clinicians with not enough to do

Leiter: The Most "Conservative" Law Faculties?

The Most "Conservative" Law Faculties?

from Brian Leiter's Law School Reports by Brian Leiter

read the rest by clicking above

My comment the other day that Sai Prakash's move from USD to Virginia give UVA the strongest "conservative" public law group of any law school in the country prompted one reader to ask about other "conservative" faculties.

Bear in mind, of course, that terms like "liberal" and "conservative" operate as indexicals:  what they refer to depends on the speaker.  From a global or cosmopolitan standpoint, the vast, vast majority of law faculties in the U.S. are conservative or "on the right" on most major issues (except perhaps some issues of so-called "identity politics" or "diversity").  But from within the US, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" pick out different concerns:  conservative law faculties are friendlier to market-based solutions, rather than government regulation; to judicial restraint rather than aggressive judicial review; to "originalist" theories of interpretation rather than "moral" or "evolving standards of decency" readings of the constitution; to cost-benefit analysis; to restrictive, rather than, capacious interpretations of individual rights; to federalism and limitations on federal power; and so on.

I'll focus on the "public law" groups, that is, those faculty working in those fields where ideological purity is most visible, such as constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, parts of international law, criminal procedure, and legislation and stautory interpretation.  In the private law areas, positions on the right (pro-market solution, anti-regulatory, etc.) probably dominate most places, certainly at the elite law schools (hence the right-wing complexion of US law schools from a global perspective).

Among the top law schools, Northwestern University and University of Virginia are clearly both the farthest to the right and with the most prominent scholars, but Harvard University isn't far behind (with Goldsmith, Manning & Vermeule, among others).  - - -

Outcomes-based Education at William Mitchell: an idea whose time has come?

What follows are excerpts from a report presented to the William Mitchell faculty and administration, prepared by the “Future of Legal Education Task Force,” of which I am a member.  It’s exciting stuff.  We’ll see where it goes . . .

“William Mitchell’s Future of Legal Education Task Force began meeting during the fall of 2008 to identify issues and proposals for consideration by the faculty.  Members surveyed and discussed literature on educational trends and deliberated about how Mitchell might pioneer the next generation of innovations in legal education.   

The Task Force paid particular attention to the Carnegie Report, Best Practices, and the ABA Report which challenge law schools to substantially reform their programs. The reports urge law schools to: (1) identify knowledge, skills, and professional attributes that graduates should possess (outcomes); (2) design curriculum based on them; (3) communicate educational outcomes to students; (4) provide feedback on student progress; and (5) validly measure student proficiency with respect to the outcomes. The reports encourage law schools to evaluate their programs based on demonstrated student learning.   

They embrace the practice of outcomes-based education — urging law schools to focus on “output” (what students ultimately know and can do) and rely less on “input” (what students are taught).  In fact, in a remarkable policy shift, the ABA Report recommends that output measures substantially replace input measures for the purpose of law school accreditation. Consequently, Task Force members discussed questions such as: What do we mean by “the practical wisdom to put the law to work”?  What evidence demonstrates achievement of practical wisdom? How should practical wisdom be taught?    

In fleshing out these questions, Task Force members used a four-step structure for curriculum design and review developed by K-12   scholars, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. (Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design (2008))  They define this system, which they call “backward design,” as follows:  First, desired measurable results are identified (outcomes). Second, evidence of student proficiency is identified (assessment). Third, teaching methods and materials are developed. Finally, the success of the educational program or course is evaluated. This blueprint may be used to comprehensively design or review an entire curriculum or it can be used with respect to an individual course.

In an effort to make discussion of outcomes more concrete, Task Force members considered various compilations of knowledge, skills, and professional attributes that a lawyer should possess. The formulation found in the MacCrate Report is one of the most useful. Based in large measure on MacCrate, the Task Force hypothesized the following potential outcomes for William Mitchell graduates.

“Practical wisdom to put the law to work” means that: Graduates have basic legal knowledge. Core subject matter Legal systems, process, sources of law Graduates are proficient in the skills of analysis, research, communication, and representation. Analysis & reasoning Legal & factual research  Communication (listening, oral, written) Representation (problem-solving, strategic planning, counseling, negotiation, advocacy) Organization and management of work Graduates conduct themselves professionally and exercise judgment in use of knowledge and skills. Ethics Service Justice

Adoption and assessment of measureable educational outcomes could provide a useful framework for addressing frequently mentioned issues such as the need for early targeted feedback and remediation for students who do not meet identified benchmarks, clearer sequencing of law school curriculum including more effective use of the second year, poor bar passage rates in the lowest quintile, lack of student preparedness for practice, and lack of clarity about Mitchell’s brand of legal education. Greater transparency and accountability could lead to deeper understanding about students who do not succeed (were these students admitted in error or is it possible that our educational program was insufficient?) as well as yielding valuable information about effective teaching and learning.

If used across the curriculum at Mitchell, an outcomes-based approach has the potential to: (1) assure that graduates have assessed proficiency in identified areas; (2) allow students to progress through the curriculum based on achievement levels; (3) make the steps to “practical wisdom” transparent; and (4) promote program and faculty accountability.

The Task Force chose not to delve deeper into the implications of outcomes-based legal education until issues identified in this report could be explored by the faculty. However, topics for future discussion include how delivery of instruction (teaching methods, faculty structure, and use of technology and resources) might change and how the resulting educational program and individual faculty members might be evaluated.

While these and other related questions are debated, various pilot projects might yield helpful information.  For example, outcomes-based instruction could be implemented in a few existing courses or a committee could undertake curriculum mapping based on proposed educational outcomes.”

I for one am going to keep teaching clinic the way I always have (because we clinicians are always working backwards), but I’m also planning to teach Trusts and Estates next spring paying particular attention to this outcomes-based stuff.  Stay tuned . . . .

UC Irvine Law School Unveils its First Clinic

Amanda Bronstad
May 19, 2009

National Law Journal Online http://www.nlj.com

LOS ANGELES — The University of California, Irvine School of Law has received a $2 million grant to launch an environmental law clinic, the first of several clinics planned for the new school, which will open in the fall.

The gift came from an "anonymous foundation of global reach," the law school said in a written statement.

The clinic will focus on public interest areas of environmental law and will be closely associated with the university's undergraduate program in public health.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school, has expressed hope that law clinics and other programs at the law school would focus on areas including intellectual property, technology, environmental law and public interest law.

Last fall, the law school dropped its original name, the Donald Bren School of Law, in the interest of consistency with other law schools in the University of California system.

Bren, the billionaire chairman of the Irvine Co., a real estate development firm, gave $20 million to the law school in 2007. Last year, the school received several million dollars in fresh donations.

Preparing for Reentry: What Lawyers Need to Know to Navigate the Road Ahead After a Career Break

	ABA Book Publishing
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Product Details: Regular Price: $39.95 ABA Member Price: $29.95 ©2009 - paperback 109 pages  Product Code: 1620383	Pilot your own successful reentry into the field of law!
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	By M. Diane Vogt
	In this handy guide, successful lawyer and author M. Diane Vogt shares her own personal tools, tips, and techniques to help you navigate your way back into the practice of law.  You’ll find out how to develop better strategies to achieve the quality of life, practice quality, and personal fulfillment issues that have become increasingly important to everyone.  This book contains the best and most useful information and suggestions to help you pilot your own successful reentry into the field of law, and achieve your personal plan for growth. Learn More »

CALL FOR ARTICLES on negotiation, mediation and/or arbitration: VERMONT LAW REVIEW

          

Continuing with our long tradition of publishing articles

     on dispute resolution, the Vermont Law Review is soliciting 

     three professional articles and one student article for a 

     dedicated edition scheduled to run in early 2010. Articles 

     should address an emerging issue in the field of 

     negotiation, mediation and/or arbitration. The deadline for 

     professional papers is November 1, 2009 and student papers 

     are due on November 20, 2009.  

      PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

     Interested authors should submit a short (one-two page) 

     summary of the topic by June 5, 2009 to:

     Email:         MAILTO:snolon@vermontlaw.edu 

     The selection board will review and select proposals by the 

     end of June 2009.

     ABOUT THE VERMONT LAW REVIEW:

     The Vermont Law Review - http://lawreview.vermontlaw.edu/ -

     a legal journal edited and managed by students, enjoys an 

     international circulation. The Review publishes articles 

     contributed by prominent legal scholars, as well as 

     student-written notes and comments. Please direct any 

     inquiries to:

     CONTACT:       Sean F. Nolon

                    Director, Alternative Dispute 

                      Resolution Program

                    Associate Professor of Law

                    Vermont Law School

                    PO Box 96, Chelsea Street

                    South Royalton, VT 05068

     Tel:           (802) 831-1376

What an idea! New Medical Schools Pair Students With Patients From the Start

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Daily Report

By KATHERINE MANGAN

When Lawrence G. Smith was tapped to help create a new medical school on Long Island, the last thing he wanted was a traditional model in which students had to wait until their third year of training to have any meaningful interaction with patients. Dr. Smith, the chief medical officer of a 15-hospital health system, instead favored approaches like sending first-year students out with ambulance crews and encouraging future doctors to develop long-term relationships with patients.

Otherwise, he says, "you're two years into medical school and $100,000 in debt, and you're about as useful as a Boy Scout at a family picnic."

Dr. Smith is the founding dean of Hofstra University School of Medicine, one of nine new allopathic medical schools, which are in various stages of seeking full accreditation. (Four of the schools, which graduate doctors with M.D. degrees, have already received preliminary accreditation.)

Unlike the schools of old, where students spent two years focused on science and theory before they set foot in a hospital, these new schools are integrating clinical care into the first two years.

Existing schools have taken steps in this direction. But, says John E. Prescott, chief academic officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, "the new schools are moving the bar farther and faster in coming up with innovative ways to provide important clinical experiences early in medical education."

At least two new osteopathic medical schools, which graduate Doctors of Osteopathy and emphasize holistic approaches and hands-on manipulation, are also seeking accreditation for programs that include early clinical experience.

One reason that established medical schools have moved slowly is that course work in the first two years tends to be so demanding that faculty members are often reluctant to introduce clinical requirements that would take away from classroom time

Cool Job Listings

Brian Barbour, ED of Hong Kong Refugee Advice Centre Ltd., says that it invites

applications for a “Director of Casework” & a “Refugee Advisor.”  Both positions

require experience in refugee law and legal aid, & are open to applicants locally

& globally.  It hopes to fill the positions ASAP to allow for a successful handover period

with the outgoing Director of Casework.  Information about both positions is attached. 

To apply for either position, please email a cover letter & CV with references in English

to info@hkrac.org with the subject line: “Director of Casework Position” or “Refugee Advisor

Position” respectively.  The deadline for applications is 29 May 2009, with interviews being

conducted from 3-5 June 2009.  Download Dir Casework Ad Download Refugee Advisor Ad

     

I am also attaching a job description re Policy Counsel at the Constitution Project's Rule of Law

program. The Constitution Project is based in Washington, DC.  Download Job Description - Rule of Law Program Policy Counsel

Denver to Host Conference on Assessment next Fall

I am pleased to announce that the University of Denver will be hosting a conference in September focused on Assessment in Legal Education.  Here is the opening paragraph for the request for proposals.  Check out the RFP and Conference program at:

http://law.du.edu/index.php/assessment-conference

The University of Denver, Sturm College of Law requests proposals to participate in a working conference on assessment in legal education.  This conference is intended to respond to the calls for better methods of assessment made in the Carnegie Report, Sullivan, et al., EDUCATING LAWYERS:  PREPARATION FOR THE PROFESSION OF LAW (2007) and affirmed in Stuckey et al., BEST PRACTICES FOR LEGAL EDUCATION (2007).  It also seeks to help those who have begun to engage in institutional assessment and to help illuminate the intersection of curricular reform with assessment methodologies. Our principal goal is to help participants develop and/or expand law school assessment projects anywhere along the spectrum from assessment of student work to program and institutional assessment efforts.  Consequently, while participants in the conference will gain a sense of what law schools and individual professors are already doing in terms of improving assessment, participants? primary benefit will be the opportunity to develop their own assessment innovations or refinements as they share and explore those ideas in facilitated groups.  Conference participants will be discussing and drafting assessment-related documents in workshops.  They will be able to return to their home institutions with their own, and others?, assessment tools which they can use in their classes and share with their colleagues and Deans.

Please write to me or Mike Schwartz (co-chair of the conference) if you have questions about the conference or the request for proposals.

Thank you,

David

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

David I. C. Thomson

LP Professor and Director

Lawyering Process Program

Sturm College of Law

University of Denver

2255 East Evans Avenue

Denver, Colorado 80208

www.ssrn.com/author=721919

www.law.du.edu/thomson

SEALS: Call for empirical papers

Greetings.  This summer at SEALS (The Southeastern Association of Law
Schools Conference) we are having an all day "how to" session on empirical
legal studies on Friday, August 7th.  As part of that day we are planning an
hour and a half session for small groups of panelists and presenters to meet
to workshop new empirical research projects.  We are asking potential
presenters to send in either a draft of a paper or a 4 page prospectus
explaining their idea, so that the drafts/proposals can be selected and circulated ahead
of time to a discussion group.  We will be favoring work that is still in a
formative stage (i.e. not accepted for publication).  The workshop's
emphasis will be on offering specific suggestions and constructive
criticism.  Selected papers will be grouped for presentation by subject area.

The current list of presenters who will be participating in the workshop as
readers and commentators is quite impressive, including Professor Kenneth
Dau-Schmidt, Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington; Professor
Thomas Eaton, University of Georgia School of Law; Professor Theodore
Eisenberg, Cornell Law School; Professor Michelle Harner, University of
Nebraska College of Law; Professor Minna Kotkin, Brooklyn Law School;
Professor Colleen Medill, University of Nebraska College of Law; Professor
David Mitchell, University of Missouri School of Law; Professor Lori
Ringhand, University of Georgia School of Law; Joshua D. Wright, George
Mason University; Professor Jeffrey Yates, University of Georgia, Department
of Political Science; and Professor Ben Barton, The University of Tennessee
College of Law.

If you are interested in participating, please send your submission to both Lori Ringhand (ringhand@uga.edu) and Ben Barton (bbarton@utk.edu) by June 15th.  Authors whose papers are selected will be notified by July 5. You are welcome to submit a paper even if you are not currently registered to attend the SEALS conference, but authors whose papers are selected for presentation will be expected to attend. The SEALS Conference is held every year at a lovely beachfront location.  This year it is being held at the Ritz Carlton Palm Beach. Registration and additional information about the conference can be found at: http://sealslawschools.org/.

youtube on Law School rankings

HT THE FACULTY LOUNGE

Top Ten iPhone Apps for Biglawyers

The best iPhone apps for lawyers come with with iPhone. Mail works great with corporate e-mail, especially for law firms using Microsoft Exchange. Contacts is great to store client and contact information, including pictures, notes, etc. I use the Maps app all the time to find places, especially now that Google Street View is integrated. But I presume you are asking about third party apps. So here are my picks for the Top 10 third party apps for a lawyer's iPhone (in no particular order):

1. QuickOffice. The marquee feature is the ability to edit Word and Spreadsheet documents, but I mostly use this app as just an easy way to transfer documents to and from my iPhone and view them on the iPhone.

2. Any of the Cliff Maier reference apps. As a litigator, I frequently use his apps containing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Appellate Procedure and Title 28, and I know lots of others lawyers who use his apps with patent laws, the tax code, etc. It is incredibly useful to have the law in your pocket.

3. DaysFrom. This is a quick and easy way to count days. Whenever I have to count 20 days, 100 days, etc. either forward or backwards from a date, I use this app.

4. Wikipanion. This free app lets you quickly find information on Wikipedia.

5. Google Mobile App. I love that I can quickly start this app, hold up the iPhone to my face, and then say what I am looking for and have a Google search run based on what I say. This is often a lot faster and more convenient than typing out search terms.

6. Various weather apps. Whether I am traveling or just deciding whether to pack an umbrella as I walk to court, I have a few weather apps that I use, and I haven't really picked a favorite yet. The Weather Channel and AccuWeather apps are great, but there is also a version of the Weather Underground website that is formatted for the iPhone web browser (i.wund.com) that I find just as useful.

7. A Twitter client. Until recently, the free TwitterFon was my favorite twitter client, but the free Twitterific 2.0 was recently released and I think it is now my favorite.

8. Facebook. Facebook's iPhone app is nicely done, and I use it to keep in touch with friends from college and law school. You never know when one of them will be co-counsel or a client.

9. Black's Law Dictionary is now available for the iPhone (reviewed here). Too early to tell whether Black's will become one of my personal favorites. At $50 it is much more expensive than the normal iPhone app, but it does work well.

10. NetNewsWire. A great free app for quickly reading RSS feeds to keep up with websites.

Training in the Law: Serving Clinical Legal Education’s Two Masters

READ AALS PRESIDENT RACHEL MORAN'S MESSAGE ABOUT CLINICAL EDUCATION:

Training in the Law:  Serving Clinical Legal Education’s Two Masters      

By Rachel Moran, University of      
California, Berkeley      

My AALS Presidential Address,reported in the previous newsletter,noted that my theme for next year’s   convention will be “Transformative      Law.” In this and my two remaining      
newsletter columns, I will explore three domains of transformative      
law: experiential learning, scholarship, and classroom teaching. This      
column will address the first area     and will focus on what is most likely      
considered the greatest transformative advance in legal education over  the past several decades: the rise of  clinical legal education programs.      

Although these programs can cover a range of training techniques, including simulations, here I primarily discuss the live-client clinics.

read the AALS newsletter here

Emerging Immigration and Citizenship Law Scholars and Teachers Workshop

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

We write to invite you to participate in the 2009 Emerging Immigration and Citizenship Law Scholars and Teachers Workshop, which will take place this year on July 16-17, 2009, at Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, New York. We intend for this workshop to meet every other year beginning 2009 (i.e., the year that the Immigration Law Teachers Workshop is not meeting). Our goal is to create space for junior law professors to share drafts of their research and writing projects, discuss teaching techniques and get to know one another. The workshop is designed to be small (15 to 20 participants) to facilitate robust discussions of the papers.

The workshop will begin on Thursday afternoon, July 16 and conclude in the afternoon on July 17. Space is limited to twenty participants (selected purely on a first-come, first-served basis), so register as soon as possible to ensure a space.