clinical course offerings.

Our clinical faculty benefit from generous support for scholarship and pedagogical innovation, as well as being part of an active and engaged NYC-area clinical community. All visiting professors are warmly encouraged to participate in workshops, conferences, and other aspects of academic life at the Law School, including the bi-monthly meetings of an energetic and supportive clinical faculty.

The Law School seeks an applicant with demonstrated experience in family mediation, particularly with use of the transformative model. Previous work with adolescents and/or the PINS system is recommended. Clinical teaching experience is desirable. Applicants must be licensed to practice law in New York or be eligible for admission on motion to the New York Bar. Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Hofstra University is an equal opportunity employer, committed to fostering diversity in its faculty, administrative staff and student body, and encourages applications from the entire spectrum of a diverse community.

Please send or email a cover letter, resume, and the names of three references to:

Jennifer Gundlach
Vice Dean of Academic Affairs
Hofstra University School of Law
Room 244 Law School
121 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549
(516) 493-5854 (o)

BLACKBOARD ON YOUR IPHONE

Blackboard Announces iPhone Application

Blackboard, the leading course management company, is today announcing an application for the iPhone -- a device that has quickly become popular with many students. The new system will allow iPhone users to interact with their Blackboard pages anyplace they carry their phones. In a statement, Michael L. Chasen, president and CEO of Blackboard, said the application would "help students more deeply engage in the educational experience by creating learning opportunities that are not bound by time or place.”

For a mere $325, you, too, can be the proud recipient of a panel presentation and a published article

Red-Flag Conferences

For a mere $325, you, too, can be the proud recipient of a panel presentation and a publish

By MARGARET BROOKS

In the past few years, a new type of "scholarly" conference has sprung up. Held at exciting resort destinations, such as Las Vegas, these conferences offer attendees the chance to both present and publish papers at one event. Some even allow you to present a paper in absentia, so long as you have paid the conference-registration fee.

At first glance these conferences may appear legitimate, yet an analysis of their materials and Web sites reveals numerous red flags.

I found one group that sends out a series of garish, unsolicited e-mail messages to publicize its Las Vegas conference and associated journals. Everyone who goes to the meeting must pay a presenter fee, even merely to attend. In 2008 that minimum fee was $325. The name of the journal in which presenters will publish their papers is already preprinted on the online conference registration form. Participants are instructed not to e-mail the organizers before the event for any reason, even if they have a scheduling conflict for presenting their papers.

read the rest here

JOBS: Open Society Justice Initiative in Sierra Leone

PROJECT COORDINATOR

Scaling Up Grassroots Justice Services in Sierra Leone

The Open Society Justice Initiative (“Justice Initiative”), an operational program of OSI, pursues law reform activities grounded in the protection of human rights, and contributes to the development of legal capacity for open societies worldwide. The Justice Initiative combines litigation, legal advocacy, technical assistance, and the dissemination of knowledge to secure advances in the following priority areas: anticorruption, equality and citizenship, freedom of information and expression, international justice, and national criminal justice. Its offices are in Abuja, Budapest, London, New York, and Washington DC.

 

Timap for Justice (“Timap”) is a Sierra Leonean NGO that has provided, since 2004, grassroots justice services in the Northern and Southern provinces of Sierra Leone as well as the capital Freetown.  Timap employs a frontline of community-based paralegals who engage in mediation, advocacy, organizing, and education to address concrete instances of injustice.  The paralegals are supported and supervised by two lawyers; the lawyers engage in litigation and high-level advocacy sparingly and strategically to address severe cases which the paralegals are unable to solve on their own.

 Timap has been recognized by independent institutions including the World Bank and International Crisis Group for developing a creative, effective methodology for providing justice services in the difficult and complex context of rural Sierra Leone.  Further information about Timap is available at www.timapforjustice.org.

 Justice Initiative, which initiated the community based paralegal project in Sierra Leone in 2003 and later co-founded Timap, is now entering a partnership with the Government of Sierra Leone and Timap for Justice to develop, based on Timap’s experience and methodology, a national approach to justice services.  This is a rare and exciting opportunity to graduate from a small-scale NGO effort to a system that is government-recognized and that aspires to serve the entire country.

 Based in Freetown, the project coordinator will provide in-country leadership for Justice Initiative’s role in the scale up process.  The project coordinator will work with Timap and other partners to design and develop a national system for justice service provision.

 SPECIFIC TASKS:

• recruitment and selection of organizations to provide justice services,
• training of new paralegals and public interest lawyers,
• monitoring, evaluation, and quality control of justice service providers,
• development of legislation and government policy to recognize the new system, and
• financial management of the resources that will support these services. 

 The project coordinator will work under the overall supervision of the Director of Budapest Office of Justice Initiative with day to day supervision provided as designated by the Director of Budapest Office. 

This will be one year full-time position renewable dependent on performance. 

Anticipated start date:  Immediate start. Competitive salary commensurate with experience. 

 QUALIFICATIONS:

A candidate for the position should:

·        Possess a graduate degree in law, policy, business, or a related field.

·        Have substantial experience working in human rights or development.

·        Have complete fluency in English with excellent writing, editorial, and oral advocacy skills;

·        Be a dynamic and efficient self starter, a respectful team player, and an effective manager and writer;

·        Ability to work both independently and with others.

Experience in financial management and monitoring and evaluation are pluses, as is knowledge of Sierra Leone.

a national ranking of moot court teams

and here's a blog that follows moot court and challenges the methodology:

THE BENCH BRIEF BLOG

Appellate Advocacy - Running Tally for 2009

Email me at TheRanker@LawSchoolAdvocacy.com.  
Here's a moving snapshot of the 2009 Ranking Season:

127 Loyola Chicago (1st)
Jessup Midwest Super Regional (semifinalist out of 24 teams = 20 points)
ABA NAAC St. Louis (final four out of 31 teams = 27 points)
Capital Adoption (two teams: finalist and semifinalist out of 21 non-Capital teams = 19 +
17 = 36 points)
Wagner (winner out of 45 teams = 44 points)

103 BYU (2nd)
GW Religious Freedom (winner out of 17 non-GW teams = 16 points)
Vanderbilt First Amendment (winner out of 35 teams = 34 points)
GW National Security (semifinalist out of 24 non-GW teams = 20 points)
McGee Civil Rights (semifinalist out of 37 teams = 33 points)

102 LSU (3rd)
FL Bar National Tax (winner out of 16 teams = 15 points)
Jessup SW Superregional (semifinalist out of 24 teams = 20 points)
Pace Environmental (finalist out of 70 teams = 67 points)

99 Florida State (4th)
GW Religious Freedom (finalist out of 17 non-GW teams = 15 points)
UNC Craven (winner out of 24 teams = 23 points)
Pace Environmental (semifinalist out of 70 teams = 61 points)

95 University of Miami (FL) (5th)
GW National Security (winner out of 24 non-GW teams = 23 points)
Hispanic Bar (semifinalist out of 31 teams = 27 points)
Duberstein (winner out of 46 teams = 45 points)

92 Brooklyn (6th)
Vanderbilt First Amendment (semifinalist out of 35 teams = 31 points)
Pace Environmental (semifinalist out of 70 teams = 61 points)

90 John Marshall Chicago (7th)
Jessup Midwest Super Regional (semifinalist out of 24 teams = 20 points)
Cardozo/BMI (winner out of 30 teams = 29 points)
Wagner (semifinalist out of 45 teams = 41 points)

86 WUSTL (8th)
Jessup SW Superregional (winner out of 24 teams = 23 points)
McGee Civil Rights (winner out of 37 teams = 36 points)
ABA NAAC St. Louis (final four out of 31 teams = 27 points)

82 UC Hastings (9th)
ABA NAAC San Francisco (two teams, both in the final four out of 32 teams = 28 + 28 = 56
points)
Cardozo/BMI (semifinalist out of 30 teams = 26 points)

81 South Texas (10th)
Spong (semifinalist out of 23 teams = 19 points)
McGee Civil Rights (finalist out of 37 teams = 35 points)
ABA NAAC DC Regional (regional final four out of 31 teams = 27 points)

79 Columbia (11th)
Native American LSA MCC (two teams:
winner and semifinalist out of 42 teams = 41 + 38 = 79 points)

74 Texas Tech University (12th)
Jessup SW Superregional (semifinalist out of 24 teams = 20 points)
ABA NAAC Miami Regional (two teams: both among final four out of 31 teams = 27 + 27 = 54
points)

70 Fordham (13th)
UNC Craven (semifinalist out of 24 teams = 20 points)
GW National Security (finalist out of 24 non-GW teams = 22 points)
Cardozo/BMI (finalist out of 30 teams = 28 points)

69 Seton Hall (14th)
ABA NAAC Brooklyn Regional (regional final four out of 31 teams = 27 points)
Charleston Moot (two teams: winner and semifinalist out of 15 [but 16 paying, brief-
writing] teams = 14 + 11 = 25 points)
Ohio Adoption (semifinalist out of 21 non-Capital teams = 17 points)

69 Lewis and Clark (14th)
Pace Environmental (winner out of 70 teams = 69 points)

Justice Ginsburg on Life on the Supreme Court

When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke before the New England School of Law in Boston on March 13, media coverage of her remarks focused on her cryptic comment in answer to a question that a vacancy on the Court was likely "soon." But the Court has since posted the text of Ginsburg's more formal talk, in which she offered a glimpse into life at the Court.

Ginsburg confirmed that the justices' collegial tradition of shaking hands with every other justice before taking the bench or beginning their conferences lives on. That's a combined total of 36 handshakes for each occasion, she said. (We'll leave it to math whizzes to confirm whether that's the right number.) The justices lunch with each other "by choice, not by rule," and the attendance is usually very good. The food, however, is not that good. It comes from the Court cafeteria and is "not haute cuisine," Ginsburg said.

READ THE REST HERE

From Law School to Solo: Is it Criminal?

An interesting discussion is going on among the blogosphere's criminal defense bar. The question under debate is whether someone straight out of law school should go directly into a solo criminal defense practice.

New York criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield kicked off the conversation when he wrote a post addressed to law students who ask him this question. "Whereas once I argued that the notion of flying solo straight out of law school was decidedly wrong, the new reality is that many law students will have no choice," he wrote. "Solo practice is the alternative to sitting at home playing Wii. The latter is not an option." Greenfield suggested two options for how to go about it. Option A is to establish an apprentice-like relationship with an established criminal defense lawyer. Option B is to find a mentor.

Greenfield's post prompted a follow-up by Ken Lammers, a Virginia prosecutor who formerly had his own criminal defense practice. He suggested an Option C -- nose to the grindstone. "I started out with three Sears' suits, a computer, printer, dial-up internet, subscription to VersusLaw (along with the free use of FindLaw and All Law), a folding table, folding chair, cardboard file boxes, one phone line, fax/answering machine, and business cards," he writes, adding that it was all set up in his living room. "Work hard, work smart, be frugal, and you can get there."

Next to weigh in was Miami criminal defense lawyer Brian Tannebaum, who says going straight to solo is a dumb ass idea. "I believe to practice criminal defense a newly minted law student should be required to do one of three things: be a prosecutor, be a public defender, 'clerk' with a practicing criminal defense lawyer who's been practicing criminal defense at least five years," he writes.

READ THE REST HERE

SSRN: "Can the Professor Come Out and Play? - Scholarship, Teaching, and Theories of Play"

"Can the Professor Come Out and Play? - Scholarship, Teaching, and Theories of Play" 

Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 5804, 2009

JOHN MITCHELL, Seattle University School of Law
Email: jmitchell@seattleu.edu
ANNE M. ENQUIST, Seattle University School of Law
Email: ame@seattleu.edu
BRYAN L. ADAMSON, Seattle University School of Law
Email: badamson@seattleu.edu
LISA ELLEN BRODOFF, Seattle University School of Law
Email: lbrodoff@seattleu.edu
MARILYN BERGER, affiliation not provided to SSRN
PAULA LUSTBADER, Seattle University School of Law
Email: lusty@seattleu.edu

In January 2008, the authors presented an Open Source program at the National AALS Conference in which they explored the applicability of cognitive/developmental theories of play to our work as scholars and teachers. The authors sang, lectured on theories of play, and involved over 100 law professors in an exercise in which participant groups employed either visual art or music to explain the tort concept of "lost chance."

In this article, we build upon that program and present an extensive analysis of the literature on childhood play, focusing on those aspects of the type of "play" which enhances development of creative problem-solving and innovation. We then explore the adult manifestation of this childhood cognitive activity, what John Dewey called a "playful attitude," assessing its implications for our scholarship and teaching. As it turns out, these implications are significant, as we detail in the last two sections of the article where we focus on the nexus between play theory and our work as professors of law.

Dean Koh to the State Department

Koh named State Department legal adviser; Stith will be acting dean of Yale Law

Harold Hongju Koh ’80 and Kate Stith ’77

March 24, 2009

Dean of Yale Law School Harold Hongju Koh ’80 has been named legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State, President Barack Obama ’91 has announced. Kate Stith ’77 has been appointed acting dean of Yale Law School.

Koh, a leader in the field of international law, national security law and human rights, will provide counsel to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. embassies around the world. During the Clinton administration, he served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor from 1998 to 2001. He was also a member of the secretary of state’s advisory committee on public international law. In the 1980s, he practiced at Covington & Burling, and served in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.

Since 2004, Koh has served as dean of Yale Law School, where he has been on the faculty since 1985. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, he is author or co-author of eight books, including “Transnational Litigation in United States Courts, Foundations of International Law and Politics (with O. Hathaway).”

Stith, Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law at Yale, will begin serving as acting dean immediately, and will hold the position until a permanent successor to Koh appointed.

Stith joined the Yale law faculty as an associate professor in 1985, after having served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. For three years, she served as Yale’s deputy dean under Dean Anthony T. Kronman and she currently chairs the school’s budget committee. Last year, she chaired the faculty committee that reviewed all aspects of the school’s operation.

She is a leader in the developing field of sentencing law and was the principal author of “Fear of Judging: Sentencing Guidelines in the Federal Courts,” which was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the American Bar Association. She is an advisor to the American Law Institute’s “Model Penal Code: Sentencing” project, and previously served, by appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States, on the advisory committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure of the U.S. Judicial Conference.

Call for Papers - Loyola University New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law

The Loyola University New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law is soliciting papers to be presented at a multidisciplinary symposium on Friday, October 16, 2009 at the College of Law.

The symposium panelists will examine the education reform laws and practices in New Orleans post-Katrina and make suggestions for these reforms moving forward both within the city and in other states and school districts. Issues such as the treatment of special needs students in charter schools, fractured governance within one school district, the interaction of charter enabling legislation with civil rights laws and state takeover legislation, equitable school funding, free market competition between schools and school systems, teachers’ rights and protections, the impact on racial, ethnic and socioeconomic subgroups, and charter revocation and renewal are but a few of the of the important subjects arising in the “new” New Orleans education system.

Abstract submissions must be received by May 30, 2009.  Submit a one or two paragraph abstract of the paper to be presented to Robert Garda at rgarda@loyno.edu or to:

Robert Garda
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
7214 St. Charles Ave.
Campus Box 901
New Orleans, LA 70118

Authors will be notified of the selection results by July 1, 2009. Authors whose papers are selected will present their work at the symposium held at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law on October 16, 2009. Authors must submit their completed paper to the Journal of Public Interest Law by October 1, 2009. The selected papers will be published in the Spring 2010 edition of the Loyola University New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law. Presenter’s travel and lodging expenses will be paid for by Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

Naked in the University Gym?

• The One With Nudity  By Dean Dad March 23, 2009 9:37 pm

  I use the gym on campus, since it's cheap and convenient to work. It's nicer than some private health clubs I've seen locally, and it seems like a nice 'campus loyalty' thing to do.

  All of which is fine, but...

  Well,

  It's hard to be appropriately deanly after showering, standing in the locker room in the altogether drying off, when faculty colleagues walk in. “Hi, DD!” Uh, hi...

  I'm not one of those guys who makes a point of just shooting the breeze while feeling the breeze. (I once belonged, briefly, to a gym habituated by some men who thought there was nothing better than hanging out in the locker room and discoursing earnestly on matters various and sundry while airing it all out. By contrast, I belong to the “dude, seriously...” school.) My economy of motion in getting from 'exposed' to 'not exposed' is almost Taylorist. And I don't care so much about being seen, say, tying a tie. But there's still an interval when there's just no getting around the fact of not really wanting to be seen.

  Some of my admin colleagues have mentioned not using the campus gym for precisely that reason. They think it's tough to maintain an appropriate distance after being seen in all their glory. Admittedly, there's something to be said for that.

  But that would be admitting defeat. And when you're supporting four people on a single community college salary, the prospect of paying for a private gym membership out of nothing more than modesty just seems a little tough to justify.

  Wise and worldly readers – have you found a tolerable way to handle the post-shower dash at the campus gym?

JOBS: IP - Clinical Assistant Professor of Law University of Richmond

Clinical Assistant Professor of Law University of Richmond

The University of Richmond seeks a full-time clinical faculty member to develop, administer and teach in a new Intellectual Property and Transactional Law clinic.

This clinic is the latest addition to the Law School's Intellectual Property Institute, which comprises three tenured and tenure-track faculty, offers more than a dozen courses in intellectual property and runs a certificate program for J.D. students. The clinic will provide entrepreneurs, non-profits, authors and artists with legal services on non-litigation matters involving intellectual property and related transactions. The clinical professor will play a major role in determining the clinic's specific emphasis and operation.

Required qualifications include a law degree, a license to practice in Virginia (or the ability to become licensed by the time the candidate begins work) and significant experience in transactions related to intellectual property. Prior teaching experience is a plus, but not required.

 This is a non-tenure track, renewable contract position. Salary and benefits will be commensurate with experience. Interviews for this position will begin as soon as practicable and hopefully will end by May 1, 2009. Interested applicants should send a cover letter, curriculum vitae and list of references, to: dmurphy@richmond.edu

For jobless lawyers, plan B includes good works

HT:  Kathy Hessler

For jobless lawyers, plan B includes good works

By Stephanie Chen

CNN

(CNN) -- It was the best of times in 2004, when attorney Dave Dineen graduated from Boston University School of Law and landed a job at a top Massachusetts corporate firm, Foley Hoag LLP.

Attorney Dave Dineen at his new job at Greater Boston Legal Services.

By 2007, the National Association for Law Placement was reporting the most promising year in two decades. Nearly 92 percent of graduating attorneys were employed, and the median starting salary at private practices had increased by $13,000 --to a total of $108,500 a year.

But times have changed.

In the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the legal industry is taking an unprecedented beating from the sputtering economy and housing meltdown. Dineen, 37, lost his job as layoffs and salary freezes have spiked at law firms across the country during the past three months. See the law firm layoffs for the past year »

Rather than just hand out a severance package with the pink slip, Foley Hoag gave Dineen an option. He could work for Greater Boston Legal Services, a legal aid group serving people living in poverty. The firm agreed to pay Dineen about a quarter of his former salary for a year. Dineen, who needed to support his wife and a newborn daughter, accepted.

"This gave me a chance to do something different with my legal career, and help out people who generally don't have access to public service," said Dineen, who now works on foreclosure cases helping victims of predatory lending.
.....
Amid all this dark news, there might be a silver lining. It could transform the legal profession.

"There is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity coming out of a difficult situation," said Esther Lardent, president of the Pro Bono Institute in Washington, who began discussions this month with at least 15 corporate firms nationwide about placing unemployed attorneys in public interest firms. The project will get under way in a few months, she said.

Other firms have already encouraged attorneys to go into the public sector. Just last week, one of the largest firms in the country -- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -- announced it will pay deferred associates graduating in 2009 a $5,000 monthly stipend for one year if they secure a job in the public interest field.

International law giants Latham & Watkins LLP and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP offered incoming associates who defer employement until October 2010 a $75,000 compensation package. While working in public service isn't mandatory for Latham & Watkins associates, the firm said there was a "sincere hope" the deferred associates would "use the intervening period to pursue a community service or other public advocacy projects of their choosing."

Such deferral plans can save the companies about $100,000 per associate, and law experts expect the list of firms enacting deferral programs to grow geometrically as the economy worsens.

read the rest here

AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Newsletter: items due 4/13

The deadline for submissions to the spring edition of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education is Monday, April 13.  Please e-mail items of reasonable length to me at olearyk@cooley.edu

Items can include:

--stories about your clinics or your students

--promotions, new hires, honors, awards

--publications by clinicians

--committee reports

--information of interest related to the clinical conference May 5-9 in Cleveland

--any other items of interest to clinical legal educators

Due to an increasing number of lengthy press releases, I ask that you edit your material about your schools to a reasonable length; I reserve the right to cut back any article.  We love hearing about what you are all doing, but for example six pages about one program is too long!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kim O'Leary

Your newsletter editor

 

AALS Annual Meeting Call for Proposals: April 17

Call for Proposals for Open Source Programming at 2010 Annual Meeting   AALS is requesting proposals for Open Source programs for the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Open Source sessions at the Annual Meeting are novel ideas for programs proposed by groups of faculty members and selected by a committee in a competitive process. The programs should be innovative and include interactive and out of the ordinary approaches to presenting the topics.   The goal is to encourage a "bottom up" process in which scholars collaborate to develop fresh and exciting ideas for a program at the Annual Meeting. These are not Section, law school, organization, or institution-sponsored programs. An Open Source Program is one developed by a group of faculty members in various subject matters, who have an original topic that they would like to present at the Annual Meeting.    When developing the proposal you should consider the following: · Is the format innovative? · Is there a diversity of presenters and multiplicity of planners? · Is there junior and senior teacher involvement? · Does the topic cross over common issues and transcend a particular subject area? · Would there be a publication coming out of the submission? · Will the program format require expensive audio-visual equipment?   To ensure exceptional topics for the Open Source programs, proposals should not feature a program or subject that could be offered by an AALS Section or conflict with other program topics being presented at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting.    For your proposal to be considered, you must provide the following submission requirements: Program title Detailed description and explanation of what the program is trying to accomplish Names of the planners of the program and a description of how the program idea was generated Names of speakers to be invited including their full names and schools with a link to or copy of their vita Presentation format of program Program publishing information: Will the program be published? If so, where would it be published? Please mail your submissions and required data to opensource@aals.org by April 17, 2009.

SSRN: Holograhic Case Visioning

"Holographic Case Visioning: 21st Century Tool for Highlighting Skills within the Context of the Legal Process" 

JAMES JAY BROWN, Stetson University - College of Law
Email: brownj@law.stetson.edu

The author has developed and presents a pedagogical method whereby casebook cases can be analyzed in multi-dimensional aspects similar to a holographic projection. The method, entitled Advocacy Template, provides a teacher with a means for enticing students to look beyond the printed pages to uncover "the story" behind the litigation. By knowing the story that precipitated the confrontation, students are led into examining the roles an attorney must paly as the dispute evolves.

Employing the Story of the Case is the author's learning center. Learning through story-telling, an age-old educational practice, is applied here for inculating substantive law with analytical and practical skills exercises needed by the new century's advocates. The story and skills simulations create the opportunity for learning at a deeper and longer lasting level.

As presented and explained herein, the Advocacy Template incorporates solutions drawn from research findings about student learning weaknesses and understandings about how adults learn as gleaned from pedagogical experts. The primary goal of this tool for teachers is to stimulate active learning by students with less teaching to students. it is known that learning occurs at a deeper level when students are self-motivated to explore the many aspects of the human drama while applying "the law" at the same time. The primary goal for students is to provide them with a structured process that helpd reveal judicial meaning and opens a door for practicing lawyer skills. This pedagogical tool is potentially more effective because it seeks to simulate 21st Century vision that will stimulate learning for the long term.

Law Prof’s Article on His Jury Experience Leads to Overturned Verdict

By Debra Cassens Weiss

A law professor’s article on his experiences as a juror in a slip-and-fall case has resulted in a new trial for a grocery store found liable for $876,000.

A New Jersey appeals court ruled today that the defendant deserved a new trial, in part because the professor’s explanation of legal concepts to his fellow jurors had a tendency to influence the verdict. The court’s opinion (PDF) said the defendant was deprived of a fair trial because of the tendency and other cumulative trial errors, Legal Profession Blog reports.

The influence issue came to light after Seton Hall law professor Robert Martin wrote a December 2006 article for the New Jersey Law Journal reflecting on his experiences as foreman of the jury. Martin wrote that he was surprised that none of the lawyers used peremptory challenges to exclude him, even though he was a law professor, practicing lawyer and New Jersey state senator.

In the article, published in December 2006, Martin wrote that other jurors were relying on him to deal with abstract legal concepts. “I remain undecided as to whether it's advisable to have a lawyer serve on a jury—especially as its foreman,” he said.

READ THE REST HERE

CHRISTIAN LEGAL SOCIETY v. HASTINGS LAW SCHOOL

hunter of justice

 

Ninth Circuit shoots down CLS appeal in Hastings case Posted: 20 Mar 2009 04:06 PM PDT In a one-paragraph, unpublished order issued just a week after oral arguments, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the UC Hastings College of Law cannot be required to recognize and fund a religious student group that discriminates in the selection of members and officers. Christian Legal Society v Kane, 2009 WL 693391. At issue was Hastings' open membership rule prohibiting discrimination based on religion or sexual orientation of members. The order states in its entirety: The parties stipulate that Hastings imposes an open membership rule on all student groups-all groups must accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group. The conditions on recognition are therefore viewpoint neutral and reasonable. Truth v. Kent Sch. Dist., 542 F.3d 634, 649-50 (9th Cir.2008).  AFFIRMED. The Alliance Defense Fund has filed a cert petition in the Truth case. (See summary of oral argument and link to cert petition.) CLS, which has chapters in 165 (out of roughly 200) law schools, is also expected to seek Supreme Court review. From National Law Journal: Hastings' attorney, Ethan Schulman of Folger Levin & Kahn in San Francisco, said the issue has arisen repeatedly in test cases at various university campuses across the country. The most recent was Feb. 6 in San Diego. In that case, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns granted summary judgment for San Diego State University against a challenge by Christian student groups. The CLS case is one of a half-dozen test cases the group has filed in recent years against law schools around the country over similar nondiscrimination pledge requirements. The 9th Circuit decision to side with Hastings may put it in direct conflict with the 7th Circuit. CLS attorney Timothy J. Tracey, of the Springfield, Va.-based Center for Law and Religious Freedom, argued that the school's denial of official recognition deprives it of some funding, access to recruit students at official events and access to the school Web site and other publications. The school does provide meeting space.

 

American Constitution Society and Obama Judicial Appointments

Left Turn Permitted

March 2009 Issue
By Leslie A. Gordon

E-Mail This Story

Recipient's E-mail:
(Separate multiple addresses with a comma.)
Your E-mail:
Your Name:

Subject:
Your Message: I thought you would be interested in reading this article from the ABA Journal: Left Turn Permitted Read the complete article at: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/left_turn_permitted/ --------------------------------------------------------------- Visit ABA Journal at http://www.abajournal.com for breaking legal news updated throughout the day, plus analysis from more than 2,000 legal bloggers who are experts in their practice areas. © ABA Journal | Privacy Policy http://www.abanet.org/privacy_statement.html

Share This Story

URL to share: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/left_turn_permitted/

Title: Left Turn Permitted

Move over Federalist Society members. There’s a new kid in town.

If early appointments are any indication, the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, the left-leaning equivalent of the Federalist Society, will be heavily rep­­re­sented in the administration of President Barack Obama. Already, ACS members Eric Holder and Lisa Brown have positions in the Obama White House, as attorney general and White House staff secretary, respectively.

A progressive group composed primarily, but not exclusively, of lawyers, judges and law students, the ACS was founded to promote “the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and the fundamental values it expresses: individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, access to justice, democracy and the rule of law,” according to its mission statement.

But the group probably never would have come into existence without the Bush administration.

The ACS was started in 2001 as a response to the Bush White House. “We had seen a departure by strict constructionists, who promoted expanded government with little accountability, excessive assertions of pres­idential authority, and a perverse doctrine of equal protection,” explains Goodwin Liu, chair of the ACS and an associate dean at the University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. “We believe there’s room for refashioning the legal culture to meet contemporary challenges. The Constitution is meant to be a simple and spare document that adapts to the many changes the country would confront.”

Liu says there was a hunger for a group like the ACS. “There wasn’t a national umbrella organization for progressive lawyers, students and scholars. ACS was an opportunity to bring them together under one roof.”

Although the American Civil Liberties Union and liberal lawyer committees existed, “none was devoted to deepening fundamental intellectual foundations and building a network in a coordinated way,” Liu says.

The ACS remains nonpartisan. It does not litigate, endorse candidates or take positions on legislation. “Our role is more in the background,” Liu explains, but many board members also have been on Obama’s transition team and are “bringing important ideas into the new government, and those ideas have percolated through their association with ACS.”

READ THE REST HERE

Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys

Product Code: 4920044 Publication Date: January 2009 ISBN: 978-1-60442-020-3 Page Count: 200 Trim Size: 6 x 9 Paperback Sponsoring Entities: Commission on Women in the Legal Profession, Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession Topics: Women & Minority Lawyers Format: Pricing: $29.95 (Regular) $29.95 (ABA Member) ABA Members, Log in now to receive this discount! $23.95 (Law Student Division) ABA Members, Log in now to receive this discount! Quantity:   Purchase 5-24 and save 10% Purchase 25-49 and save 20% Purchase 50-99 and save 30% Purchase 100+ and save 40%

About this Book Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys is a unique, inspirational collection of letters from 44 experienced women attorneys of color to the next generation outlining various roadmaps for success in the legal profession as a minority woman attorney. Recognizing that women attorneys of color face many obstacles to advancement in the legal profession, the Multicultural Women Attorneys Network - a joint project of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession - published in 2000 Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Words of Wisdom from Multicultural Women Attorneys Who've Been There and Done That. These letters described their experiences, feelings, and concerns with respect to inspiration, career path, and "the big picture." The overwhelming response to Dear Sisters confirmed the need for a companion volume that would offer strategies for professional success. This second book, Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys, is the result of that effort and discusses strategies, tips, and advice for a variety of work environments. Minority women lawyers encounter persistent and pervasive barriers to their career opportunity, growth, and advancement. They experience unique disadvantages based on the double whammy of race in addition to gender. Women lawyers of color fare worse than women generally and even men of color. The end result is the exodus of women lawyers of color from the profession at an alarming rate. So many minority women lawyers are seeking guidance on how to succeed in the legal profession. They are searching for ways to quell fears of whether they belong, whether they can succeed, and how they should address issues of marginalization, sexism, and racism. In addition, they are searching for answers on how to balance work, family, and personal values. While there are no easy answers, Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys provides the next generation with a collection of tips for success that they can use as they begin to contemplate and shape their careers in the legal profession. These dynamic, accomplished authors represent a variety of cultural backgrounds and practice settings, and many have been the firsts in their field. They have held key leadership positions and received numerous awards recognizing their legal skills and their significant contributions to the legal profession. The book is organized by practice settings: (a) large and midsize firms; (b) solo and small firm practices; (c) public service, including government, nonprofits, executive roles in government and nonprofits, the judiciary, and elected officials; (d) in-house practices; and (e) academia. Following the essays in each chapter are tips for success from the authors featured in that chapter; these tips serve as a quick reference for you to refer to for inspiration. The essays end with a response from a sister/daughter from the next generation. For the most part, the essayists provide strategies for success for their practice settings. However, despite their practice settings, there are consistent themes as most of the authors reflect on the importance of family, friends, religion, values, and giving back. You will finish this book armed with helpful advice on creating your own successful path in the legal profession. As two authors state, "There is no one path to career success." "You must explore what 'success' looks and feels like to you." Read on and develop your strategies for success.

SSRN: Using Organizational Culture to Reform Indigent Defense

"Directing the Winds of Change: Using Organizational Culture to Reform Indigent Defense" 

Loyola Journal of Public Interest Law, Vol. 9, p. 177, 2009

JONATHAN RAPPING, John Marshall Law School, Atlanta
Email: jrapping@johnmarshall.edu

The single-most important factor to an organization's success is the cultural environment that defines it. Business schools have taught future business leaders this lesson for twenty-five years. While business leaders have worked to manage the culture of their corporations, leaders in the indigent defense arena have often failed to understand the concept of culture. As a result, rather than public defenders defining the culture of indigent defense, the culture of indigent defense has defined the public defender, most often to the detriment of the client. In few places was this more apparent than in Pre-Katrina New Orleans.

This article looks at indigent defense in Pre-Katrina New Orleans and argues that cultural factors were largely responsible for an exceedingly low standard of representation provided to indigent defendants there. It then looks to lessons that can be gleaned from business, sociology, and anthropology regarding the importance of culture to the success of an organization and explores a theory of cultural transformation. Finally, using hypothetical scenarios based on the Pre-Katrina experience, this article applies organizational culture theory to suggest methods to overcome the cultural crisis facing indigent defense nationally.

News and Update from CLEA Prez

Hello CLEA members and friends,

First and foremost, great news!  After years of your requests and months of work to get it up and running, CLEA membership can now be paid on-line via credit card on the www.cleaweb.org website.   Note that (for now) it is a two-step process – fill out your membership update at http://www.cleaweb.org/membership/join.html and then go to the main page (link above) to pay.  Attendees will also be able to pay via credit card for the New Clinicians Conference (May 5-6 in Cleveland, look for more details soon in an email from Co-Chair Laura McNally and letter to be sent to directors).

Next, for those of you following the security of position issue, there was a recent article in Inside Higher Ed – see "Calling in the Big Guns" -- Northwestern president asks colleagues to back law schools' push to end accreditor's requirement on faculty tenure, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/02/lawprof.  

Finally, a few other things to think about: You will soon be getting a membership survey to help the CLEA board plan for a May retreat and consider a revised mission statement.  Also, CLEA will have a membership meeting in Cleveland, as well as other meetings – we will get back to you shortly on that!  Furthermore, we are working on a CLEA Facebook page which we hope to have launched before the Cleveland conference.  And last but not least, be looking for an announcement on The Official CLEA Logo Contest, which will be coming your way soon…

Warmly, Kim

Call for Papers: Feminism, Law and Masculinity

 

from hunter of justice by Nan Hunter

The Feminism and Legal Theory Project of Emory University School of Law has issued a call for papers for a workshop, "Feminism, Law, and Masculinity," to take place Sept 11-12 2009:

This workshop will explore the relevance of masculinities studies to feminist legal theory and activism. We have long struggled, both within and without the academy, to understand how law defines the feminine by articulating, constructing, and regulating women and the female body. Similarly, and more broadly, feminisms have focused on the place of gender in the construction of social relations that too often fail to protect the interests of women. This work notwithstanding, the place of masculinity has received relatively little attention. We hope to facilitate social and cultural resistance to assertions of hyper-masculinity, particularly those that arise in response to feminism itself.

We will interrogate the privileged positioning of the male body that results from its being cast as normative. We also invite papers which engage feminist ethics or approaches to address the relevance of masculinity to feminist legal theory. We particularly welcome submissions locating masculinity within those areas of study feminism has identified as key: violence, reproduction, state responsibility, poverty, and rights....

Please email a paper proposal of several paragraphs length by March 30, 2009 to:
mfineman@law.emory.edu and m.o.thomson@law.keele.ac.uk

The Feminism and Legal Theory Project of Emory University School of Law has issued a call for papers for a workshop, "Feminism, Law, and Masculinity," to take place Sept 11-12 2009:

This workshop will explore the relevance of masculinities studies to feminist legal theory and activism. We have long struggled, both within and without the academy, to understand how law defines the feminine by articulating, constructing, and regulating women and the female body. Similarly, and more broadly, feminisms have focused on the place of gender in the construction of social relations that too often fail to protect the interests of women. This work notwithstanding, the place of masculinity has received relatively little attention. We hope to facilitate social and cultural resistance to assertions of hyper-masculinity, particularly those that arise in response to feminism itself.

We will interrogate the privileged positioning of the male body that results from its being cast as normative. We also invite papers which engage feminist ethics or approaches to address the relevance of masculinity to feminist legal theory. We particularly welcome submissions locating masculinity within those areas of study feminism has identified as key: violence, reproduction, state responsibility, poverty, and rights....

Please email a paper proposal of several paragraphs length by March 30, 2009 to:
mfineman@law.emory.edu and m.o.thomson@law.keele.ac.uk

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The New Anti-Poverty Advocacy: Constructs, Strategies, and Tactics

from the Poverty Law Blog:

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The New Anti-Poverty Advocacy: Constructs, Strategies, and Tactics

Section on Poverty Law; Association of American Law Schools; Annual Meeting Program, January 2010; New Orleans, Louisiana

Statements of Interest Due May 1, 2009

The recent pronounced shifts in American politics and economics intensify the need for sustained reflection, as we consider how to shape legal activism, scholarship, and policy-making against poverty.  The re-emergence of the Democratic Party in national politics and the renewed support for government action simultaneously create openings for activists and advocates and invite caution.  Similarly, the failures of the American banking system, massive government deficits, and the continued restructuring and globalization of the U.S. economy cause great misery for those at the bottom and present opportunities to press for fundamental and progressive reform.  It remains unclear whether this period is one in which power will be redistributed downward and outward to poor and working people or whether the defining values and hierarchies of the political economy in the last thirty years – variously labeled neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, or free market fundamentalism – will be reinforced.  

 The Section on Poverty Law seeks participants who might approach this complex and contradictory moment from differing vantage points and using diverse methods of analysis but with a shared sense of purpose and opportunity.  Proposals may focus on new developments in the areas of access to justice, legal advocacy, and law reform and policy-making.  Proposals may integrate intersecting legal frames, such as corporate law, criminal law, critical race theory, environmental law, family law, feminist theory, immigrants’ rights, international human rights, and labor and employment law.   The Section will give special attention to proposals that include consideration of the post-Katrina experience in New Orlean.  Above all, we seek presenters excited to share useful and provocative ideas that can be integrated into our teaching, practice, and scholarship.

The statements of interest should be no longer than 1 page.  We will remove all references to the name and affiliation of those who submit proposals prior to review.  Presenters will be selected on or before July 31, 2009.  The Section will seek a venue for publication of papers stemming from the panel on the basis of the interest of selected participants.

Please send statements of interest as an email attachment to Bernice Cohn at cohn@mail.law.cuny.edu.  Questions should be directed to Sameer Ashar, Chair of the Poverty Law Section, at  ashar@mail.law.cuny.edu.

-Thanks to Sameer Asher for all his hard work on this! E.R.

More colleges are recording lectures, so watch your words

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Daily Report

Caught (Unfortunately) on Tape

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

Recording class sessions so students can review them online is becoming routine on many campuses. But all that taping can lead to "uh-oh moments," such as when a professor's joke about the college dean ends up on YouTube, or a private comment to a student after class is inadvertently broadcast.

Phyllis Tutora, director of George Washington University's master's program in project management, says she's recently gotten a few frantic phone calls from professors seeking to edit out portions of their lecture videos. In one case, she says, a professor let the class out early, and the system recorded his conversation with a student over why she was failing the course. Officials removed the exchange before the video went out to other students — which was good, since federal law requires colleges to keep students' grades private.

Some lecture bloopers caught on tape are funny (well, for those who enjoy a certain kind of humor). At the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, one professor left his wireless microphone on while taking a bathroom break, and watery sounds were audible on the class recording until officials cut out that section.

Such mishaps underline a much bigger issue, though: How can colleges and professors protect the traditional freewheeling spirit of the classroom while still offering students the benefits of online recordings?

'Cold Feet'

The question recently faced Eric H. Cline, an archaeology professor at George Washington, after administrators asked him to allow one of his classes to be recorded (just audio, not video). He is well known on the campus for his lively teaching style, and at first he was enthusiastic about the idea — until he listened to the first class session and was struck by how the previously private activity of teaching now seemed all too public.

"I downloaded it from iTunes, and I suddenly got cold feet," he said. "In the sanctity of the classroom, when you say something, it stays there. It's like, 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' It's me, the students, and the four walls."

But when it's recorded, "and you say something you shouldn't — you make a joke about a fellow scholar — then what if it gets out and suddenly you're sued for slander?"

After that first class, he became self-conscious about teaching with the microphones in the room and dropped out of the taping program. "I kind of felt like it was curtailing me," he says.

It's an issue he remains torn about. In retrospect, he says, he never did make any joke or remark that would have raised eyebrows (he emphasizes that he does not routinely makes such comments). "I'm sure every professor has said something that they immediately felt, Oops, I shouldn't have done that," he says. "So why would you capture it on tape if it's possibly going to cause a problem?"

At least one professor did get into trouble over a recorded class. In 2006, Howard J. (John) Hall, a lecturer at the University of Florida's business school, was placed on administrative leave after appearing disoriented in a video recording posted to the university's Web site. The recording was intended to be used by students in the course as a study aid, but someone posted a short clip to YouTube showing the professor rambling on and swaying. The video was titled "apparently baked professor." Tens of thousands of people viewed it.

Wouldn't you like to be a Skadden Fellow too?

From: Susan Plum and Ronald Tabak

        

    Skadden announced Thursday a program that offers all associates, counsel, and the incoming class of 2009 an opportunity to pursue other personal or professional interests for a one-year period with the option to return to Skadden at the end of that period.  To the extent that Skadden lawyers choose to work at public interest law groups, this program would provide host organizations with access to high-quality legal talent at no monetary cost while Skadden attorneys get significant professional development opportunities during this challenging time.  Moreover, to the extent that Skadden lawyers return to Skadden, their one-year experiences at public interest groups would add greater depth to Skadden's pro bono program.

 

    Skadden would greatly appreciate your assistance in identifying organizations that would welcome a Skadden attorney.  While the decision of where to go will be up to each participating Skadden attorney, the firm would like them to have as many public interest law options as possible.  Skadden expects to have attorneys available with a range of skill sets -- from those who have just recently completed law school to those with many years of legal experience.  Most likely, litigators will be a lower percentage of participants than they are of Skadden attorneys as a whole. 

 

    Participants who are already at Skadden will be available to join their host organizations after May 1, and will receive a stipend from the firm at that time.  Although they will not be Skadden employees during the yearlong period, they will be asked to avoid matters that are likely to be directly adverse to firm clients.

 

    While Skadden (and we) hope your organization (if, as is so for most of you, it is a public interest group) will consider hosting a Skadden attorney, Skadden welcomes any input you can provide regarding other potential host organizations.  Please don’t hesitate to call either of us if you’d like to discuss this in more detail.

 

    Any group that wants to express interest in hosting someone should send an e-mail to kristin.leary@skadden.com, with as much detail as possible about the opportunity being offered.

 

Sincerely,

 

Susan Plum

Ronald Tabak 

Identifying mentally distressed students- AN ONLINE TOOL (!)

On Mental Health, an Online Tool
March 17, 2009

I admit it. I’m trying to get it wrong. I want to see what happens (for reporting purposes, of course).

I start the conversation by asking Gwen if she has an anxiety problem. Then I follow up by inquiring why she’s freaking out about the exam.

We don’t talk long before a blue screen pops up. “You have compromised Gwen’s comfort to the point where she is leaving your office. Next time, try to show more compassion for her situation.”

Game over (or start over).That’s probably a good example of how not to use At-Risk, a simulated, online training program intended to help faculty and staff get it right -- or at least become sensitized to good strategies for identifying, conversing with, and referring mentally distressed students. “We're very clear that you're not going to change your personality in 45 minutes. What we're trying to do is make you aware," said Ron Goldman, CEO of Kognito Interactive, a New York-based simulation and games company that developed At-Risk in collaboration with the Mental Health Association of New York City. "What are the things that you need to be aware of in a conversation; what are the different tactics that don't work or do work? And awareness is the first step in behavioral change.”

Launched late in 2008, the program is gaining its first college customers. The first, City University of New York, is piloting the training program at four campuses. New York University plans to purchase 50 licenses of At-Risk for a limited test run with student affairs staff.

"It essentially allows you to role-play without having to feel like you're being judged and it gives you options that are relatively realistic about what kinds of things you may choose to do," said Henry Chung, associate vice president for student health and executive director of the student health center at NYU. Chung, a psychiatrist, has modified Kognito's own self-report survey in order to gauge the program's effectiveness.

"If the student affairs folks really feel like this kind of training is helpful to them, then we're going to move to the faculty," he said.

Attention to training the so-called gatekeepers – faculty and staff -- to identify and refer at-risk students to the counseling center is not new, but has increased in the wake of the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings.

Typically, training is still done in-house by college counseling center employees who offer workshops or speak at faculty meetings. But vendors have identified opportunities to try to systematize training, online.

Another company, Outside the Classroom, launched MentalHealthEdu, an online training program for college personnel, in October 2007; it's been deployed at 35 campuses so far, according to the CEO. At-Risk is also very much a product of its time. Advertised benefits include the ability to “maintain a record of who has taken the training for compliancy and legal purposes.”

About At-Risk

In short, here’s how At-Risk works: users (the intended audience is college faculty or staff) read the profiles of six studentsBased on that information, they choose which students they'd like to talk to.

In conversations, users assume the role of a professor. They choose -- from a number of options -- how they should open the discussion with the student. Throughout the conversation, they continue to choose, from a selection of available topics, which they should next broach. Some conversation topics put the virtual students seemingly at ease; others trigger them to cross their arms and sit back. "You're not talking about a very simple decision tree. ... The character has its own emotional state or memory so how it will respond to your question and the options you will have at that point depend on the decisions you’ve made before," Goldman explained.

“You get feedback along the way. So if you ask inappropriate questions, you’ll get feedback that way."

Ultimately, the goal is to identify and refer the at-risk students to the counseling center, either by walking them over, setting up an appointment for them, or giving them a number to call. "This is not about treatment" -- or diagnoses, Goldman stressed. "This is about identifying, approaching and if necessary referring the student."

READ THE REST HERE

The Effect of Clinical Education on Law Student Reasoning: an Empirical Study

Professor Stefan Krieger of Hofstra has just published The effect of clinical education on law student reasoning: an empirical study in 35 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 359 (2008). 

New national organization for adjuncts looking for law professors

Legal Writing Prof Blog

We helped break the news back in February about a new, national organization called "The National Coalition of Adjunct Faculty" that seeks to support and advocate for adjunct faculty everywhere, including those who teach legal writing.  As a result of our post, our good buddy Professor Mitchell Rubenstein over at the Adjunct Law Prof Blog helped spread the gospel.  Indeed, he got religion himself by joining the group's organizational committee as he announces here.  As Professor Rubinstein explains, the purpose of the group is still a bit amorphous but they are nonetheless seeking members, including law school adjuncts.  So all you legal writing gremmies out there, grab your wax and your board, and surf on over to the Adjunct Law Prof Blog to get the skinny on how to join. 

New Clinicians Conference

Continuing the Tradition!  The Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) New Clinicians Conference will take place right before the AALS Clinical Workshop in Cleveland, beginning the afternoon of Tuesday May 5th and continuing through late afternoon of May 6th at Case Western Reserve University.  This conference is designed for newer clinicians as a fun and informative introduction to clinical teaching and the clinical community.  We will cover pedagogical matters, supervision issues, introduce you to the history and current debates of the clinical movement, and much much more!

Often, attendees have been teaching for a year or two when they attend this conference.  Accordingly, even those who attended the AALS Workshop for New Clinical Teachers last summer will have a lot to gain, since we design exercises to incorporate the clinical experiences of attendees into the training and build in time to help you reflect on your particular setting.  However, if you haven't started teaching yet, this would still be a terrific conference for you. And if you have been teaching more than two years but have never come, you are more than welcome!

Fee: $135.00 (includes dinner on the 5th, and breakfast and lunch on the 6th) if you pre-register by April 20th, $160.00 if you register at the door.  Checks should be made to CLEA, and mailed to the address below.  Credit cards may be used through a PayPal link found on the CLEA website at www.cleaweb.org. There is a $50.00 cancellation fee.  Note that this conference is separate from the AALS workshop!

Registration deadline:  Friday, 20 April 2009.  Registration for the 2009 New Clinician's Conference will include complimentary membership in CLEA for one year.

Return Registration form on-line ( www.cleaweb.org ) or via e-mail, fax or mail to:

CLEA New Clinicians Conference 2009 c/o Lisa Hines
University of South Carolina School of Law; Department of Clinical Legal Studies
Columbia, South Carolina 29208

LISTSERV FOR NEW CLINICIANS

At the request of many new clinicians last year at the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education in Tucson, CLEA has created a listserv for new clinicians.  Membership is not limited to newer clinicians however the purpose of the listserv is provide a safe space where new clinicians can feel free to ask questions and have discussions about issues that are particular to the first few years of teaching. 

If you are interested in joining the listserv please go to the following site and sign-up:

http://cleaweb.org/mailman/listinfo/cleanewclinicians_cleaweb.org.

SSRN: Race & Prisoner's Rights

Legal Theory Blog: Mushlin & Galtz on Race & Prisoner's Rights

Mushlin & Galtz on Race & Prisoner's Rights
Michael B. Mushlin and Naomi (Roz) Galtz (Pace University - School of Law) have posted Getting Real About Race and Prisoner Rights (Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol. 36, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This Article explores the nexus of two stories central to contemporary American jurisprudence and - for tens of millions of citizens - central to the American experience: the rise of the "carceral state" through steep increases in the incarceration of non-whites, and the decline, over the very same period, in legal protections for prisoners. The Article suggests that these two stories cannot be considered in isolation from one another. Nearly everything we know about race from the social sciences suggests that, in the highly pressured context of prison life, racial tensions will play a role in the decisions that guards and administrators make concerning prisoner welfare. Social geography tells us concretely that the communities from which non-white prisoners are drawn are the ones least able to advocate for prisoner well-being. And the sociology of citizenship reveals that citizenship itself has always been deeply "raced" in America, making it doubly challenging for a largely non-white prison population to be seen as worthy of humane treatment. Yet the law is not currently equipped to acknowledge or confront the possibility that mistreatment of prisoners is systemically bound to race-based tensions and structural inequities. This is a critical gap that cannot, we argue, be remedied until the courts adopt a more realistic understanding of the workings of race in the corrections world.

Posted by Lawrence Solum on Ma

Nominate Someone for SALT's Great Teacher Award

As most of you are aware, SALT holds an annual dinner each year during the January AALS meeting, which is in New Orleans in 2010.  A highlight of the dinner is the presentation of SALT's Great Teacher Award.  This award recognizes individuals or institutions that have made especially important contributions to teaching and education.  

 

SALT invites you to submit a nomination.

 

Here’s how you do it: If you would like to make a nomination, please submit the name of the person or organization and a statement supporting your nomination. Please submit all nominations by April 27, 2009, to Ruben Garcia at rjg@cwsl.edu and Hazel Weiser hweiser@saltlaw.org

 

Following is a list of previous recipients of the Great Teacher award starting with most recent: 

 

Steve Wizner, Fran Ansley, Stephanie Wildman, Eric Yamamoto, Howard Glickstein, Bill Quigley, Charles Lawrence & Mari Matsuda, SALT Founders, Sylvia Law, Marjorie M. Schultz, Anthony Amsterdam, Jim Jones, W. Hayward Burns, Barbara Aldave, Trina Grillo, Norm Dorsen, Cruz Reynoso, Mary Jo Frug, Marilyn Yarborough, Rhonda Rivera, University of Wisconsin Law School, Howard Lesnick, Barbara Babcock, Clinton Bamberger, CUNY Law School, Derrick Bell, Herma Hill Kay, Charles Black,  Arthur Leff, Harry Edwards, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Rennard Strickland, Thomas Emerson, Charles Miller, David Cavers.

Not in My Backyard -- a look back at Hansberry v. Lee

Published on The Root (http://www.theroot.com)

By: Brian Gilmore

 

Fifty years ago last week, A Raisin in the Sun [1] debuted, eventually becoming American theater’s seminal statement on racism and the human condition. Named after words from a Langston Hughes poem [2], the play was made into a critically acclaimed film in 1961 [3] and was later translated into 35 languages. The play was “a breakthrough for white America” and “a curtain raiser for the next phase of the civil rights movement,” Hansberry’s biographer, Michael Anderson, told me in an e-mail recently.

The play told the story of the Youngers, a black family seeking to escape the crowded slums of Chicago’s South Side by buying a home in a white neighborhood. The play tracks their inner struggles and collective triumphs, which echoed the plight of blacks flooding into Northern cities like Chicago and Detroit seeking their fair share of America and giving birth to the black middle class.

But even as the play continues to grow in stature, many Americans are unaware of the courageous story behind the art. Just like Pablo Picasso was moved to paint his classic mural-sized painting “Guernica [4]” after the Nazis savagely bombed the city of Guernica in Spain in 1937, Lorraine Hansberry penned A Raisin in the Sun because of real events, violent and noble.

The true story that inspired the play occurred in 1937 when Lorraine Hansberry’s father, the successful Chicago businessman Carl Hansberry, purchased a house restricted to whites by racial covenant in Chicago. When the family ignored the 1928 covenant that excluded blacks and bought a house there, the Hansberrys were thrust, the playwright said later, into a “hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’” where “howling mobs surrounded” their home. Hansberry was nearly killed when a cement slab was hurled through a window.

Conditions were so dangerous that Hansberry’s mother, Nannie Perry Hansberry, patrolled the house at night with a “German luger” to protect her four children. Carl Hansberry joined forces with the NAACP to mount a legal challenge against the restrictive racial covenant, spending a small fortune in the process.

A white homeowner, Anna M. Lee, complained that the Hansberrys violated the covenant. The case, known today as Hansberry v. Lee [5], weaved its way through the judicial system and eventually landed at the United States Supreme Court for review. Chicago alderman Earl Dickerson, a Chicago legal legend, along with a litany of outstanding black civil rights lawyers, represented the Hansberry family. The case is critically important to history for one specific reason: 14 years earlier, in 1926, the U.S. Supreme Court declared racial covenants legal in Corrigan v. Buckley [6]. The Hansberry case offered a chance to reverse that decision.

In the end, Carl Hansberry’s persistence and courage paid off. On Nov. 12, 1940, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hansberry, invalidating the racial covenant.

While the decision was decided on technical grounds and took no position on the legality of all racial covenants, the case proved to be the beginning of the end for the practice. Some other racially restricted areas in Chicago opened up to black homebuyers. Then, in 1948, the Supreme Court declared the enforcement of all racial covenants unconstitutional in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Shelley v. Kraemer [7].

Sadly, however, according to Lorraine Hansberry, her father’s battle for justice led to an early death. Mr. Hansberry died in 1946 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Mexico. He was considering moving his family there as a result of the legal battle to take the home. In To Be Young, Gifted and Black [8], Hansberry described “the emotional turmoil” of the struggle which left him an “embittered exile in a foreign land…”

The monument of the spirit of Carl Hansberry, his daughter Lorraine and the entire Hansberry family is A Raisin in the Sun, an enduring piece of art whose back story is especially important today as black communities face new and often difficult housing issues as neighborhoods gentrify or deteriorate. And whole generations of black wealth are going up in smoke because of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Hansberry’s play is about determination, the human spirit and a willingness to be courageous as we try to make ourselves at home in a sometimes hostile land.

Brian Gilmore is an attorney and writer in Washington, D.C.

---

Source URL: http://www.theroot.com/views/not-my-backyard 

Links:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Raisin_in_the_Sun
[2] http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm
[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00003L9CK?tag=therootcom-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B00003L9CK&adid=1QC0S53VNEQCYTXHPTE8&
[4] http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansberry_v._Lee
[6] http://www.brownat50.org/brownCases/PreBrownCases/CorriganvBuckley1926.html
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_v._Kraemer
[8] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0451159527?tag=therootcom-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0451159527&adid=1J3PM32JJBRSYFBQ74PR&

Obama’s Judicial Legacy, Chapter One

Obama’s Judicial Legacy, Chapter One
According to The New York Times, the White House is signaling that it may soon be ready to name its first batch of nominees. Currently, there are 15 vacancies on the federal courts of appeal; the Times focuses on potential nominees for the Second Circuit (one vacancy) and the Fourth Circuit (four vacancies). News from the White House Counsel’s office indicates that Baltimore-based District Court Judge Andre Davis and University of Virginia Law School Professor Elizabeth Magill may be tapped for the Fourth, and former law professor and current District Court Judge Gerard Lynch could get the nod for the Second. It is too early to comment on the names; their nominations are not official and every nomination to the powerful circuit courts requires a thoughtful review.  Read Nan Aron's blog on Huffington Post. Read article excerpt below.

travel for the ABA?

If you wish to receive notifications about opportunities offered by the Rule of Law Initiative please send an e-mail to Ms. Melissa Foldvary at mfoldvary@staff.abanet.org with "Subscribe ROLI Listserv" in the subject line. Please provide your name and affiliation in the body of the e-mail.

International Pro Bono Legal Specialist Positions

ABA ROLI is currently seeking experienced judges, attorneys, and law professors with a minimum of five years of relevant experience, a high level of energy and initiative, strong interpersonal skills, and expertise in the substantive areas required by the relevant position. International experience and foreign language skills are preferred, but not required.

All participants receive a generous support package. Click here to learn more about the program.

1. Access to justice and human rights
   • No positions currently available
2. Anti-corruption and public integrity
   • No positions currently available
3. Criminal law reform and anti- human trafficking
   • Tajikistan - Criminal Law Legal Specialist, 3 - 8 months
4. Women's rights
   • Tajikistan - Gender Rights Legal Specialist, 12 month
5. Judicial reform
   • Armenia - Judicial Reform Legal Specialist, 12+ months
   • Liberia - Judicial Reform Legal Specialist
6. Legal education reform and civic education
   • Jordan - Legal Education Specialist, 6-12 months
   • Kosovo - Legal Education Reform Specialist, 6-12 months
   • Liberia - Legal Aid Clinic Training Specialist, 6 months
7. Legal profession reform
   • Armenia - Legal Profession Specialist, 12 months
   • Kosovo - Legal Profession Reform Specialist, 12 months
8. Other
   • Burundi - Juvenile Justice Specialist, 3 months
   • Latin America/Caribbean, General Legal Specialists

“THE TANKLEFF CASE AND THE PROBLEM OF UNJUST CONVICTIONS”

Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center

Touro Law Center and the Touro Criminal Law Society
present

“THE TANKLEFF CASE AND THE
PROBLEM OF UNJUST CONVICTIONS”

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
At Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, Central Islip, N.Y.

SPEAKERS
MARTIN TANKLEFF
ROBERT GOTTLIEB, ESQ.
Tankleff’s trial counsel; member of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Wrongful Convictions
BRUCE BARKET, ESQ.
Tankleff’s lawyer post-conviction
MARK DWYER, ESQ.
Chief of the Appeals Bureau and Counsel to the District Attorney, New York County District Attorney’s office;
member of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Wrongful Convictions
PROFESSOR RICHARD MORAN
Mt. Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist; expert on wrongful convictions

Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
225 Eastview Drive, Central Islip, N.Y. 11722
For more information or to RSVP please contact
Charity Rodriguez at
5:30 P.M. - Pre-program video presentation
6:30 P.M. - Registration and refreshments
7:00 P.M. - Program

Laptops in the classroom: "Please Repeat the Question"

Please Repeat the Question from Amanda Bakale on Vimeo.

HT PrawfsBlawg Posted by Howard Wasserman on March 9, 2009