clinicians with not enough to do

Want your lecture to be more than a talker and an undifferentiated mass of bent-headed note-takers?

Didaction

April 29, 2009
By Rob Weir

Want your lecture to be more than a talker and an undifferentiated mass of bent-headed note-takers? Consider “didaction,” a mix of exposition and student action. Didaction is what public school teachers do as a survival mechanism — most of their charges simply can’t stay focused for 50 consecutive minutes of “chalk and talk.” Your undergraduates are products of those skilled teachers who integrate three or four separate activities into a single class. You can’t do as many activities in the roughly 2,400 semester minutes you’ll have with students — about 10 percent of a high school teacher’s contact minutes — but you can do plenty to involve students, even if you’re speaking before classes the size of a small rock concert. Among them:

1. Brainstorm shout-outs: An easy way to involve a large group is to pose an open-ended question appropriate for brainstorming and just ask students to yell out ideas. For instance, when I lecture on Baby Boomers entering college in the 1960s I just ask students: “What are some of the values from their 1950s childhood that Baby Boomers might come to question?” I quickly jot down responses on the blackboard. It takes about a minute and chances are that I’ve already woven most of these into the lecture. But when I hit one the students suggested I turn to the blackboard and point to it.

2. Say it in pictures: PowerPoint is much maligned because it’s so poorly used. (Is there anything more boring or insulting than having someone read a slide to an audience?) It can, however, be a powerful tool if you use it like a combo overhead projector/slide projector. Show images and ask students to comment on them. Your “lecture” will consist mainly of summarizing the correct assumptions students extract from images, data, etc. Still images work much better in the classroom than video. Students often let moving images wash over them rather than drinking them in. Still images slow them down. Anytime you have data or geographic references, project them or don’t bother to mention them at all.

A variant is to have students listen to somebody who isn’t you. I like to use music. Recommendation: If you use music, and if it’s the lyric you want students to consider, either pass them out or project them. If there’s something in the music itself, cue students about what it is you want them to hear and when it’s coming. Ask for immediate feedback.

3. Be a story teller and solicit input: A skilled lecturer can turn information-giving into a story. I once heard an astronomer tell the story of the lifecycle of stars with such finesse that he could stop and ask listeners what would happen next. Most of the time the answers were right, but when they weren’t he went back to storytelling to explain the error.

4. Do a demonstration of the concept just explained: This has been a staple of good chemistry profs for years, but it works for most disciplines. Give the facts, properties, or sequence then set up a quick experiment or scenario that asks students to apply what they’ve just heard. It need not be complex. I once projected and explained the phases of the Chinese concept of dynastic cycles, gave a 10-minute capsule summary of the Qin Dynasty, then stopped the lecture and asked students to take one minute to scan their notes and label the dynastic cycle phases. Then I projected the Qin cycle that I prepared before class and asked them to compare it to what they had done.

A friend who teaches computer science tells his students that each will be responsible for writing one line of code at the end at the end of his explanation. He gives them a minute or two to compose the code then solicits one line at a time that he plugs into a program projected for all to see. He writes what he’s given even if he knows there’s a glitch and lets his students unravel the errors to see why it’s an error.

5. Do a two-minute scenario/role play: You can do this in lectures of hundreds of students. I’ve lectured on the tactics of Joseph McCarthy and asked students to consider what their options would have been. I walk away from the podium and wade into the crowd, Oprah-like. (That alone changes the mood!) I select a random student and ask McCarthy-like questions. When he or she answers — which invariably evokes nervous laughter — I walk up to another student and ask the same questions. Then I simply ask, “OK, so what realistic options would a person have if asked such questions?” This drives the lesson home faster and harder than I could do by reciting chapter and verse.

The Mediocre Professor

CHRONICLE CAREERS

What if my students are right? What if the readings are too long or too boring or don't make sense?

My most recent teaching evaluations are in, and the verdict suggests that I have achieved, once again and with little effort, mediocrity. I am a model of foolish consistency.

A small part of me holds out hope that my students will soon have one of those epiphanies that are so much a part of popular culture's dramatic renderings of teaching. At the moment of their sublime insight I will finally blossom into, say, the John Keating character from Dead Poets Society, inspired and inspirational, if not triumphant in a meager way. But the realist in me knows better.

Keating was held back by the Philistines. Of the several beauties of academic life, however, perhaps the most bewitching is the fact that the majority of us do not have to put up with such a nasty bureaucracy. As long as we make the requisite gestures toward general competence (show up, provide a syllabus, assign exams and papers, grade them in a timely fashion), few in the administration care terribly much about what we do behind closed doors — their inevitable protestations notwithstanding. In what other profession could so many people be under my tutelage with so little oversight?

As much as I like to be left alone — and I do — I find myself more and more ambivalent about my independence. I'm not certain I can trust myself to become a more effective teacher or to better myself as a professional. While appreciating the trust — if not the indifference — that the administration has bestowed on me, there are times when I think that a little more interest from on high would light the proverbial fire under my behind, especially since it seems evident that I am unlikely to do so myself.

Virtually all colleges and even some research universities tout the extraordinary teachers under their roofs, but my experience tells me that at the end of the day it's only the community colleges whose practices match their public relations, who really believe in the importance of teaching. To take but one example, at my small university, candidates coming up for tenure are told that teaching matters as much as research — indeed, it is always mentioned first, as in "teaching, scholarship, and service" — but we are all aware of a wink and a nudge behind the facade. Teaching is said to be a primary focus, but no one gets tenure here for being a superb teacher and an indifferent scholar.

CLEA AWARDS ANNOUNCED

On behalf of CLEA, I am thrilled to announce the recipients of this year's CLEA awards.  Ann Shalleck of American University Washington College of Law is the recipient of the Award to an Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers.  This award recognizes those who have served as a voice for clinical teachers and contributed to the advancement of clinical legal education, particularly in the political arena. 

CLEA's other award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project is being awarded to University of Washington Environmental Law Clinic for its work on behalf of Native Alaskans impacted by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, culminating in the award winning documentary The 3rd Trustee:  Native Alaska and the Big Spill.  Both awards will be presented at the AALS conference during the lunch on Saturday at 1 pm.  Please join CLEA in congratulating these two exemplary recipients.  I would also like to thank all of you who nominated your students for Outstanding Student Awards.  You should be receiving student certificates in the mail.  Finally, I would like to thank this year's awards committee made up of Deborah Archer (New York Law School), Andrea Seielstad (University of Dayton School of Law) and Mary Wolf (Indiana University-Purdue University School of Law).

Kele Stewart Williams, Associate Clinical Professor & Associate Director,

University of Miami School of Law, Children & Youth Law Clinic

Black’s Law Dictionary Now in iTunes

Legal Technology  Posted Apr 24, 2009, 10:50 am CDT

By Molly McDonough

Adding to the ever-expanding toolbox for the wired lawyer who needs to work while on the go, West has launched a Black's Law Dictionary in iTunes.

This is the first iPhone/iPod Touch app for the legal publisher and features the most recent edition of the dictionary.

read the rest here

SSRN: ALFIERI ON "JIM CROW" ETHICS

"Jim Crow Ethics and the Defense of the Jena Six" 

Iowa Law Review, Vol. 94, 2009
University of Miami Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2009-09

ANTHONY VICTOR ALFIERI, University of Miami - School of Law
Email: aalfieri@law.miami.edu

This Article is part of a larger, ongoing project investigating the role of race, lawyers, and ethics in the American criminal-justice system. The purpose of the project is to understand the race-based, identity-making practices of prosecutors and defenders in order to craft alternative civil rights and criminal- justice strategies in cases of racially-motivated violence. To that end, the Article revisits the 2006 prosecution and defense of the Jena Six in LaSalle Parish, Louisiana in the hope of uncovering the professional norms of practice under de jure and de facto conditions of racial segregation, a set of norms I call Jim Crow legal ethics. Jim Crow ethical norms condone and oftentimes encourage coded claims of race-based identity in describing individual black offenders as culturally and socially inferior, and, thus, in publicly shaping the collective histories of black offender communities.

Instead of rehearsing the Jim Crow norms and narratives typically constructing the identity and history of black offenders, such as "rotten social background" and "black rage," this Article addresses a more provocative claim: the "natural" criminal pathology of black male offenders, what I call the antebellum defense. Proffered as an excuse or as a mitigating circumstance, the antebellum defense offers coded racial narratives to diminish the mental capacity and moral character of black offenders and their communities. Under the standard conception of criminal defense ethics, the antebellum defense permits defenders to excuse black male lawbreaking for reasons of "innate" criminal character rather than environmental deprivation, cultural deviance or socioeconomic oppression. Heard at trial and on appeal, the defense finds justification in the instrumental reasoning of conventional lawyer adversarial discretion.

The defender discretion to assert the antebellum defense in the Jena Six case and elsewhere raises troubling questions of lawyer morality in the criminal- justice system. To evaluate the morality of the antebellum defense for the Jena Six, the Article turns to David Luban's recent writings on legal ethics and human dignity, juxtaposing the standard adversarial conception of criminal-defense ethics against his dignitary conception of ethics, here enlarged by identity-affirming, dignity-restoring, and community-empowering norms of advocacy. Guided by these and other integrity norms, Luban's alternative dignitary conception provides moral direction to civil rights and criminal-justice advocates in cases of racially motivated violence.

JOBS: Human Rights Watch

Full-Time Position Available:

ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL

Operations/General Counsel Departments

(New York Office)

Description:  The Associate General Counsel will provide key support to the Chief Operating Officer and the General Counsel in all areas of work and play a leadership role in providing legal services for this large (US$40 million) international non-profit based in New York.   The position responsibilities will include:

 

• providing legal counsel and guidance to various arms of the organization in particular the Human Resources, Finance,  Administration, Operations, and Developments;
• reviewing, negotiating and approving contracts and licenses, leases, registrations, and other legal documents;
• providing and obtaining legal advice with relation to the internationalization of our operations including establishing foreign offices, handling employment issues, tax and benefits issues;
• ensuring organizational legal compliance with U.S. and foreign law, helping to develop and implement organizational policies and creating systems to ensure compliance with policies;
• providing proactive advice and conducting research into legal opportunities and obstacles for a prominent human rights advocacy organization;
• helping to build and maintain a worldwide network of pro bono and paid counsel; and
• undertaking special projects as assigned, consistent with the qualifications and authority associated with this position. 

 

The position is full time, and offers exposure to a broad range of issues and the opportunity to work with a diverse and collegial staff on a variety of projects at any given time.

Let's rant about email!

MS. MENTOR - the Chronicle of Higher Education

Don't E-Mail Me This Way

Someone whined, someone was offended, then someone hit 'send' when they should have hit 'delete'

Question: Getting e-mail used to excite me, but now I have to force myself to turn on the computer. I get SCREECHES (all caps) or cryptic mumblings from students; vague or crazy memos from colleagues; pointless administrative pronouncements that have nothing to do with me; and rivers of inane forwardings from people who think they're my friends. All of these people need lessons.

Answer: Many faculty members do dread e-mail messages from students. In The Chronicle's In the Classroom Forum, a thread on "'favorite' student e-mails," begun in October of 2006, now has more than 8,000 melancholy postings.

Ms. Mentor wonders if some particularly tawdry scenario inspired this month's query to her. Someone whined, someone was offended, someone brandished such terms as "brat" and "meanie." Then everyone hit "send" when they should've hit "delete" — until finally, in a brief bow toward civilized discourse, a letter was written to Ms. Mentor, seeking rules to e-mail by.

Ms. Mentor does get well-mannered letters from students. One recent correspondent sought "the 10 most important rules for a student to follow in e-mailing a professor," and even concluded, "Thank you very much." But in every era, it is fashionable to blame the youth for bad fashions, moral degeneration, and illiteracy. Ms. Mentor reminds her readers that tenure was invented to instruct, socialize, and tame the barbarian hordes — and so wise elders should teach their charges not to send e-mail messages like this one, sent to a professor at Big Football U: "yo, prof! i in ur class but 4got class yester-day because my cat dyed lol. did i miss anything? plmkayecok. have a nice day. chris"

Once upon a time, students in typing class learned proper business salutations ("Dear Professor Wise"), block and indented paragraph styles, and businesslike endings ("Yours truly, Chris Cross"). All that, Ms. Mentor knows, is passé and fogyish, and she mentions it only because ranting and bemoaning are salutary at the end of an academic year.

Turns out Law Firms Want us to Teach law students how to write!

thanks to the Legal Writing Blog . . .

The New York Law Journal includes a special insert this week devoted to advising 3L's on how to hunt for jobs and what skills they'll need once they bag their prey.  One of the articles, What Law Firms Want in New Recruits, includes an informal survey of several "practice chairs, hiring partners, and recruiters" about the things law schools can be doing to better prepare students for practice and what law students themselves can do better to ensure they hold whatever job they land. 

Among the most important skills law students need to develop, according to those surveyed, is the ability to write.  One partner said that very few law grads can write well.  "Constructing grammatically correct sentences is not the problem.  Rather, the ability to organize facts and principles in a crisp, logical way is what's lacking in many newcomers to the firm."

According to clear writing guru William Zinsser, who was interviewed for the article, "writing is thinking on paper.If a lawyer's writing is muddled, clients may assume his/her thinking is too."

Duke law school is praised in the article for taking writing instruction seriously beyond the first year with electives such as "Writing for Federal Litigation," "Writing/Drafting Legislation," "Writing for Publication" as well as several workshops like "Writing from the Reader's Perspective" and "Legal Writing Craft and Style." 

The article goes on to suggest that writing programs substitute larger writing assignments with several smaller ones based on a suggestion made by Harold P. Southerland in his 2005 article English as a Second Language - or Why Lawyers Can't Write, 18 St. Thomas L. Rev. 53 (2005).  As Professor Southerland says: "Law is a house of words, utterly dependent on language.  Other than integrity, it is hard to think of any quality more vital to a lawyer than literacy."

Interestingly, if there was any skill more important to those surveyed than writing, it is business acumen.  Respondents were unanimous about law schools needing to offer a course in "Business 101" to teach students how a business runs and help them learn business development skills.  Among the other suggestions:  Teach students "the economics of running a law practice, how to develop new business, how to network, how to interact with opposing counsel, how to conduct client meetings, the need for efficiency, and the importance of time and project management." 

The NYLJ article is password protected - however, by going here, you can register for free and thereby gain access to the entire insert which also includes an article offering advice to 3L's hunting for that most elusive prey - a job.

If you are already a registered user of the NYLJ, you can access What Law Firms Want in New Recruits here.

Hat tip to the TaxProf Blog.

ACLU: new edition of "The Rights of Women"

Norman Dorsen:  . . . .  As an exercise in nostalgia, I took down from my bookcase copies of the first three editions.  It may be of interest that Susan Ross wrote the first edition (1973) on her own, with Ruth Ginsburg, then coordinator of the Women's Rights Project, as Special Editor.    The publisher was Avon Books, which produced the first books in the ACLU Rights Series beginning in 1971 or 1972.  The Rights of Women Fourth Edition The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Women’s Rights Lenora M. Lapidus, Emily J. Martin, and Namita Luthra 412 p. | Paperback: $22.00 "Accessible and easy to read. From athletics and birth control to violence and welfare, you'll find answers you need to questions you didn't even know you had." —Kim A. Gandy, President, National Organization for Women "An important and much-needed guide to contemporary women’s rights law. It covers a wide range of critical subjects with intelligence and clarity. It is straightforward, accessible and well-written. I highly recommend it as an essential guide to laypeople and lawyers alike." —Elizabeth M. Schneider, author of Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking

Table of Contents Chapter One Purchase

The Rights of Women  is a comprehensive guide that explains in detail the rights of women under present law, and how these laws can be used in the continuing struggle to achieve full gender equality at home, in the workplace, at school, and in society at large. The Rights of Women explores the concept of equal protection and covers topics including employment, education, housing, and public accommodations. This handbook also examines the specific issues of trafficking, violence against women, welfare reform, and reproductive freedom. Using a straightforward question-and-answer format while translating the law into accessible language, this volume is a tool for individuals, lawyers, and advocates seeking to assert women’s rights under the law. Now in its fully revised and updated fourth edition, The Rights of Women is an invaluable guide to finding legal solutions to the most pressing issues facing women today. Lenora M. Lapidus is the Director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. Emily J. Martin is the Deputy Director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. Namita Luthra is a former staff attorney at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project.

How to Write a Press Release

ON MESSAGE - Chronicle of Higher Education

Behold the Power of the Lowly Press Release

A look at the ins and outs of crafting the most basic communication tool in a public-relations office

By RUSSELL S. POWELL

Why write about press releases, the most basic of communication tools in the public-relations office? We can rattle them off in our sleep. And therein lies the problem: Too many of our releases read like they were written in our sleep.

We often take press releases for granted. Our approach to writing and distributing them is too casual in some cases and too self-serving in others. Because of their frequency and their low position on the communications chain, we often make the mistake of failing to keep the end user — the reporter or editor — foremost in mind.

It's not a fatal mistake. After all, the primary job of the press release is to quickly describe an event or news on the campus. In most instances, both the journalist's and the college's needs are met: Reporters get the raw materials for a story, even if it is only a calendar listing, and the college gets free publicity. The press release is ephemeral. So what if it's not as meticulously prepared as brochure copy? Where's the harm?

Yet something else is going on here. Consciously or not, reporters make inferences from a press release about the writer and the institution it represents. Over time, a string of releases that are sloppy or show poor news judgment reflect badly upon the college. A press release is a publication, a tangible representation of your institution, especially for the journalist sitting in an office miles away. Many of those reporters (and especially editors) have rarely, if ever, set foot on your campus. By default, the press release becomes a substitute for the real thing it describes, through its masthead, appearance, clarity, and grammar. In those few seconds in which you have their attention, you tell journalists much more about you and your college than the text of the release conveys.

Make it media-ready. Ideally, your press release should be of a high-enough quality to be reprinted or spoken verbatim, if necessary. (And from our perspective, isn't that the best-case scenario?) For that reason, we should approach every release not as a mundane obligation but as if we were a reporter on the receiving end. Why create unnecessary work? Why ask them to rewrite? It's in your best interest to write the story as clearly and accurately as you can. Reporters will appreciate not having to take time from their busy schedules to put your sprawling text into usable form.

Teaching Poverty Law in the Fall? Here are some ideas

Jeff Selbin compiled this list, based on contributions from Susan Bennett, Jeanne Charn, Jon Dubin, Jorge Elorza, Russell Engler, Joan Flocks, Jonathan B. Forman, Joel Handler, Art LaFrance, Jane Muller-Peterson, Clare Pastore, Bill Quigley, Spencer Rand, Linda Smith, Carol Spruill, Nina Tarr, Steven M. Virgil, Noah Zatz.  Feel free to add your own thoughts.

·         Clearinghouse Review Poverty Law Manual for the New Lawyer, http://www.povertylaw.org/poverty-law-library/research-guides/poverty-law-manual/index.html.

·         The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) does one and two pagers on the major programs.  http://www.cbpp.org/

·         Sar A. Levitan, et al's, Programs In Aid of the Poor (8^th Ed. 2003)

·         Chapter 3 in Urban Problems and Community Development (1999) edited by Ronald F. Ferguson and William T. Dickens, written by Alice O'Connor, titled "Swimming Against the Tide: A Brief History of Federal Policy in Poor Communities."

·         Confronting Poverty: Prescriptions for Change edited by Danziger, et al. Chapter 3, written by Gary Burtless is titled "Public Spending on the Poor: Historical Trends and Economic Limits." This one has more details and is very accessible/readable for students. 

·         Shriver Center's Poverty Law Manual, available online (http://www.povertylaw.org//poverty-law-library/research-guides/poverty-law-manual/).  Shriver Center also hosts a wiki on various topics.

·         Dorothy Roberts' joint review of two books, called Welfare and the Problem of Black Citizenship, 105 Yale Law Journal 1563 (1996) 

·         Lisa Gordon, Pitied but not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (1994)

·         Jill Quadagno, The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty (1994) 

·         Focused mainly on cash-based assistance, Welfare - A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics by Mink and Solinger.

·         2004 GreenBook and the 2008 GreenBook (in progress): http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Documents.asp?section=813 & http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Documents.asp?section=2168 

·         Handler and Hasenfeld, Blame Welfare, Ignore Poverty and Inequality (CUP).

·         Art LaFrance:  I did a policy seminar on poverty and healthcare at Houston, with raw/edited materials (articles, tables etc).I can send along the table of contents or the whole thing. 

·         The Invisible Safety Net:  Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families, J.M. Currie.

·         The Benchmark Institute has a lot of great resources:  http://www.benchmarkinstitute.org/ 

·         Spencer Rand, “Creating My Client’s Image: Is Case Theory Value Neutral in Public Benefits Cases?, 28 J. of Law & Policy 69 (Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1317448.)

·         The Rights of the Poor: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Poor People's Rights, by Helen Hershkoff and Stephen Loffredo (1997) 

·         Rebecca Blank, It Takes A Nation (also out of date)

·         An Introduction to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, by Wendy Pollack 

·         Introduction to Food Stamps, by Anne Pearson and Sonya Schwartz

·         An Introduction to Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income, by Jenny Kaufmann 

·         Public Benefits: Beyond the Usual Suspects, by Marcia Henry and Katina Ancar

·         Overview of Public Housing, HUD Federally Subsidized Housing, and Section 8 Housing Voucher Programs, by Fred Fuchs 

·         Eviction Defense, by Marcia Henry

·         For Medicaid, I use whatever Jane Perkins and Sarah Somers have written most recently. 

·         For employment, I use the website of the US Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. http://www.eeoc.gov/

·         Website for the Center on Law and Social Policy that has interesting data and articles which might be of interest to those teaching clinics and poverty law courses: http://www.clasp.org

Have Fun!

A new DC area law school?

New DC Area Law School Gains Traction

April 23rd, 2009

Prince George's County legislators are hoping to bring a law school to the county to help the county's image and provide a convenient location for law students in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

The state's budget for next fiscal year, which was approved by the General Assembly last week, includes a request that the University System of Maryland study the "feasibility and logistical costs and benefits of establishing a satellite law center of the University of Baltimore in Prince George's County, at an existing regional higher education center to the extent feasible, to ensure equitable access to legal education across the state."

Currently, the two state-affiliated law schools are located in Baltimore — the University of Maryland School of Law and the University of Baltimore School of Law. The report must be submitted to the General Assembly's budget committees by Sept. 1. 

MORE HERE

        [Gazette.net]

Law Reviews Create Web Magazine Offering Condensed Articles

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Daily Report

April 22, 2009

Lawyers study for years to develop the patience to wade through dense legal tomes on such topics as the “takings clause,” but what about the rest of us?

A coalition of publications at a handful of prestigious law schools is looking out for curious laypersons who might be interested in the debate over intentionalist and textualist interpretations of the law, but don’t have the time to wrestle with a 78-page document brimming with footnotes and legalese. The new online magazine The Legal Workshop offers visitors the chance to browse brief summaries of articles appearing in the influential law reviews (composed by the authors of those articles), written in plain language.

The idea is to open up the content of law reviews to a wider audience and to make legal debates influential and relevant beyond academic cloisters. “As a profession,” Michael Montano, an editor of the Stanford Law Review, told the Web site Legal Blog Watch, “we owe it to the public to produce work that is relevant to society as a whole.” –Steve Kolowich

ABA Poll: Two-Thirds of Americans Support Federal Legal Aid for Poor

ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter

Posted Apr 20, 2009, 09:14 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Two-thirds of Americans polled by the ABA support federal funding to help those who need legal assistance.

An ABA press release says the poll (PDF) found support for funding for the Legal Services Corp., with 88 percent of respondents strongly or somewhat supporting the idea that a nonprofit legal services provider is essential to help those who can’t afford to pay for lawyers. More than two-thirds said it's extremely or very important that Americans have access to legal resources and advice when they are in crisis.

More than 1,000 people were surveyed in early April by Harris Interactive for the ABA poll.

read the rest here

JOBS: VISITOR, AU Community and Economic Development Law Clinic

Clinical Teaching Position Announcement  

 

            The Clinical Program at  American University Washington, College of Law is offering a twelve month position, beginning August 1, 2009, to teach in the Community and Economic Development Law Clinic (CEDLC). The position may be filled by a visiting professor, a clinical fellow in the final year of her fellowship, or a practicing attorney interested in clinical teaching. A practitioner or a clinical fellow will receive an appointment as a “practitioner -in -residence.”

The End of Law Schools?

We've heard a good deal about legal futurist Richard Susskind's predictions for the future of the legal profession. But what about the future of legal education? Turns out that Susskind has some thoughts on that topic too, which he shared during yesterday's lecture at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Gene Koo, of Law School Innovation, live-blogged the event.

As we all know by know, Susskind believes that the the law is headed away from customized service and toward commoditization, much of which Susskind believes will take place online. Firms will transition from using junior lawyers as profit centers and instead begin to outsource, offshore or automate many tasks previously performed by associates. (Koo wonders who will hire or train new lawyers under Susskind's model.)

So what does this mean for law schools? . . .

read the rest here

The only female death row exoneree to speak at WFU Law School

Sabrina Butler Porter, the only female death row exoneree in the country, will speak to the Wake Forest University School of Law about her ordeal of being an innocent woman on death row and the struggles she has endured since being released from prison.

Sponsored by the Wake Innocence Project and the Innocence and Justice Clinic, Porter’s talk is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 21, in the Worrell Professional Center, Room 1309. The event is free and open to the public.

Porter was convicted of killing her 9-month-old child when she was 19 years old. She already had two other children by two men, was unmarried, was not well educated, was black, was on welfare, and lived in a very racially impacted small town in Mississippi, according Carol Turowski, co-director of the law school’s Innocence and Justice Clinic. Only a few months before the death of her child, Mississippi passed a new felony child abuse law that allowed prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for any child death that resulted from child abuse.

Porter was prosecuted by the office of Mississippi District Attorney Forrest Allgood despite the fact there was no evidence of child abuse in her past and the child's death was questionable at best, Turowski explained. According to Porter, she was not even present when the child began experiencing the initial distress, "but she was convicted by Allgood’s office without much of a battle," Turowski said.

Porter was eventually acquitted at a retrial when the medical examiner changed his original opinion, stating that the child died of an internal kidney malady.

“Porter's story is fascinating and will give students an inside look at how our criminal justice system operates and the need for reforms to prevent similar miscarriages of justice,” Turowski said.

Per Diem Project in the AALS Cleveland

In a few short weeks, we will meet in Cleveland for the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education. And, once again, the Per Diem Project will be asking you to help support a local area non-profit. However, this year for the first time ever, donations to the Per Diem Project can be made on-line (visit http://cleaweb.org/).

Each year, CLEA's Per Diem Project collects donations to support the community that is hosting the annual Conference on Clinical Legal Education. Though it began with the collective donation of our per diem allowances, the Project has morphed into a broader fundraising initiative. Last year, our generous donations supported two wonderful organizations in the Tucson, Arizona area (The Florence Project (www.firrp.org) and No More Deaths (www.nomoredeaths.org)).

This year, the recipient of the 2009 Per Diem Project's proceeds will be the non-profit organization ESOP ("Empowering & Strengthening Ohio's People"). Initially founded in 1993, ESOP works to prevent foreclosures in Cuyahoga County. ESOP partners with homeowners and their lenders to obtain affordable resolutions that preserve homeownership.

You can learn more about the organization by visiting its website, http://www.esop-cleveland.org. In addition, Mark Seifert, the Executive Director of ESOP will speak during the conference in Cleveland at the luncheon on Thursday, May 7, 2008, from 12:00-1:45 p.m.

Donations to the Per Diem Project can be made in one of three ways. You can log onto the CLEA website (http://cleaweb.org/) and click the link at the bottom of the page to "Donate Now" to the Per Diem Project. Alternatively, you may send your tax-deductible contribution by mail to the Chair of the Per Diem Project: Renée Hutchins, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland School of Law, 500 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. Finally, you can bring your checkbook with you to Cleveland, and drop your donation off at the CLEA dues table. All checks should be made payable to "CLEA" with a notation on the memo line that the check is for the "Per Diem Project."

In these tumultuous economic times, the work that ESOP does with foreclosure prevention is vital. If every member makes a donation of just $20 we can provide a substantial financial boost to the good work that they do!! Help us hit our mark by making your donation today.

See you in Cleveland,

Renée Hutchins and Jeff Selbin on behalf of the Per Diem Project

What happens when your bickering children annoy you and you are a partner at a White Shoe NYC firm?

The Faculty Lounge

Conversations about law, culture, and academia

 From the NY Daily News:

A prominent Park Avenue lawyer was arrested after cops said she got so angry at her young daughters that she kicked them out of her car - and drove off.

Madlyn Primoff apparently couldn't bear any more squabbling between her 10- and 12-year-old daughters Sunday and booted them out of the car in White Plains, Westchester County, authorities said.

The fedup Scarsdale mom - a partner at white-shoe firm Kaye Scholer soon relented and let her 12-year-old daughter back in when she caught up with the family car.

The younger daughter wandered around the corner to Mamaroneck Ave., where a good Samaritan spotted her in tears about 7:30 p.m., bought her ice cream and then approached a cop in a patrol car.

(Rest of story at link above)

 From the NY Daily News:

A prominent Park Avenue lawyer was arrested after cops said she got so angry at her young daughters that she kicked them out of her car - and drove off.

Madlyn Primoff apparently couldn't bear any more squabbling between her 10- and 12-year-old daughters Sunday and booted them out of the car in White Plains, Westchester County, authorities said.

The fedup Scarsdale mom - a partner at white-shoe firm Kaye Scholer soon relented and let her 12-year-old daughter back in when she caught up with the family car.

The younger daughter wandered around the corner to Mamaroneck Ave., where a good Samaritan spotted her in tears about 7:30 p.m., bought her ice cream and then approached a cop in a patrol car.

(Rest of story at link above)

What's the Story with Justice Breyer's Underwear?

Justice Breyer during the oral arguments in Safford United School District v. Redding, the school strip-search case:

          It seems to me like a logical thing when an adolescent child has some pills or something, they know           people are looking for them, they will stick them in their underwear....

In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, OK? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear.

 Breyer  quickly added: 

Or not my underwear. Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's beyond human experience, not beyond human experience.

More Lawbama profs move to Lawbama Land as semester ends

hunter of justice

a blog about sexuality, gender, law and culture

Wingnuts continue their efforts to block confirmation of Dawn Johnsen and Harold Koh, a process that seems to be motivated by truly the basest of motives: shielding former officials who were behind the torture policies. Both Dawn and Harold have become victims of the latest right-wing smear campaign.

On a happier note, recent nominations include:

ROSA BROOKS (Georgetown), an expert in international human rights, will become senior adviser to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

TINO CUELLAR (Stanford) is serving as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.

LARRY ECHOHAWK (BYU) will be the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

DAVID VLADECK (Georgetown) is taking the job of director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission.

Previously announced new jobs for law professors after the jump.

MICHAEL BARR (Michigan) has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Financial Institutions.

DAVID BARRON - An expert in ad law and local government law, Barron is taking a leave from Harvard to become Dawn Johnsen's Principal Deputy at OLC.

JODY FREEMAN - Freeman, an ad law/enviro/new governance expert at Harvard, is now a counselor for energy and climate change in the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.

BETH GARRETT (Southern Cal) will go to Treasury as Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy.

SETH HARRIS - A Clinton administration vet like most of these, Harris will move back to the Labor Department from New York Law School to serve as Deputy Secretary, the number 2 post at DoL.

LISA HEINZERLING - Co-author of Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing and an expert in environmental law, Heinzerling is on leave from Georgetown to serve as senior climate counsel - lead attorney on global warming matters -  to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

DAWN JOHNSEN - Indiana University constitutional law scholar, reproductive rights expert and old friend, Dawn Johnsen will be the head of the Office of Legal Counsel in DoJ as soon as she is confirmed.

ELENA KAGAN - The Harvard Law Dean becomes Solicitor General, and  immediately moves WAY up the list of potential Supreme Court nominees.  Kagan has done such a spectacular job as the Harvard Dean that she's the closest thing to a rock star among legal academics. The immediate joke: this appointment will be celebrated most enthusiastically by every other law school dean in America, given the incredible success she has had in raiding other faculties. 

NEAL KATYAL - Neal, also at Georgetown, brilliantly litigated Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and landed on multiple best lawyer lists. Now he's becoming Principal Deputy Solicitor General.

HAROLD KOH: The Yale Law Dean will return to the State Department as Counselor (general counsel) to the Secretary once the idiotic right-wing attacks cease.

MARTY LEDERMAN - Yet another wonderful Georgetown colleague, Marty will return to OLC, where he served during the Clinton administration, to become Dawn Johnsen's deputy.  Here's a fond bon voyage message from his blogging buddy Jack Balkin.

DAVID MARTIN - Martin, the Warner-Booker Distinguished Professor of International Law at University of Virginia Law, is signing up to be Principal Deputy General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security.

DAN MELTZER - Harvard loses another one, with the announcement that Meltzer will become a Deputy White House Counsel.

PAUL STEVEN MILLER - This University of Washington Law prof is reported to have been tasked with insuring more representation of people with disabilities in the administration, and is rumored to be headed to the White House Office of Personnel.

TREVOR MORRISON - Another professor to the White House Counsel's office, as an Associate Counsel. Morrison was at Cornell, recently joined Columbia faculty.

SPENCER OVERTON (GW) will serve as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy in DoJ.

SAMANTHA POWER - AP reports that Power, a professor at the Kennedy School, will become senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. Despite a not exactly diplomatic "monster" snafu in her background, she'll be spending a lot of time working with Secretary of State Clinton.

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER - Slaughter's current job is dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton, but she's a former Harvard Law professor as well.  She will become Director of Policy Planning at the State Department.

CASS SUNSTEIN - The longtime Chicago, now Harvard, Law Prof will run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), obscure beyond words for most Americans, but probably the single most powerful component of the single most powerful agency (OMB- Office of Management and Budget) in the federal government.  OIRA is what you have to go through if you want to develop and promulgate new regs; it holds the keys to the kingdom of actually generating new regulatory policy. Lots of press. Progressive ad law scholars unhappy. His latest posting on SSRN: Is OSHA Unconstitutional?

DAN TARULLO - Dan, the first law prof picked by the POTUS for a major job, has departed Georgetown to become a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. For more about Dan, see Newsweek, which calls him the "anti-Greenspan." His 14-year term began February 1.

Wingnuts continue their efforts to block confirmation of Dawn Johnsen and Harold Koh, a process that seems to be motivated by truly the basest of motives: shielding former officials who were behind the torture policies. Both Dawn and Harold have become victims of the latest right-wing smear campaign.

On a happier note, recent nominations include:

ROSA BROOKS (Georgetown), an expert in international human rights, will become senior adviser to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

TINO CUELLAR (Stanford) is serving as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.

LARRY ECHOHAWK (BYU) will be the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

DAVID VLADECK (Georgetown) is taking the job of director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission.

Previously announced new jobs for law professors after the jump.

MICHAEL BARR (Michigan) has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Financial Institutions.

DAVID BARRON - An expert in ad law and local government law, Barron is taking a leave from Harvard to become Dawn Johnsen's Principal Deputy at OLC.

JODY FREEMAN - Freeman, an ad law/enviro/new governance expert at Harvard, is now a counselor for energy and climate change in the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.

BETH GARRETT (Southern Cal) will go to Treasury as Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy.

SETH HARRIS - A Clinton administration vet like most of these, Harris will move back to the Labor Department from New York Law School to serve as Deputy Secretary, the number 2 post at DoL.

LISA HEINZERLING - Co-author of Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing and an expert in environmental law, Heinzerling is on leave from Georgetown to serve as senior climate counsel - lead attorney on global warming matters -  to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

DAWN JOHNSEN - Indiana University constitutional law scholar, reproductive rights expert and old friend, Dawn Johnsen will be the head of the Office of Legal Counsel in DoJ as soon as she is confirmed.

ELENA KAGAN - The Harvard Law Dean becomes Solicitor General, and  immediately moves WAY up the list of potential Supreme Court nominees.  Kagan has done such a spectacular job as the Harvard Dean that she's the closest thing to a rock star among legal academics. The immediate joke: this appointment will be celebrated most enthusiastically by every other law school dean in America, given the incredible success she has had in raiding other faculties. 

NEAL KATYAL - Neal, also at Georgetown, brilliantly litigated Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and landed on multiple best lawyer lists. Now he's becoming Principal Deputy Solicitor General.

HAROLD KOH: The Yale Law Dean will return to the State Department as Counselor (general counsel) to the Secretary once the idiotic right-wing attacks cease.

MARTY LEDERMAN - Yet another wonderful Georgetown colleague, Marty will return to OLC, where he served during the Clinton administration, to become Dawn Johnsen's deputy.  Here's a fond bon voyage message from his blogging buddy Jack Balkin.

DAVID MARTIN - Martin, the Warner-Booker Distinguished Professor of International Law at University of Virginia Law, is signing up to be Principal Deputy General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security.

DAN MELTZER - Harvard loses another one, with the announcement that Meltzer will become a Deputy White House Counsel.

PAUL STEVEN MILLER - This University of Washington Law prof is reported to have been tasked with insuring more representation of people with disabilities in the administration, and is rumored to be headed to the White House Office of Personnel.

TREVOR MORRISON - Another professor to the White House Counsel's office, as an Associate Counsel. Morrison was at Cornell, recently joined Columbia faculty.

SPENCER OVERTON (GW) will serve as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy in DoJ.

SAMANTHA POWER - AP reports that Power, a professor at the Kennedy School, will become senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. Despite a not exactly diplomatic "monster" snafu in her background, she'll be spending a lot of time working with Secretary of State Clinton.

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER - Slaughter's current job is dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton, but she's a former Harvard Law professor as well.  She will become Director of Policy Planning at the State Department.

CASS SUNSTEIN - The longtime Chicago, now Harvard, Law Prof will run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), obscure beyond words for most Americans, but probably the single most powerful component of the single most powerful agency (OMB- Office of Management and Budget) in the federal government.  OIRA is what you have to go through if you want to develop and promulgate new regs; it holds the keys to the kingdom of actually generating new regulatory policy. Lots of press. Progressive ad law scholars unhappy. His latest posting on SSRN: Is OSHA Unconstitutional?

DAN TARULLO - Dan, the first law prof picked by the POTUS for a major job, has departed Georgetown to become a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. For more about Dan, see Newsweek, which calls him the "anti-Greenspan." His 14-year term began February 1.

Is Tenure a Trap for Women?

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Daily Report

Not if the tenure system is adapted to suit the modern realities of professors' lives.

By MARY ANN MASON

The fear of failure influences many female academics to delay starting a family until after they have earned tenure. That same fear influences other women to avoid the tenure track entirely and decide that they must choose family over career. Shirley M. Tilghman, the first woman to be president of Princeton University, famously argued that the tenure system should be dropped because it is "no friend to women." She pointed out that it makes huge demands at a time when women are already stressed out with young families.

Even members of Congress are focusing on the problem. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat and senior member of the House Science Committee, has introduced legislation that would, among other reforms, stop the university tenure clock for scientists with newborn responsibilities. "Federal policy makers must be more proactive in stopping the leaky pipeline that results in women departing at every major transition point while pursuing careers in engineering, physics, technology, and related fields," she said.

Would women be better off without a 19th-century career model that was conceived when only men were professors and their stay-at-home wives cared for the children?

Certainly the timing of tenure is terrible for women. Today, the average age at which women can expect to receive a Ph.D. is 34. That puts the five to seven years of racing the tenure clock squarely at the end of the normal reproductive cycle. Those are the "make or break" years for female academics, in terms of both career and childbearing, not to mention the demands of raising young children. Difficult choices must be made.

How would the academic world work without a tenure system? Unfortunately, we don't have to fantasize to envision that alternate world. It is with us now, growing rapidly, and supported largely on the backs on women with children. A 30-year trend has relentlessly reduced the centrality of tenure in higher education. Full timers who were either tenured or on the tenure track made up 55 percent of the faculty in 1970, 1975, and 1980, but then declined to 41 percent in 2003. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, tenured and tenure-track academics composed only 31 percent of all faculty members in 2007, while 49 percent worked part time and 12 percent were non-tenure-track full timers.

Party School Rankings

Playboy, which has periodically ranked "party schools," announced Friday it would issue such reviews annually, potentially setting up a challenge with Princeton Review, whose guidebook is best known for its party school rankings. The differing methodologies of the two operations result in different "winners" of the competition that most administrators would prefer to lose. Playboy does include learning as one factor in its rankings. The other four factors are: athletics, campus life, availability of sex, and a "bikini index," based on weather, female-to-male student ratio, and cheerleaders. The resulting top five for Playboy: University of Miami, University of Texas at Austin, San Diego State University, University of Florida and University of Arizona. The Princeton Review bases its selections on student surveys covering the use of alcohol and drugs, hours of study a day and the popularity of the Greek system. The Princeton Review's current top five are: University of Florida, University of Mississippi, Pennsylvania State University, West Virginia University and Ohio University.

UCLA offers LL.M. in "Transition to Practice"

UCLA School of Law to Reopen LL.M. Program Application Process for 2009-10 Academic Year in Response to Changing Employment Situation for Law School Graduates

Expanded LL.M. curriculum will include program to enhance practice skills of new lawyers

LOS ANGELES, April 16, 2009 - In response to the changing employment situation for graduates of U.S. law schools, UCLA School of Law announced today that it is reopening its LL.M. program application process for the 2009-10 academic year, and will accept up to 20 additional students who are graduates of U.S. law schools, including deferred hires.

The newly admitted LL.M.s will have the option of participating in the new Transition to Practice program, which will focus on enhancing the practical skills and development of the new lawyer. The program will replicate significant parts of the learning that comes in the first year of practice, but in a controlled learning environment. 

"These challenging economic times have affected young lawyers in surprising ways. In response to the current economic climate, UCLA School of Law is reaching out to recent law school graduates, whether from our law school or not, to help them in their transition from law school to practice," Dean Michael H. Schill said. "Through the new Transition to Practice program, which will focus on experiential learning and skills, law school graduates and deferred hires will be able to expand on their legal education and develop additional legal skills during this transition period."

A core component of the Transition to Practice program will be capstone courses that will draw heavily on practice-oriented projects in addition to substantial research and written work. Capstone courses will include part-time externships within corporate legal departments, as well as clinical simulations, where students work with real legal problems in a controlled environment that permits reflection and generalization of lessons learned. The Transition to Practice program will also include a required workshop series designed to introduce students to the practical issues that confront new lawyers, ranging from how to define a work-product to understanding a client's business and goals, and handling practical problems of ethics and confidentiality.   Capstone classes will be taught both by the core faculty of the law school and prominent practicing lawyers.  The law school expects to develop curriculum in conjunction with leading law firms and corporate legal departments and to draw on the expertise of the Los Angeles legal community. 

According to Stephen Yslas, corporate vice president and general counsel of Northrop Grumman Corporation, "Northrop Grumman is pleased to work with this innovative program and looks forward to a mutually beneficial relationship with an extern from the new UCLA Law specialization.  Our business provides valuable learning opportunities for a new lawyer seeking direct client experience."

"UCLA School of Law's Transition to Practice program is an outstanding option for recent law school graduates, deferred hires and employers," said James D. C. Barrall '75, head of Latham & Watkin's Global Benefits Compensation Group. "This unique training will replicate much of the experience of a new associate, which will allow recent graduates to hit the ground running when they start their jobs. Employers also gain new lawyers with practical legal training under their belt."

US News Rankings Leaked

For much more than you wanted to know, here are some of the many blog posts that include the rankings:

THE FACULTY LOUNGE

TAX PROF BLOG

BRAIN LEITER'S LAW SCHOOL REPORTS  

 

UPDATE ON CLEA ACTIVITIES

Hello CLEA members, friends and other members of the blogosphere!

Hope that April is treating you and yours well.  This email will update you on four CLEA initiatives: (1) our survey (please take it!), (2) our activities in Cleveland associated with the AALS Clinical conference, (3) our new Facebook page, and, (4) a close-to-final reminder for CLEA New Clinicians Conference Registration.

 

1.    CLEA Survey!!!  We want to hear from you!

 

Please take a moment to complete the 2009 CLEA Membership Survey. Our goal is to provide you with the best in programs and services in the coming year. For our mutual success, we need your help and less than 15 minutes of your time. The answers and opinions you provide will help us design services and programs that serve you better.

 

Click this link to access the survey (there is a hot-link in the middle of the page and the password is pre-entered): http://www.cleaweb.org/membership/survey.html

 

• The survey is four pages with about 5-10 questions on each page. 
• It should take less than 15 minutes to answer the questions, but may take longer depending on how many of the comment sections you decide to complete.
• You may skip any question or comment section you prefer not to answer. The rest of your survey will still be valid.
• CLEA is using an independent consultant to collect the responses - your answers and the IP address you respond from are anonymous.

 The survey will remain open until MAY 1, 2009

 

2.    Membership Events in Cleveland!

 In addition to the New Clinicians Conference there will be two CLEA membership events associated with the AALS Clinical Conference in Cleveland:

 

a.    CLEA Membership Meeting, Thursday, May 7^th, 5:15 to 6:15 pm in the Severance Room, located on the Fourth Floor of the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel

b.    AALS Teaching Methods Meeting Co-hosted by CLEA Outcome Measures Committee, Saturday May 9^th, 7:30-9:00 am, room TBA (we will be discussing ways to integrating outcome measures into our teaching in light of developments underway with the ABA accreditation standards).  See also the affinity group meeting on Outcome Measures on Saturday afternoon.

 

3.    CLEA’s Joined Facebook!

For those of you on Facebook we have started a CLEA page…you can find it by searching “Clinical Legal Education Association” – we hope you’ll become a “fan.” 

A NEW BLOG: Brian Gilmore (Howard) - The Gloves Do Fit, Race and Tips

check out Brian's blog here

Brian Gilmore      Fair Housing, Supervising Attorney

The Gloves Do Fit | jddiversity.com

The Gloves Do Fit
Race and Tips PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 14 April 2009 19:23

I was at a local Washington D.C. restaurant yesterday with 14 inspiring and highly talented soon to be law school graduates of the Howard University School of Law. All of the students are African-American, all were dressed neatly, and acted professionally. It was empty when we got there, but there were a lot of waiters hanging around engaging in small talk. All of the waiters were Latino when we arrived. We were seated fairly quickly once most of us were there but for awhile no one came to work our table. In fact, none of the Latino waiters (I did not observe any white waiters or servers) claimed our table so to speak even though we were slated to have a party of 15-20 people (we wound up with 16).

Eventually, a black waitress claimed our table, put on the apron, and greeted us kindly. She was very polite, witty, and efficient from the beginning. Yet, I did wonder, why did this waitress come from the back, put on an apron and begin working our table while a half a dozen waiters and waitresses stood there and did not once approach our table. Just for the record, our bill would eventually exceed $400.00 with a tip of approximately $100.

I turned to two of the students when the black waitress claimed our table and said: "Why did they send the black waitress to our table?" The students did not respond and thought nothing about it. I didn't either really though I knew and could feel that what had happened was the Latino servers had profiled us. They did not want to be our waiter because they had assumed that one, we were cheap and would not tip well (a common misconception regarding black patrons of restaurants) or two, they simply harbored racist beliefs and did not want to serve us. I concluded that it was likely the former which, in this instance, was stupid because these were law school graduates, most of them are middle class and have money, they are not cheap, or think it is cool to low-ball waiters on tips, and three, this was an end of the year program so they were going to spend money.

Nevertheless, at the end of the meal when the bill was paid, the truth (I will not say how) was revealed: I was correct. The Latino waiters deliberately avoided us because they think that blacks are cheap and don't tip well. I turned to the two students I spoke with at the beginning and let them know I told you so.

The Things Lawyers Do to Get Disbarred

I am an unabashed fan of Legal Profession Blog for its never-ceases-to-amaze chronicles of lawyer discipline from around the country. It's not that I take some perverse joy in seeing lawyers get disciplined -- I don't. It is just that I find so many of the stories of what led to the discipline to be right out of the legal-affairs edition of "Believe it or Not." I mean, aren't lawyers supposed to be smart? Consider these two recent examples:

Drunk drag racing results in death, bar resignation. This Oklahoma lawyer resigned from the bar after his foolish prank ended up killing his law partner.


read the rest here

WEBBY AWARD NOMINEES IN LAW

LAW

Nominees	Agency/Credited Organization
GetLegal http://www.getlegal.com	GetLegal.Com
Immigration Advocates Network http://www.immigrationadvocates.org	Pro Bono Net
JURIST http://jurist.law.pitt.edu	University of Pittsburgh School of Law
WomensLaw.org http://www.womenslaw.org	WomensLaw.org
Workplace Fairness http://www.workplacefairness.org	Workplace Fairness

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DEPARTMENT: BROOKLYN TENURES DAVID REISS

from Stacy Caplow, Clinic Director

Yesterday, my faculty colleagues had the great good sense to vote tenure and a promotion to full professor (pending Board of Trustees approval) to David Reiss, the director of BLS's Community Development Clinic.  David has designed a terrific clinic in which our students represent non-profit groups of all kinds.  On his way to tenure, he was a prolific scholar and op-ed writer, a highly sought commentator about the mortgage crisis, and a successful classroom teacher.  The road was demanding so we are all thrilled that his hard work has been rewarded!

Michael Perlin on the "generation gap"

Mind-boggling. We have the best jobs in the world (well, other than, maybe, the members of Bob Dylan's back-up band, and being an MLB bench coach). We teach, we write, we work with smart and interesting people, we have the capacity to stay forever young by being involved on a daily basis with those 25-40 years younger than we are. we're paid well and for those of us who are tenured, we basically can't be fired. I am agape at this...

Posted by: Michael Perlin | April 20, 2009 at 09:16 AM

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE MLB IS?

Generation Gaps Are Evident in Professors' Views of Their Jobs

not this baby boomer!!

Friday, April 17, 2009

By PETER SCHMIDT

San Diego

For college professors who are members of the baby-boom generation, the Rolling Stones’ song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” may resonate as more than just a youthful memory, the results of a new study suggest.

Compared with faculty members who are older or younger than they are, baby-boomer professors are much less satisfied, over all, with their jobs, according to findings from the study, which was presented here this week at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association.

The study was conducted by Kate Quinn, director of a University of Washington program that promotes work-life balance among faculty members, and James Soto Antony, an associate professor of educational leadership at the university. Their paper summarizing their study’s results bills it as the first to explore the role of generational difference in faculty satisfaction using a nationally representative data set.

The paper, "Exploring the Role of Generational Difference in Faculty Satisfaction," argues that the researchers’ findings on the dissatisfaction of baby boomers represent “a clarion call for change,” by raising the prospect that members of that generation will leave academe earlier than they might otherwise and thus contribute to projected shortages of faculty members and people with the experience needed to assume leadership positions at colleges.

Ms. Quinn and Mr. Antony based their analysis on data for nearly 2,400 full-time, teaching faculty members with a professorial title that were gathered as part of the U.S. Education Department’s 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. In line with many other social scientists, they divided the faculty members they studied into three distinct generational groups: “Traditionalists,” born from 1900 to 1945 and accounting for 22 percent of the national survey population; “Baby Boomers,” born from 1946 to 1964 and accounting for 57 percent; and “Xers,” born from 1965 to 1980 and accounting for 21 percent. (“Millennials,” born from 1981 to 2000, accounted for such a small share of the faculty population covered by the national survey—just one-tenth of 1 percent—that the researchers excluded them from the analysis.)

SSRN: "Lifelong Learning"

"If Lifelong Learning is the Solution, What is the Problem?" 

W. BRADLEY WENDEL, Cornell Law School
Email: bradley-wendel@postoffice.law.cornell.edu

This paper, prepared for a conference on lifelong learning in professionalism at the University of Toronto Centre for the Legal Profession, argues that if we are going to design programs for lifelong learning in professionalism, we had better first figure out what is meant by professionalism. In the American literature at least, there are two dominant themes. One is that law was formerly a profession and has devolved into a mere trade or business. The second is that unprofessional conduct is synonymous with incivility and adversarial excesses. There is a more substantive strand of the literature on professionalism, drawing from the sociology of the professions, which observes that professions claim a legitimate monopoly on the production of some service, and must justify this claim on the grounds of having some distinctive expertise that is not suitable for regulation by market forces. This is the most important conception of professionalism to consider if we are thinking about educating lawyers, either in law school or in post-graduate learning experiences. However, the distinctive professional capacity of exercising judgment (which I call reflection-in-action, borrowing from the philosopher of education Donald Schon) is not the sort of thing that can readily be taught in conventional educational settings. Judgment is best learned through practical experience, and unfortunately for the project of professionalism education (at least in the U.S.), practical learning is largely outside the control of legal educators and the organized bar. Whatever we do as educators is thus likely to be swamped by the socializing forces of the workplace.

CALL for Proposals: Poverty Law Section

Association of American Law Schools    CALL FOR PROPOSALS

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

AALS Section on Poverty Law

AALS 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 Orleans. 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 <mailto:cohn@mail.law.cuny.edu>. Questions should be directed to Sameer Ashar, Chair of the Poverty Law Section, at 718-340-4180 or ashar@mail.law.cuny.edu

Come to the 3rd Annual Indian Law Clinical Conference

Interconnections of Law and Poverty and Impacts on Indigenous Peoples and Other Communities of Color

Sunday, June 7 to Tuesday, June 9, 2009; Isleta Resort & Casino in Albuquerque

The Goal of this symposium is to provide a forum where Indian law clinicians, and Indian legal scholars can gather together with community lawyers and poverty lawyers, working with indigenous peoples or other distinct populations, to present and discuss the interconnections of law and poverty for indigenous peoples at the international, National, regional, and Tribal levels –

Some questions we have:

From the War on Poverty to Globalization and Affluenza to the crash of ’08-09:

·         What does the economic crisis mean for social justice in indigenous communities and communities of color?

·         What is the 2009 picture of “poverty” in Indian Communities?

·         What does poverty for Indigenous Peoples in the 21st Century look like?

·         What are the impacts of economic hard times for different areas of (Indian) law: criminal, family, civil rights, public benefits?

·         What can Indian law and other clinics teach to be responsive, and how?

The Symposium is designed to promote solidarity and sharing among Clinics and clinicians working with Native Americans, minority populations, and those working in the areas of poverty law and community lawyering. It is our hope that through sharing we will strengthen existing programs and help emerging programs to succeed; find new solutions to old problems and support creativity in clinics and legal practice.

The Symposium is organized by the University of New Mexico Southwest Indian Law Clinic, Washburn University School of Law, University of Denver Sturm College of Law and Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in cooperation with the University of New Mexico Tribal law Journal.

Attached is the registration form and the conference flier. 

Download 2009 Conf Description Indian Clinics 

Download 2009 Conf Registration Form

Mark your calendars (way in advance!): SALT CONFERENCE -- Hawai’i in DECEMBER 2010!

Save the date—December 10-11, 2010

SALT Teaching Conference

 

Teaching in a Transformative Era: The Law School of the Future

 SALT Teaching Conference

William S. Richardson School of Law, Honolulu, Hawai’i

 Teaching in a Transformative Era: The Law School of the Future will examine the most pressing challenges law schools face in the 21st century.

In the midst of the nation's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, law schools must stay relevant and incorporate a curriculum that keeps pace with recent macroeconomic and social changes.  Law professors must address a new phase of corporate and collective responsibility as well as the increasing need for social and economic justice in struggling communities nationwide and across the globe.

 Law schools must improve the admission and graduation of lawyers from a broad range of racial and ethnic backgrounds who will be prepared to serve their communities in the wake of the current global economic crisis. They must also address rising student indebtedness without sacrificing quality. 

Since the conference coincides with the American Bar Association’s review of law school accreditation standards, it provides an opportunity to examine structural issues such as erosion of tenure, evolution in status relationships among law faculty, and the broader tensions between accreditation standards and economic and social trends in America.

 Check www.SALTLAW.org for updates on the conference

and calls for proposals and presentations.

Report Calls Out Flaws In Public Defender System

by Ari Shapiro

Listen Now [4 min 5 sec] add to playlist

 

“We're not there just to convict. Our job is to find justice. And I need a person standing with the defendant to help me do that.”

Robert Johnson, criminal prosecutor

 

 Morning Edition, April 15, 2009 · The American legal system guarantees "equal justice under law." Those words, carved in stone on the facade of the Supreme Court, are a constitutional promise that everyone will have the same opportunity for justice.

But a new report by the bipartisan Constitution Project says the United States has broken that promise for poor people accused of crimes. The report is the most in-depth study of indigent defense in decades.

The Gideon Decision

In a hallway of a law firm in downtown Washington, a copy of a handwritten petition hangs framed on the wall. It's two pages, side by side. A stamp at the top says: "January 8, 1962, Office of the Clerk, Supreme Court." A signature at the bottom says, "Clarence Earl Gideon."

On Tuesday morning, Abe Krash stood looking at the petition, remembering a case that he worked on more than 45 years ago. "This eventually led to the opinion and decision by the Supreme Court in the Gideon case," he said.

Abe Krash was a young attorney on the case. It's now considered one of the most important decisions of the 20th century. As Krash describes it, the ruling "held that every person in this country who is tried on a criminal charge is entitled to the assistance of a lawyer, regardless of his financial condition. If he's too poor to hire a lawyer, he's entitled to have one appointed for him by the government."

The Gideon decision helped establish the system of public defenders across the country. Krash returned to his old law firm Tuesday for the release of the report on the state of that system.

'A Basic Constitutional Right'

"It does not paint a pretty picture," said Tim Lewis, one of the report's authors.

Lewis is a former federal judge who co-chairs the Constitution Project's National Right to Counsel Committee. His group spent five years studying indigent defense in every state. Lewis said far too many states fail miserably.

"You should not have a better shot at justice, a better opportunity for an adequate defense, depending upon who arrests you in this country or where you were when you were arrested or what court system a defendant winds up in," Lewis said. "This is a basic constitutional right."

The right is set out in the Sixth Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Robert Johnson, another of the committee's co-chairs, said, "Someone must stand with the accused against the might of the state."

That's a statement one might expect to hear from a defense attorney, but Johnson is a prosecutor who used to be head of the National District Attorneys Association.

"We're not there just to convict," said Johnson. "Our job is to find justice. And I need a person standing with the defendant to help me do that."

Johnson said American courts rely on an adversarial system that pits prosecutors against defense attorneys. For the system to work, the adversaries have to be evenly matched.

JOBS: 3 FELLOWSHIPS AT ALBANY

Albany Law School seeks three attorneys or recent law school graduates taking the July 2009 bar examination to serve as legal Fellows in its awarding winning Clinic & Justice Center during the 2009 – 2010 academic year. By April 21, 2009, interested applicants should submit a letter of interest with salary requirements resume and a resume to Ms. Susan Terwilliger, Administrative Director, Albany Law School Clinic & Justice Center, 80 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, New York 12208. In addition to the requirements set forth below, the individuals hired for these positions may also be involved in working with clinical professors on matters related to teaching and scholarship reform initiatives, including implementing Best Practices for Legal Education recommendations at Albany Law School.

FAMILY VIOLENCE LITIGATION FELLOW OPENING

The Clinic & Justice Center's Family Violence Litigation Clinic seeks a fellow to provide legal advocacy services to Family Violence Litigation Clinic clients and perform other related duties pursuant to grants and contracts. The Family Violence Litigation Clinic teaches law students practical lawyering skills in the context of Family Court proceedings at which students represent individuals who have been victimized by violence by intimate partners or family members. Additionally, the Fellow will assist Director with research and analysis on long-term projects. Fellow may have limited opportunities for teaching in the classroom.

HEALTH LAW FELLOW OPENING

    The Clinic & Justice Center's Health Law Clinic seeks a recent law school graduate or licensed New York State attorney to serve as its Barry A. Gold Health Law Clinical Fellow. In order to carry on the tradition of excellence established by Barry A. Gold, Esq., (Class of 1970), qualified applicants must be passionate about ensuring access to health care for low income individuals living with chronic medical conditions, including Cancer and HIV. The fellow will provide direct legal representation to clients, provide community training to physicians, and have some opportunities to mentor second and third year law students enrolled in Albany Law School's Health Law Clinic.

SECURITIES ARBITRATION FELLOW OPENING

    The Clinic & Justice Center's Security Arbitration Clinic also seeks a fellow to support its initiatives. This Fellow will provide legal advocacy services to the school's Security Arbitration Clinic and perform other related duties pursuant to grants and contracts. The Securities Arbitration Clinic represents clients in arbitration proceedings sponsored by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The Fellow will also assist the Securities Arbitration Clinic Director with research and analysis on long-term projects. The fellow may have limited opportunities for teaching in the classroom.

Downloadable Video of (older) Symposium on The Low-Wage Worker

Poverty Law Prof Blog

Videos of the panels 2007 Minnesota Law Review Symposium on The Low-Wage Worker: Legal Rights--Legal Realities from Nov. 7, 2007 are available on their website.  The panels focus on minimum wage legislation, organizing strategies, immigrant workers, and big box stores. 

Northwestern Bridges the Gap for Unemployed Law Grads

In a down economy, law schools are having a tough time helping students find employment. Ever resourceful, Northwestern Law School (which last year proposed a two-year JD program) has found a way to assist students and alumni while they're on the hunt for a job. As the Chicago Tribune reports, Northwestern recently informed students that they can postpone monthly loan payments until they start working and apply for short-term medical insurance to bridge the gap between graduation and their start dates. Laid-off alumni can also seek deferred loan payments.

read the rest here

SSRN: CLINICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

I think we've featured these all before, but just a reminder -- LSN LAW RESEARCH CENTERS PAPERS CLINICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE (sponsored by New York Law School)

Table of Contents

The Lawyer's Dilemma: To Be or Not to Be a Problem-Solving Negotiator

Alex J. Hurder, Vanderbilt University - School of Law

Creating My Client's Image: Is Case Theory Value Neutral in Public Benefits Cases?

Spencer Rand, Temple University - Beasley School of Law

'Once Upon a Time, in a Land Far, Far Away': Lawyers and Clients Telling Stories About Ethics (and Everything Else)

Carolyn Grose, William Mitchell College of Law

'Wishin and Hopin and Thinkin and Prayin, Plannin and Dreamin:' The Narrative Theor[ies] of Predatory Lending

Carolyn Grose, William Mitchell College of Law

Globalizing Public Interest Law

    Scott Cummings, University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law
    Louise G. Trubek, University of Wisconsin Law School

Window into the organizing strategy behind the Iowa marriage decision

hunter of justice

This morning's Washington Post has a great article on the strategy and field work that led to Lambda Legal's victory in the Iowa marriage case. The article provides well-deserved recognition for Camilla Taylor, the Lambda lawyer who was the brains behind the lawsuit, but who got less attention than she should have when the decision was announced because she recruited a prominent local attorney to argue the case in the Iowa Supreme Court and to serve as the public face of the lawsuit.  

The Post article is also important because it illustrates the kind of pre-litigation groundwork that goes into lgbt rights cases. Some critics of litigation, especially gay marriage litigation, argue that it is naive at best, counterproductive at worst, to try to win rights in court, because judicial opinions can trigger a backlash.  It's true that courts are often not the way to go, but it's also true that lgbt rights litigators have understood that for years, if not decades at this point. The response to this political-legal problem is neither to ignore it nor to relinquish litigation as a tool, but to construct lawsuits in the same way that community organizers construct grassroots movements - by years of studying particular jurisdictions, patient outreach, building networks, recruiting allies, and, ultimately, bringing lawsuits. The Iowa litigation is a great example of that process at work.  And no one views Iowa as over: advocates will continue their work there until the risk of politically overturning the decision is effectively ended, as it has in Massachusetts, where GLAD used exactly the same kinds of approaches. (In fact, the GLAD marriage lawsuits quietly invented this strategy.) These lawsuits illustrate what I call multi-dimensional advocacy. True, it can fail as well as succeed, but it has moved the ball far beyond the stale debate over whether courts are the source of rights.

The Post article is after the jump

The Post article is also important because it illustrates the kind of pre-litigation groundwork that goes into lgbt rights cases. Some critics of litigation, especially gay marriage litigation, argue that it is naive at best, counterproductive at worst, to try to win rights in court, because judicial opinions can trigger a backlash.  It's true that courts are often not the way to go, but it's also true that lgbt rights litigators have understood that for years, if not decades at this point. The response to this political-legal problem is neither to ignore it nor to relinquish litigation as a tool, but to construct lawsuits in the same way that community organizers construct grassroots movements - by years of studying particular jurisdictions, patient outreach, building networks, recruiting allies, and, ultimately, bringing lawsuits. The Iowa litigation is a great example of that process at work.  And no one views Iowa as over: advocates will continue their work there until the risk of politically overturning the decision is effectively ended, as it has in Massachusetts, where GLAD used exactly the same kinds of approaches. (In fact, the GLAD marriage lawsuits quietly invented this strategy.) These lawsuits illustrate what I call multi-dimensional advocacy. True, it can fail as well as succeed, but it has moved the ball far beyond the stale debate over whether courts are the source of rights.

The Post article is after the jump

Immigration Advocates Network

Welcome to the Immigration
Advocates Network

The Immigration Advocates Network is a free national online network that supports legal advocates
working on behalf of immigrants' rights.

RECESSION TRENDS: "Law schools need to get more serious about training students to actually practice law"

Legal Writing Prof Blog: Five legal job trends emerging from current recession that might become permanent

Five legal job trends emerging from current recession that might become permanent

LawJobs.com is predicting that five trends to emerge from the present legal job market might become permanent after the current woes are behind us- and some of them are not good news for law grads.

Here are the predictions:

1. Law schools need to get more serious about training students to actually practice law.

There['s going to be] enormous pressure on law schools to place their graduates in paying jobs. The recession has dramatically impacted their ability to do so, as even the best and brightest are finding it difficult to land jobs, especially at customary high-salary levels in some of the country's most prestigious firms.

Their inability to find such jobs has more than a trickle-down effect -- it may be a flood -- on students in the middle and bottom of the class. Some of these students may now be competing against top-tier students for slots with midsize and small firms and other organizations, which rarely happened in the past.

The pressure will be on law schools to better prepare their students to more quickly hit the ground running after graduation. While this may mean offering more clinical and practicum types of programs, they likely will have to go much further. All those schools that have eschewed offering business of law type of courses as being too unseemly (for example, on business development and the economics of practice), may have to alter that philosophy -- and quickly. It will be incumbent on them to show that $150,000 or more that is spent on an education will (assuming a student does well) actually result in that student finding a good paying job after graduation.

2. The temporary strategy firms are using to save costs by delaying starts may become permanent.

Firms are feeling the heat from clients who object to essentially paying for the on-the-job training, especially at high rates, for lawyers who, albeit quite bright and talented, generally lack experience that justifies those fees.

That factor, when combined with the cost savings of not paying high first-year salaries (which is only exacerbated by the reality that most associates don't break even for their firms until their third or fourth year) is likely to lead firms to rethink [traditional Fall start dates] even after the economy eventually bounces back.

3. Salaries will decline.

In the past, there always were firms that broke from the pack to raise salaries to help them land the best and brightest. Even if that happens in the future, which I think will be far less often, I expect fewer firms to follow the so-called leaders. As a result, I anticipate you may still see some outliers, but many more firms will likely keep salaries dampened because of their reluctance to match those high fliers.

4. Small and midsize firms are where the action will be.

This will present an unprecedented opportunity for smaller and midsize firms to hire first-year lawyers who otherwise may have been out of their reach. The opportunity to work in solid firms, where one can receive a good paycheck (albeit not at the lofty levels of the past), receive good training, get excellent work and presumably practice in a nice environment, could be quite compelling.

5. The Decline of Western Civilization (or at least the cushy summer associate program).

The costs of a summer program, particularly today, and presumably in the future, as attention to expenses will remain, weigh heavily in favor of ending or significantly scaling back these programs. Most firms pay summer associates a prorated weekly pay that is equivalent to what first-year lawyers earn. As those first-year salaries are under attack, how can a firm justify paying that same scale for clerks whose time is even less likely to ever be collected from more watchful clients?

Hat tip to Law.com

Promoting Students' Moral Development Is Devilishly Tricky, Studies Suggest

From The Chronicle of Higher Education Tuesday, April 14

By PETER SCHMIDT

San Diego

The room grew unbearably hot as researchers gathered to discuss the moral development of students. The blame fell on an air-conditioning glitch, but, based on what the presenters said, it seemed equally possible that Old Scratch himself was on hand, listening intently while cracking a knowing smile.

Several studies presented here Monday at the American Educational Research Association's annual conference—and one scheduled to be discussed later this week—suggest that the souls of America's youth will not be saved on its college campuses anytime soon. Although many colleges have committed themselves to promoting the moral and ethical development of their students, they generally have not proven very good at the task, their efforts being undermined by their own cultures and by a failure to adopt effective approaches.

Among the studies presented here Monday was one finding that many entering college students may be at a stage at which efforts to hone their moral-reasoning skills are likely to fall flat.

.................

A second study discussed Monday suggests that college may be late in the game to promote moral development. The authors were Muriel Bebeau, director of the Center for the Study of Ethical Development at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Yukiko Maeda, an assistant professor of educational psychology at Purdue University; and Stephen J. Thomas, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Alabama. They examined data collected from several dozen Minnesota students from 1972 through 1983, from the students' adolescence through young adulthood, and found that their moral trajectories varied greatly, but that the rate of their moral growth generally slowed over time.

In a third study discussed on Monday, George Lind, a professor of psychology at the University of Konstanz, in Germany, used as his subjects more than 3,000 students who had passed through his own classes in psychology or teacher education. He asked them to take a widely used test of moral judgment, which he developed himself, before and after various efforts by his university to promote their moral growth. He found that higher education, as a whole, had only a slight impact on their moral development. About the only approach that caused them to make substantial improvements in moral judgment was involving them in intensive discussions of moral dilemmas.

read the rest here

Does "engaging laptop users" help or hurt law students (and new lawyers)?

A debate from the Teaching Methods Listserv:

Post One:

When you use active learning techniques (colloquially used interchangeably with experiential learning), it's hard for students to find time to surf the Internet, or do anything other than pay attention to what you're teaching.It's hard to pay attention to anyone talking for more than 10 minutes (especially about something like Civ Pro), even if you are the most dynamic lecturer since the fall of the Greek empire.So, incorporating a learning activity into class once every ten minutes cuts down on web surfing and makes your students much more likely to actually hear what you're saying the 10 minutes that you are talking!

Post Two:

Every ten minutes? Really? What will these new lawyers do the first time that they have to sit through six hours of (boring) depositions? Or work on an extended research project that does not include pictures? Or draft a commercial lease? Of course, I think I do have a responsibility to be the best teacher I can be, individually, and to engage my students in the enterprise of learning.  I have a responsibility to teach as well as I can teach.But I am not in the entertainment business, and I think we may be setting students up to fail as new lawyers if we consistently nurture their inability to pay concerted attention to difficult, or even (dare-we-say) boring, material.

Question from the peanut gallery:  am I missing something or does this seem like a somewhat false dichotomy? Hmm.

engaging laptop users

Legal Writing Prof Blog

 CALI has posted a webinair chock full of good advice on engaging law students who are using laptops in the classroom.

hat tip:  Prof. Candle Wester-Mittan

A NEW RANKING: Above The Law's Inaugural Law Revue Contest 2009 (Dis)Honorable Mentions

Above The Law's Inaugural Law Revue Contest 2009
(Dis)Honorable Mentions

Monday, April 13, 2009 6:00 PM - By Above the Law

Earlier this month, we asked for submissions for Above the Law's first annual Law Revue Video contest. The nominees came pouring in from across the country.

Your faithful ATL editors / judges spent hours -- or was it days? -- reviewing the many submissions. We've learned that there is a lot of creative talent hidden away in law libraries. We've also learned that "pitch" is a precious and rare commodity, vital to prevent blood from streaming out of your audience's ears.

We've selected six finalists for you to enjoy. We'll ask you to vote for the best of them, to determine the winner of ATL's first ever Law Revue contest -- in our next post.

First, we'll subject you to the suffering give you a taste of the entire range of submissions, with some of the best (and worst) of those that didn't make the top six. Join the ATL editors in an exploration of everything that is beautiful and oh-so-terrible when law students take comedy into their own hands -- after the jump.

UVA and NYU were particularly strong contenders in the Law Revue Contest. You'll be hearing and seeing more from them in the finalist post, but they also had a few "losers" worth mentioning. UVA gave us a hilarious world without a constitution and law school as a small plaintiff's firm.

And NYU brought us a Lost parody: Lawst.

READ THE REST HERE

50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

From The Chronicle of Higher Education Monday, April 13

By GEOFFREY K. PULLUM

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won't be celebrating.

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it. . . . .

Notice what I am objecting to is not the style advice in Elements, which might best be described the way The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy describes Earth: mostly harmless. Some of the recommendations are vapid, like "Be clear" (how could one disagree?). Some are tautologous, like "Do not explain too much." (Explaining too much means explaining more than you should, so of course you shouldn't.) Many are useless, like "Omit needless words." (The students who know which words are needless don't need the instruction.) Even so, it doesn't hurt to lay such well-meant maxims before novice writers.

Even the truly silly advice, like "Do not inject opinion," doesn't really do harm. (No force on earth can prevent undergraduates from injecting opinion. And anyway, sometimes that is just what we want from them.) But despite the "Style" in the title, much in the book relates to grammar, and the advice on that topic does real damage. It is atrocious. Since today it provides just about all of the grammar instruction most Americans ever get, that is something of a tragedy. Following the platitudinous style recommendations of Elements would make your writing better if you knew how to follow them, but that is not true of the grammar stipulations.

"Use the active voice" is a typical section head. And the section in question opens with an attempt to discredit passive clauses that is either grammatically misguided or disingenuous.

READ THE REST HERE

Scholar Rescue in the Modern World: a new report

Patterns in Academic Persecution

April 14, 2009

The Scholar Rescue Fund drew applications from oppressed academics in 101 different countries in its first five years of operations, suggesting “at least a low level of scholar persecution in a surprisingly wide range of countries and regions” -- although it’s most prevalent in the Middle East/North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Scholars from the two regions accounted for 61 percent of all applicants from 2002-7 and 73 percent of grantees.

"Scholar Rescue in the Modern World," a report being released today by the Institute of International Education (home of the Scholar Rescue Fund), identifies such trends in reported persecution across 847 grant applications. The Scholar Rescue Fund awards fellowships for scholars to hold temporary academic posts abroad on the basis of the urgency of threats they face at home and the quality of their academic work. The report's authors acknowledge the limitations of a small data set and of the fund's reach -- North Korea, for instance, is not represented in the application pool -- but also assert the importance of gleaning what trends one can.

“Scholar persecution is a tactic that repressive governments and/or non-state actors actively and deliberately employ to achieve their objectives. And -- given the results that we are reporting here -- it is a tactic that is effective, strategic, and widespread," Henry G. Jarecki, the report’s co-author and chairman of the Scholar Rescue Fund (and a member of the psychiatry faculty at Yale University), writes in an introduction to the report.

READ THE REST HERE