clinicians with not enough to do

Externship Conference

The website for Externships 5 “Responding to Changing Times” is up and running, with information on registration, all presentations and programs, recreation plans, hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, and contact information for the planning committee.

 

The conference will be Thursday evening, March 4  through Sunday morning March 7, 2010.

 

Check it out at http://www.miamiexternshipconference.com

 

If you are on the lextern list, you received another notice, with photos and graphics that this list couldn’t handle.  If you are not on that list, be sure to click on the link above to get our beautiful conference e-brochure.

 

For the Planning Committee,

 

Clin. Prof. Harriet N. Katz

Director of Lawyering Programs

Rutgers-Camden Law School

Room 217 East Building

5th and Penn Sts.

Camden, NJ 08102

(856) 225-6407

Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic Supports “No-Condoms-as-Evidence-of–Prostitution” Bill

From KATHERINE FRANKE of the Gender and Sexual Orientation Law Blog:

New York’s police and prosecutors should not be permitted to introduce condoms as evidence of prostitution and prostitution-related offenses, according to the students who work in Columbia’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.  The Clinic held a tabling day yesterday at Columbia Law School in support of a New York State bill that would enact this prohibition into law.  Over 50 Columbia Law students signed postcards to legislators to support the bill, sending a strong message to legislators that sound public health policy militates against the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution.

Under current law, police and prosecutors can and do use condoms to prove prostitution and related offenses, such as patronizing a prostitute, promoting prostitution, and maintaining a premises for prostitution.  The bill is critical to protecting public health in New York and deterring police officers from using condoms as pretextual justification for arbitrary search and seizure.  Criminalization of condom possession directly conflicts with New York’s longstanding public policy of encouraging condom use, a policy it has effected in part by distributing free condoms since 1971.  The proposed bill, which is in committee in the Senate and on the floor of the Assembly, would prohibit the use of those and other condoms in seven enumerated prostitution-related crimes.  Law enforcement officials would still be able to use condoms as evidence in rape and sexual assault cases, as they would in any other type of case not named in the bill.

The Clinic became aware of law enforcement’s use of condoms as evidence of prostitution during the course of its collaboration with community-based advocacy organizations in New York City, including the Sex Workers Project (SWP) at the Urban Justice Center.  The SWP is spearheading the effort to pass the bill.  The Urban Justice Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights have written legislative memos supporting the bill; the SWP has also organized an online petition to gather signatures to legislators.

Sarah Morris, SJ Lee, and Rena Stern, Sexuality & Gender Law Clinic students, are  in charge of the project.

New York Law Student Fails In His Challenge To Reverse His Legal Writing Grade

From our friends at Adjunct Prof Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/2009/11/new-york-law-student-fails-in-his-challenge-to-reverse-his-legal-writing-grade.html):

Keefe v. New York Law School, ___Misc. 3d___(N.Y. Co. Nov. 17, 2009), is an interesting case. A transfer student to New York Law School from Hofstra Law School was unhappy with being placed in Legal Writing II. As I understand it,his argument was that New York Law School breached an implied contract because it did not provide him with "the right program for every student" as indicated on the law school's web site. Out of the blue he argued that legal writing should be graded pass/fail because that is the way it is done at Yale Law School. The court did not have any trouble dismissing the case and finding that no implied contract existed. As the court stated:

Generally, New York State courts have permitted a student to bring a breach of implied contract action against an institution of higher education. See Radin v. Albert Einstein College of Med. Of Yeshiva Univ., 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9772 at *30 (S.D.N.Y May 20, 2005). However, a student must identify specific language in the school's bulletins, circulars, catalogues and handbooks which establishes the particular "contractual" right or obligation alleged by the student in order to make out an implied contract claim. See Sweeney v. Columbia Univ., 270, AD2d 335, 336 (2d Dep't 2000); Vought v. Teacher's Coll., Columbia Univ., 127 AD2d 654, 655 (2d Dep't 1987). General statements of policy are not sufficient to create a contractual obligation. Only specific promises that are material to the student's relationship with the school can establish the existence of an implied contract. See Lloyd v. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 906, at *27-*28 (N.D.NY Jan, 26, 1999). "To state a valid claim for a breach of contract, a plaintiff must state when and how the defendant breached those specific promises. Radin, 2005 U.S. Dist LEXIS 9772, at *32.

In the case at bar, Plaintiff fails to cite any specific provision or communication from NYLS that would establish an implied contract. One cannot breach a contractual promise that was never made. Radin, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9772, at *37. Plaintiff fails to point to any document or communication that gives rise to a promise which NYLS has breached. See Chira v. Columbia Univ., 289 F. Supp.2d 47, 485, 486 (S.D.N.Y 2003); Ward v. New York Univ., 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14067, at *10-*12 (S.D.NY Sept 25, 2000). Therefore the motion to dismiss the complaint is granted in its entirety.

Moreover, New York courts have repeatedly refused to interfere in the academic procedures of educational institutions and cannot and will not intervene in disputes involving an educational institution's grading system.

As the New York Court of Appeals has stated quite clearly in Susan M. v. New York Law School, 76 NY2d 241, 246-247 (1990).

As a general rule, judicial review of grading disputes would inappropriately involve the courts in the very core of academic and educational decision making. Moreover, to so involve the courts in assessing the propriety of particular grades would promote litigation by countless unsuccessful students and thus undermine the credibility of the academic determinations of educational institutions. We conclude, therefore, that, in the absence of demonstrated bad faith, arbitrariness, capriciousness, irrationality or a constitutional or statutory violation, a student's challenge to a particular grade or other academic determination relating to a genuine substantive evaluation of the student's academic capabilities is beyond the scope of judicial review.

Plaintiff is requesting this Court to intrude upon an area to which New York Courts have [*3]strongly refused to intervene. Here, Plaintiff has shown no evidence of "bad faith, arbitrariness, capriciousness, irrationality or a constitutional or statutory violation." id. NYLS clearly communicated through the student handbook that NYLS utilizes a letter grading system under which all of its students are evaluated. This Court declines to interfere with this quintessential function of an educational institution. 

And no, in case you are wondering, the plaintiff was not one of my students. However, he did get to handle a case pro se in court. How many law students can say that.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Ann Shalleck Nominated to AALS Executive Committee

From Claudio Grossman - Dean,  Washington College of Law, AU

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to share with you that our esteemed colleague, Professor Ann Shalleck, has been nominated to the AALS Executive Committee. This is an important and well-deserved recognition of Ann's impressive contributions to the legal academy.  The AALS will greatly benefit from Ann’s extensive knowledge, particularly at a time when our professional organization is facing challenges concerning, inter alia, the content and scope of accreditation. The legal academy is fortunate that Ann will be there when such matters are raised. At WCL, we are proud that this role will be performed by a member of our community.  Please join me in congratulating Ann.

JOBS: CUNY Elder Law

The Law School Instructor hired in this cycle will be primarily responsible for case supervision, case management, and co-teaching in the Elder Law Clinic, a one semester, 12 credit clinic offered in the Fall Semester that also is offered as an Advanced Elder Law Clinic for 2-4 credits in the Spring.  The Law School Instructor may also be assigned to teach other courses, including first or second year lawyering seminars and elective courses.

The Elder Law Clinic handles a variety of transactional and litigated cases, including Adult Guardianships under Article 81 of the N.Y. Mental Hygiene Law, supplemental needs trusts, estate and disability planning, and related government benefit issues.  Students also participate in projects such as community education, examining language access issues for guardians, and exploring how race, culture and ethnicity impacts health care decision making.

 

The CUNY School of Law Clinical Program has been nationally recognized as one of the best in legal education and affords each student the opportunity to engage in the practice of law while in law school by learning through service to underserved communities. The Law School currently offers seven live-client clinical programs and two externship programs.  CUNY School of Law faculty members have been recognized as innovative leaders in clinical legal education, through service, publications, and participation at conferences.

Society of American Law Teachers—SALT What’s New?

      ·         New Orleans—A Full SALT Agenda

·         SALT Thanks These Generous Law Schools for Supporting the SALT Annual Dinner

·         Deadline for purchasing an ad in the SALT dinner journal is December 11^th

·         AAUP Launches Action Campaign to Protect Academic Freedom

·         Call for Panels and Papers

·         Jobs

·         And How About Renewing Your SALT Membership?

New Orleans—A Full SALT Agenda

Thursday, January 7^th: 9:00 am-1:00 pm: Day of Service—co-hosted with the Poverty Law Teachers.  Register on line for this event; $60 fee includes transportation, lunch, and a contribution to local activist organizations.  A pdf flyer is attached for printing and distribution to faculty and administrators at your school who might enjoy the opportunity. 

Friday, January 8^th: 8:00 pm-10:00 pm : Robert Cover Workshop—(immediately following the AALS Gala): In the Public Interest: Exploring the Legacy of Robert Cover as Professor, Activist, and Scholar.  This is a free event!  No registration required.  Note that the day and time have been changed from the AALS Program.  A pdf flyer is attached for printing and distribution to faculty and administrators at your school who might enjoy this event. 

Saturday, January 9: 5:00 pm-7:00 pm: Sneak Preview—Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice—at the Hotel Monteleone, SALT, along with UC Davis School of Law, will be showing a sneak preview of "Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice,” a new documentary by Abby Ginzberg about Cruz Reynoso: a founding SALT board member, a former justice of the California Supreme Court, the 1993 recipient of the SALT Great Teacher Award, and currently a professor at UC Davis School of Law.  This is a free event!  Seating is limited.  Dean Kevin R. Johnson is hosting a beverage service and will be moderating a discussion including the filmmaker and Justice Reynoso.  Reserve a place by emailing [email protected]. 

Saturday, January 9^th: 7:00 cocktails, 8:00 PM-10:00PM: SALT Annual Dinner—at the Hotel Monteleone.  Tickets are available on line for the early bird price of $95.  Celebrate the contributions to law teaching by Francisco Valdés, University of Miami, SALT’s Great Teacher. 

Enjoy the New Orleans cuisine and the dinner jazz concert by the Victor Atkins Trio. 

Check out the list of law schools below that have purchased tables.  If your dean hasn’t, there is still time to become a supporting law school or to purchase a table.  Click here to find out more.  Deadline for signing up as a supporting law school or purchasing a table at the discounted rate is December 15^th.  Deadline for early bird tickets is December 15^th.

SALT Thanks These Generous Law Schools for Supporting the SALT Annual Dinner

SALT thanks the University of Miami School of Law for its generous support as our dinner sponsor! 

...and these Gold supporting law schools. (As a gold dinner sponsor, law schools get a table for ten at the dinner.  If your dean has purchased a table, find out if there is room for you!) 

·         American University, Washington College of Law

·         California Western School of Law

·         Fordham University School of Law

·         Michigan State University College of Law

·         Santa Clara University Law Center

·         Seattle University School of Law

·         University of Maryland School of Law

·         University of Oregon School of Law

·         University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law

·         University of Washington School of Law

·         Valparaiso University School of Law

...and our Silver supporting law school.  (As a silver dinner sponsor, law schools get a half table for five at the dinner.  If your dean has purchased a table, find out if there is room for you!) 

·         The Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law (5 seats at a table)

In addition, these law schools have purchased tables accommodating ten guests at the SALT Annual Dinner:

·         Golden Gate University School of Law

·         Tulane University School of Law

·         Vermont Law School

Deadline for purchasing an ad in the SALT dinner journal is December 11^th

Consider these reasons to take out an ad:

·         Celebrate Frank Valdés, SALT’s 2010 Great Teacher: tell a “Frank” story; include a photograph from your archives; inspire a new generation to take risks, engage, and believe.

·         Congratulate outgoing and incoming SALT co-presidents: SALT has become more visible, more active, and more influential.  Celebrate Margaret Martin Barry and Deborah Waire Post’s fruitful terms of office as SALT’s outgoing co-presidents.  Send greetings to incoming co-presidents Raquel Aldana and Steve Bender.

·         Thank retiring SALT board members and welcome new ones: Nancy Cook, Peggy Maisel, Joan Mahoney, and Reginald Oh are retiring from the SALT board, and we are gaining Elvia Arriola, Michael Avery, Barbara Bernier, Karla McKanders, and Hari Osofsky as new members. 

·         Broadcast an upcoming event or program at your school that promotes equality and equity, social justice, and academic excellence.

·         Publishing a book?  Why not let the community of progressive law faculty know!

AAUP Launches Action Campaign to Protect Academic Freedom

In the face of unprecedented threats to academic freedom at public colleges and universities, the American Association of University Professors has launched an awareness and action campaign called “Speak Up, Speak Out: Protect the Faculty Voice .”

The foundation of the project is a comprehensive report from a subcommittee of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure that examines the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos and its aftermath. The Court found that government can restrict the speech of public employees when they comment on issues related to their “official duties.”

To help you stay informed, SALT has placed a link to this awareness campaign on its SALT at Work, Academic Freedom page.  

Call for Panels and Papers—Browse through all

·         SALT Teaching Conference: Teaching in a Transformative Era: The Law School of the Future will examine the most pressing challenges law schools face in the 21st century—Deadline January 15, 2010 for December 10-11, 2010 conference at University of Hawai’i School of Law

·         Third National People of Color Conference: Our Country, Our World in a “Post-Racial Era” Deadline February 12, 2010 for September 9-12, 2010 conference at Seton Hall University School of Law

Jobs

Hiring season is in full bloom.  Two new postings for dean’s positions are on the SALT website:

·         Dalhousie University, Schulich School of Law, Toronto, Canada

·         University of Windsor, School of Law, Windsor, Canada

Check out the new posting for two tenure track positions at Touro Law Center.  

And How About Renewing Your SALT Membership?
Your membership counts!  It adds to the legitimacy of SALT’s participation within the legal academy—especially at the ABA Council—within Congress and the Obama administration, and the media. 

Renew your membership now!  Click here to renew on-line.  

Logging into the new SALT website to renew your membership is easy:

If you had previously registered at the old SALT website, go to “login” on the top menu, then use your email address as your user name and your old password.  If you have forgotten your password, click to get a new one emailed to you.  Then go to “membership” and renew for this year. 

For those of you who never logged in previously, go to “sign up” on the top menu to register.  Remember, your email address is your username and create at least a six character login password.  You will need to fill in all of the information requested in order to complete registration. 

Then renew your membership for 2009-2010.

Hazel Weiser, Executive Director

Society of American Law Teachers -- SALT

Public Advocacy Center, Room 223

Touro Law Center

225 Eastview Drive

Central Islip, NY 11722

[email protected]

631.650.2310

Explore our new website: www.saltlaw.org

SALT Annual Dinner, Saturday, January 9th, 7:00 pm, Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans--Tickets are on sale now!

Two Jobs at Northern California ACLU

The ACLU of Northern California would like to post two announcements for positions it is currently hiring for, one for a staff attorney position and one for our Police Practices Policy Director position.   

 

Attached are PDF copies of both postings.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

 

Download 2009_job announcement_Police Practices Director_FINAL 

Download Staff Attorney Job Announcement - FINAL

 

Sincerely,

Nigar Shaikh

Litigation Assistant

ACLU-NC

Call for Papers: Law and Society 2010

from Poverty Law by Ezra Rosser

From the Law and Society Association Website:

Call for Participation Due Date: December 8, 2009

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT PAPERS

The 2010 Annual Meeting of Law and Society Association Thursday, May 27 through Sunday, May 30, at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel.

Theme: AFTER CRITIQUE: What is Left of the Law and Society Paradigm?

Born out of disillusionment with the failures of liberal legalism to deliver social justice or equality, law and society scholarship at the time aimed to expose those failures and challenge liberal legalism’s legitimating premises. Twenty years after the founding of LSA, during the decade of the 1980s, the critical impulse of law and society scholarship was itself put under the microscope by some who turned critique inward, calling out law and society scholars for embracing empty empiricism or for their complicity with legal and political elites. In this period, meta-debates raged over theoretical, methodological, and political questions.

More recently events in the academy and the world seem to have squelched our appetite for critique either of the legal order itself or of the premises and purposes of our own scholarship. In an era when the rule of law has come under sustained attach, can we go beyond celebrating it and allying ourselves with its projects? At a time when there are no dominant theoretical or methodological perspectives in the academy should we turn away from epistemological questions and just get on with our work?

The theme of the 2010 LSA Meeting–After Critique–invites us to consider the law and society enterprise today and to think about its future direction. We want to reflect on the various ways that law and society scholarship has been and should be engaged with the threat of terrorism and governmental responses to it, national and global attacks on the rule of law, questions of sovereignty and sovereign prerogative, the contemporary situation of identity politics, and the collapse of the global economy and the crisis of neo-liberalism.

We also want to think about whether there is anything meaningful and coherent in the phrase “law and society scholarship” as well as how we should position ourselves in relationship to other interdisciplinary enterprises, e.g. critical race theory, empirical legal studies, law, culture, and the humanities, etc. Is it time to revive our critical heritage as well as our traditions of theoretical and methodological self-scrutiny? What would this entail?

Google Introduces Case Law Search

from Law School Headlines by admin

As you know, Google’s ultimate goal is to organize the world’s information. With this in mind, it should be no surprise that Google is organizing full-text legal opinions from United States federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts. The company is using its Google Scholar service to do so.

“As many of us recall from our civics lessons in school, the United States is a common law country,” says Google Distinguished Engineer Anurag Acharya. “That means when judges issue opinions in legal cases, they often establish precedents that will guide the rulings of other judges in similar cases and jurisdictions. Over time, these legal opinions build, refine and clarify the laws that govern our land. For average citizens, however, it can be difficult to find or even read these landmark opinions. We think that’s a problem: Laws that you don’t know about, you can’t follow — or make effective arguments to change.”

You can now search Google Scholar to find opinions by searching specific cases (like Plessy v. Ferguson) or topics (like desegregation). You can type a phrase like “separate but equal” and get results for cases in which such a phrase is in included.

[WebPro Search]

JOBS: Hastings Human Rights Fellowship

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

University of California, Hastings College of the Law

 

Teaching Fellowship in the Refugee and Human Rights Law Clinic at U.C. Hastings, with Joint Placement at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

 

The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) is seeking applications for the Teaching Fellowship in Refugee and Human Rights Law, a two-year position beginning on June 1, 2010. The Fellowship is designed for lawyers with at least three years of practice experience who are interested in preparing for a career in law school clinical teaching, as well as being engaged in the cutting edge legal work of CGRS.

 

The 2010-2012 Fellow will co-teach the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. The Clinic exposes students to the related fields of refugee and international human rights, and to the varied strategies undertaken in these substantive areas. In the refugee area, students represent clients in individual proceedings, and may also engage in litigation or policy work. In the international human rights area, students engage in fact-finding, draft human rights reports, or participate in advocacy at regional human rights bodies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or at inter-governmental bodies, such as the United Nations. The Fellow will work closely with clinic faculty, sharing responsibility for designing and teaching clinic classes, selecting and supervising law students, and other related matters.

Faculty as Smoking Police?

Karen Sloan from the National Law Journal reports:

Faculty members at Widener University School of Law will have a new role to play next academic year: smoking police.

They won't have matching uniforms or extensive training. They will be armed with small cards that detail the school's impending ban on smoking or using tobacco products anywhere on campus, indoors and outdoors. If that's not enough to keep people from lighting up on campus, repeat offenders might be fined, said Linda L. Ammons, the law school's dean.

Widener is one of a growing number of law schools that are getting tough on smoking by students, faculty, staff and visitors. Most law schools already prohibit smoking inside and near buildings, but at least three are preparing to become completely smoke-free campuses next summer. At least five already are. According to the American Lung Association, 176 colleges and universities in the United States are now fully smoke-free.

In addition to Widener, which has campuses in Wilmington, Del., and Harrisburg, Pa., Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and the University of Florida Levin College of Law in Gainesville, Fla., are preparing to ban all smoking effective in July. The University of Iowa College of Law, the University of Arkansas School of Law, the Oklahoma City University School of Law, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law-Bloomington and Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis each went totally smoke-free last year. Some of these bans are the result of new university-wide policies, while others were spurred by state law.

For more, go to:  http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202434975473&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=National%20Law%20Journal&pt=NLJ.com-%20Daily%20Headlines&cn=20091028NLJ&kw=Law%20faculties%20recruited%20to%20anti-smoking%20squads&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1

Teachers Manual for Lawyers and Clients

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Teacher's Manual to Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling Stephen Ellmann, New York Law School Robert D. Dinerstein, American Isabelle R. Gunning, Southwestern Katherine R. Kruse, UNLV Ann C. Shalleck, American ISBN 978-0-31423-532-9 West Academic Publishing is pleased to announce that the Teacher's Manual to Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling is now available for download on Law School Exchange. Join Law School Exchange today to download a complimentary digital copy of this teacher's manual and to take advantage of the site's many other features. Law School Exchange allows law school faculty to share, digitally publish, and find scholarship and teaching materials in collaboration with an online community of peers.

Review Copy: Professors who would like to review a print copy of this teacher's manual can request a complimentary copy by emailing their account manager at [email protected]. Please refer to ISBN 978-0-31423-532-9.

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Death of "Big Law School'?

From the Conglomerate

Death of "Big Law School'? Posted by Erik Gerding

Larry Ribstein has been writing and blogging up a storm about the "Death of Big Law." Larry makes a convincing case that the current economic crisis is not just a blip for law firms with everything returning to normal soon. Assuming that large law frims cannot deal with the structural problems Larry outlines and that the decline of big law is long term, what would that mean for legal education?

It would likely mean the end of the law school boom - with its expanding law faculties and the bumper crop of new law schools. Like it or not, the business model (I hate applying that term to legal education, but can't think of another one) of many law schools is heavily dependent on students getting high paying law firm jobs to pay off high law school tuition. Law firms are also prime benefactors of law school endowments. Without corporate law consuming law school graduates by the dozens, law school will face massive economic pressure.

On the one hand, these pressures will push law schools to improve the training of law graduates so that they are ready on "day one." Helping students in a tougher economic market supports the Carnegie/ABA best practices reforms that have been discussed so much.

But the changing economics of legal education will also cut the other way. The Best Practices model is expensive, and with tighter budgets law schools will also face pressures to move in the direction of the traditional "stack-em and pack-em" model of large classes. (Creative law professors may find ways to balance these pressures - for example many trial advocacy classes involve both a law professor and a roster of practitioner adjucts. Therese Maynard and Dana Warren have adapted this model to teaching transactional law to classes of 60+ at Loyola-LA.)

read the rest here

How to Promote Yourself

PrawfsBlawg

Self-Promotion #5: Hodge Podge of Ideas

In this last post on self-promotion, I just want to throw out some more ideas about how you can obtain a better platform for you and your scholarly work.  If others have ideas that have worked in their own careers, it would be great if you would add them to the comments of this post.

So, in no particular order, some further ideas on how to promote yourself within the larger legal academy:

1. Involvement in Law & Society or other organization with a subject matter focus (other organizations revolve around empirical studies and law & economics.  The best thing about these conferences is that many of them are inter-disciplinary which means that you also will find outlets to collaborate with social scientists outside of the law.  Law & Society for one has a great collaborative research network which permits one to navigate this rather larger conference by subject area.

2. Similarly, you can get to know more people in your field by becoming involved in your relevant AALS section. Different AALS Sections work differently, but some are certainly open to younger scholars playing a leading role in setting up programs and publishing newsletters.

3. Starting a listserv or discussion list in your area of expertise might also give you the ability to get to know people you otherwise don't know. Although there are many listservs out there on broad topics like constitutional law, law and religion, and legal writing, consider setting up a list (with the help of your IT department) in a sub-area within your main field. I did this a number of years ago in the employment discrimination context with the empdiscr listserv, even though there was already in existent a more general labor and employment law listserv (worklaw).

4. Consider talking to your law review about hosting a symposium on a topic that you and four of your most fun and famous friends from your field would like to talk about and submit papers on.   The advantage of proposing a law review symposium is that you can really get to know those in the academy who have overlaps with your interests in meal setting or more informal get-togethers during the symposium.

5. Communities outside of the law might also bring you into contact with different law professors. Involvement in a political campaign or with a national civic organization might provide an idea venue for you to get to know scholars in fields outside of your normal reach.

6.  Think of putting together a law debate for the Federalist Society, ACS, or ACLU.  Students are very open to the idea of you participating in debates either with colleagues within the school or with colleagues at other schools. I know that the Federalists and the ACS provide a list of national speakers to consider and even provide funding in some circumstances to fly speakers in.

7.  Take advantage of posting your work on SSRN, bepress or similar legal paper database. It is still surprising to me how many come to know the work of other scholars through downloads on these services.  Law professors who have similar interests will get in touch with you once they see the scope of your own scholarship or you can get in touch with others to talk about their scholarship.

In any event, I hope this post and the previous four have given individuals some ideas about how to become better known in the large law professor world. As I told people over the years, especially when one starts out their law career at mid-level school in an out-of-the-way part of the country, it is sometimes necessary to "shout" to tell people you exist.  Assuming that once you get people's attention that you can also keep their focus on you with your research and scholarship, slowly but surely more invitations to symposiums, conference, and yes, even guest blogging stints, will come your way.

Paul Secunda

Posted by laborprof lpb on November 16, 2009 at 07:05 PM in Life of Law Schools | Permalink

New Public Law School in Mass.

Plan for Public Law School Advances in Mass.

from Legal Blog Watch by Robert J. Ambrogi

An effort to create the first public law school in Massachusetts got a boost Friday when University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson gave it his endorsement. Wilson said he is convinced that the law school proposal is fiscally sound and would create a program with high academic standards. As noted here last month, the plan calls for the UMass-Dartmouth campus to take over the private, unaccredited Southern New England School of Law in North Dartmouth. The law school's board of trustees voted last month o donate to UMass its campus and assets, valued at $22.6 million. Massachusetts is one of just six states without a public law school. The plan quickly drew opposition from critics who say the state already has a surplus of law schools and of lawyers and that it would cost the state tens of millions of dollars to bring the school to a level that would allow it to earn ABA accreditation. But Wilson said the school would not consume state or university dollars and instead would create revenue. He cited figures from UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack projecting that the law school's cumulative cash balance would grow from $1.8 million in 2011 to...

click on the title for the rest

An effort to create the first public law school in Massachusetts got a boost Friday when University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson gave it his endorsement. Wilson said he is convinced that the law school proposal is fiscally sound and would create a program with high academic standards. As noted here last month, the plan calls for the UMass-Dartmouth campus to take over the private, unaccredited Southern New England School of Law in North Dartmouth. The law school's board of trustees voted last month o donate to UMass its campus and assets, valued at $22.6 million. Massachusetts is one of just six states without a public law school. The plan quickly drew opposition from critics who say the state already has a surplus of law schools and of lawyers and that it would cost the state tens of millions of dollars to bring the school to a level that would allow it to earn ABA accreditation. But Wilson said the school would not consume state or university dollars and instead would create revenue. He cited figures from UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack projecting that the law school's cumulative cash balance would grow from $1.8 million in 2011 to...

click on the title for the rest

If BigLaw is Changed, What About Law School?

from Law School Headlines by admin

To the degree we’ve talked about the effect of the recession’s impact on law schools, the discussion has focused mostly on the fact that applications at many schools are up. To many, even if the legal industry is suffering alongside many others, the let’s-go-back-to-school strategy represents a risk worth taking: Three years down the line — who knows? — maybe everything will look the way it did in 2007.

But until now, we haven’t read a piece that takes a harder look at what might become of the legal academy if BigLaw undergoes dramatic and permanent changes, as many suspect it might. Earlier this week, however, over at the Conglomerate blog, University of New Mexico law professor Erik Gerding offered up a little “what if?” piece, in which he hypothesized about potential changes to the law-school world if and when law-firm hiring practices prove inexorably changed.

[Wall Street Journal]

How's this for cheap legal labor?

Recent CUNY Law Grads to Represent City Residents in Housing Courts

from Law School Headlines by admin

New York state court officials have announced a new program that will have recent graduates of the City University of New York Law School representing city residents in housing courts.

New York City’s Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern Fisher says 11 lawyers trained in housing law will represent low to moderate income residents on selected housing court cases starting next week.

Fisher says the six-month LaunchPad for Justice pilot program is the first time the state court system has partnered with a law school.

State Assemblymen Adriano Espaillat, of Manhattan, and Hakeem Jeffries, of Brooklyn, obtained legislative funds to pay the lawyers a $200 weekly stipend for a 20-hour week.

It’s estimated each lawyer will handle about 44 cases a week.

Apprenticeships - a best practice?

Apprenticeships – a best practice?

from Best Practices for Legal Education by karenalash

I recently returned from Serbia and Macedonia on a Public Interest Law Institute trip to help assess which Balkan law schools should join PILI’s expanding legal education reform project. Some professors were surprised that US law schools are also wringing their collective hands about how to give ideally all law students more meaningful experiential learning opportunities. But what really surprised our counterparts is that US law graduates can sit for the bar and get a license whether or not they’ve had any practice experience. Indeed, according to The Equal Justice Works Guide to Law Schools, most schools don’t collect information about whether their students had any hands-on experience before getting a diploma.

Like in some central and eastern European countries, Serbian and Macedonian law graduates cannot become licensed until completing a 2-year apprenticeship in the office of the Prosecutor or Parliament, a judge, or a private firm or an NGO, and a licensed attorney certifies the fact.

As we in the US also wring our hands about the miserable job market, I wonder if we might be witnessing a move towards the Balkan model, with a focus on training and hands-on (usually public interest related) experience to launch new lawyers’ careers.

* We’re seeing legions of “deferred” associates spend a year at reduced (law firm) pay with government, advocacy or legal aid offices. According to an ABA Journal story, initial anecdotal feedback on the deferred associate strategy is very positive, from associates and host nonprofit organizations alike.

* Some law schools and bar associations – for example, Ohio State Bar Public Service Program, Houston Law Center, Cardozo, Pennsylvania, Georgetown, Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Columbia — have recently created short-term paid post-graduate public interest employment opportunities. Recent graduates work “off campus” in nonprofits, and sometimes “on campus” in law school clinics and faculty research centers. According to recent news stories, Denver is fundraising to create a post-graduate state clerkship program and Miami is providing $10,000 foreclosure defense fellowships for eight graduates to help legal aid groups tackle backlogs of cases.

* More than 40 law schools (with some overlap of the above) have long supported at least one post-graduate fellowship either with small stipends or fully-funded public interest fellowship positions. And a growing number of schools have a pro bono or some other clinical, hands-on graduation requirement, including Washington & Lee’s recent transformation of its third year into a practice year. (For lists of school-supported fellowships, and graduation and clinic requirements, check out the Equal Justice Works Guide.)

* National Fellowship programs, providing 2-years of funding (largely from law firms), including the largest of its kind at Equal Justice Works and Skadden’s program, enable new lawyers to get the hard-to-get entry level opportunities needed to launch public interest careers.

* Law firms are also getting in the first-year training game. For example, Howrey & Simon launched its “”lawyer training and initiation program specifically designed to accelerate the development of associate competencies.” First year lawyers spend only one-third of their year doing billable work, devoting the rest to pro bono representation, and participation in trainings including work with Howrey’s in-house writing instructor and assignment to trial teams. Drinker Biddle opted to start associates with a six month training program at a reduced salary rather than defer them. A recent ABA Journal article describes Nixon Peabody’s serious consideration of an apprenticeship program via a “Center of Excellence” where first-year associates “would train until they can graduate to a larger market.”

* At forums like the one held on October 30th at Columbia Law School, the profession and academy discussed the future of pro bono in a changing profession, including recent phenomenon of Big Firms sending new lawyers to public sector hosts for a year, and wondering if although launched in response to a market “crisis”, the model might continue in a more formal way.

This all makes me think we should consider a study tour to the Balkans, to learn more about their post-graduate apprenticeship program. Indeed, we would do well to remember that such luminaries as Oliver Wendell Holmes started his career as an apprentice. Though he did attend classes at Harvard Law School for a year, he balanced this with an apprenticeship at a Boston law firm before taking the bar.

Best Practices in Legal Education? Maybe.

New Online Journal re: Teaching and Curricular Innovations

A Renaissance is occurring within legal education.  Building on the findings and recommendations of the Carnegie Report (2007), MacCrate Report (1992), Cramton Report (1979), Reed Report (1921), and other extensive research, law schools and faculty are developing creative innovative curriculum and teaching methods to better prepare students for the practice of law. 

 

The Renaissance Report™ http://renaissancereport.wordpress.com/ is an online journal hosted by William Mitchell College of Law. The journal provides a broad based, up-to-date resource of curriculum and teaching innovations for legal educators.

 

It is with great hope for the future of the legal profession and the legal education system that we invite you to join the discussion. Together we can create a legal education renaissance.

 

Join us! http://renaissancereport.wordpress.com/

 

Professor John Sonsteng, Editor

Renaissance Report Editorial Team

William Mitchell College of Law

Law school on the "Block Plan" ?

A query from Howard Wasserman at PrawfsBlawg: Legal education bubble?

For no particular reason, I was thinking today about the "Block Plan" (or "One-Course-at-a-Time") approach used at liberal arts colleges such as Colorado College and Cornell (IA) College. As the name suggests, students take (and professors teach) one class in an intensive 3 1/2- or 4-week block, take one week off, then move on to another single class. And at least Cornell plays up internship and other outside-the-classroom opportunities.

So: Any thoughts on whether law school could work on this model?

For no particular reason, I was thinking today about the "Block Plan" (or "One-Course-at-a-Time") approach used at liberal arts colleges such as Colorado College and Cornell (IA) College. As the name suggests, students take (and professors teach) one class in an intensive 3 1/2- or 4-week block, take one week off, then move on to another single class. And at least Cornell plays up internship and other outside-the-classroom opportunities.

So: Any thoughts on whether law school could work on this model?

New Book on Feminist and Queer Legal Theory

NOW AVAILABLE!

Feminist and Queer Legal Theory

Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations

Edited by Martha Fineman, Jack Jackson and Adam Romero

Hardback edition $124.95

Paperback edition $49.95

Use discount code FLTP20 to receive a 20% discount at Ashgate Publishing.  The publisher’s website is:

http://www.ashgate.com/fltp

Outcome Measures and Regulatory Failure in Legal Education

Legal Profession Blog

[Posted by Bill Henderson]

Over the last few years, the topic of outcome (or output) measures has been a recurring theme at various association meetings and conferences surrounding legal education.  Some of this discussion is motivated by Department of Education initiatives that want to establish a clear linkage between educational cost and economic returns.  Some schools, however, believe that their fortunes will rise when they can be judged on three years of education (e.g., bar passage rates, employment, student satisfaction) rather than the input measures that drive the U.S. News Rankings.

It is hard to imagine a more impossible task than faculty from 190+ law schools reaching a "consensus" on outcomes measures.  Yet, consensus is not required.  The ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, through its authority to accredit law schools, can require law schools to measure, collect, and report information that the Section determines is in the public interest.   In 2007, the Section created a "Special Committee on Output Measures" and asked it to "define appropriate output measures and make specific recommendations as to whether the Section should adopt those measures a part of the [Accreditation] Standards."

So what happened?  The Special Committee's 76-page single-spaced Final Report, issued in July 2008, made little headway in defining output measures or making specific recommendation regarding accreditation. In a nutshell, the Committee recommended that the Standards be amended so that each law school would be free to define and measure its own outcomes.  In theory, these new Standards could be given teeth by the rigor of the outcome measures (or lack thereof) embodied in a school's self-study report and strategic plan (two processes already required under the accreditation process).  This excerpt from the Final Report puts the best possible spin on the Committee's recommendation:

[A]n approach that accords significant independence to law schools would make it possible for the schools to serve as laboratories for innovation and systemic improvement. ... As law schools experiment with various models of their own choosing, the data these schools generate will inform other schools' experiments and will provide a basis for fine-tuning models for instruction and evaluation. At some point in the future, it may be the case that our understanding of outcome measures has progressed so far, and that certain views have become so widely held, that the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will be in a position to demand greater specificity in the criteria in the [Accreditation] Standards and/or Interpretations. But, at least at the present time, the Committee believes that in drafting Standards and Interpretations, it is best to give law schools the latitude to experiment with a wide range of models.

When we step back, it is hard to believe that this thousand-flowers-bloom approach is the tack taken by the regulator charged with overseeing legal education.  To paraphrase the above passage, it says "do what you want to do, but try a little harder.  When something works well, and most schools adopt it, the Section can implement it as the new rule.  That way we can avoid difficult decisions that will upset our friends."

In truth, the Committee's approach turns the purpose of outcome measures on its head.  In the broader discussion in higher education, outcome measures are sought because they enable an apples-to-apples assessment of the effectiveness of an educational institution.  Indeed, the entire process is meant to facilitate comparisons.  Why? Because meaningful comparative information levels the playing field between those providing education (the schools) and those financing it (the students/citiizens). When outcome information is readily available, it changes behavior and alters powerful norms, including over-reliance on US News.  In the absence of apples-to-apples outcome information, the market adapts as it does now--by focusing on the basis of inputs (revenues, books, number of faculty, LSAT scores, UGPA, etc.).  It is the opaqueness of legal education that creates a vacuum needed for the US News rankings, which are nearly perfectly correlated with student entering credentials.

The Committee shrinks from the task of defining specific, comparable outcomes because it knows (at least implicitly or subconsciously) that the very process of creating meaningful outputs creates a large number of winners and losers among law schools.   Yet, by refusing to act as regulator that serves the public interest, the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar makes law schools the winner and law students the losers. 

If we evaluate outcome measures from the perspective of law students rather than law schools, there are at least three pieces of information that the Section should collect and publish annually in a format that facilitates school-to-school comparisons:

read the rest here

Conference: Teaching Law for Engaged Learning

 

Institute for Law School Teaching

and

Center for Engaged Learning in the Law

 

"Teaching Law for Engaged Learning," is a one-day conference for new and experienced legal educators interested in developing as teachers. The conference will take place on April 10, 2010, at the Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina. The conference co-sponsors are the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning (Gonzaga and Washburn) and the Center for Engaged Learning in the Law (Elon).

 

Structure of the Conference

 

The conference will consist of four sessions: (1) course and class planning; (2) teaching methods; (3) assessment and exams; and (4) developing as a teacher.

 

Course and class planning. What are the most important things you want your students to learn and how will you get your students there?  In this session, participants will construct learning objectives, plan how they will know whether their students have attained those objectives, discuss what to include in a syllabus and what makes for an effective syllabus, reconsider how they start and end their courses and class sessions, and plan a single class session from start to finish.

 

Teaching methods. Participants will consider a wide variety of techniques and perspectives, from the more traditional techniques, such as lecture and questioning, to other commonly-used techniques, such as free writing, collaborative learning, PowerPoint slides, simulations, clickers, and course Web pages, to a few cutting-edge techniques, such as discovery sequence instruction, cognitive think-alouds, and in-class instant messaging. Participants will both experience and discuss how best practices can be applied to these techniques.  Participants will also consider keys to effective teaching beyond techniques, including attitudes, habits of mind, conceptualizations of students, and personal qualities and characteristics.

 

Assessment and exams.  As a result of taking a course, what should students be able to do? Design effective ways to solve clients' problems using a range of authorities and complicated facts? Would they show their learning by writing opinion letters, drafting agreements, or interviewing witness? During this workshop, participants will work from their own assessments, samples, and guidelines to design and evaluate a variety of assessments. Participants also will practice using and developing effective and sustainable ways to provide feedback, including rubrics, classroom assessment techniques, and peer review, and they will consider how to use assessment results as feedback for improving their course and class design and teaching.

 

Developing as a teacher.  Following an introduction to the research on faculty development, participants in this session will engage in a variety of teaching development instruments. For example, participants will complete a teaching inventory, engage in reflective writing, view a teaching video, practice giving feedback, and brainstorm ways to develop a sustainable teaching development practice.

SSRN: Clinical Research Institute

LSN LAW RESEARCH CENTERS PAPERS CLINICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE (sponsored by New York Law School) Vol. 6, No. 4: Nov 12, 2009 RICHARD D. MARSICO, EDITOR Professor of Law, New York Law School [email protected] STEPHEN ELLMANN, EDITOR Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professor of Law, New York Law School [email protected] Browse ALL abstracts for this journal

Links: Subscribe ~ Unsubscribe | Distribution | Network Directors | Submit ~ Revise Your Papers

Table of Contents Stories Absent from the Courtroom: Responding to Domestic Violence in the Context of HIV and AIDS Jane K. Stoever, Seattle University School of Law See One, Do One, Teach One: Dissecting the Use of Medical Education’s Signature Pedagogy in the Law School Curriculum Christine Nero Coughlin, Wake Forest University - School of Law Lisa McElroy, Drexel University - Earle Mack School of Law Sandy Patrick, Lewis & Clark Law School Storytelling Across the Curriculum: From Margin to Center, from Clinic to the Classroom Carolyn Grose, William Mitchell College of Law Decriminalizing Students with Disabilities Dean Hill Rivkin, University of Tennessee College of Law Strip-Mining and Grassroots Resistance in Appalachia: Community Lawyering for Environmental Justice Dean Hill Rivkin, University of Tennessee College of Law Chris Irwin, United Mountain Defense Anne Passino, affiliation not provided to SSRN The Cartography of Legal Inquiry Tonya Kowalski, Washburn University School of Law

itunes oral arguments?

Appellate Oral Arguments Available for Free on 'iTunes U'

from Legal Blog Watch by Bruce Carton

You've already ordered your U.S. Supreme Court baseball cards. Now it's time for all of you appellate law geeks aficionados to take the next step and get yourself some good oral arguments on iTunes to listen to while you work out. The Tex Parte Blog reports here that St. Mary's University School of Law will now be making recordings of Texas Supreme Court oral arguments available, for free, on iTunes U, Apple's online repository of free educational content and lectures, presentations, videos and podcasts from all over the world. For three years now, St. Mary's and the Texas Supreme Court have partnered to provide the court's oral arguments through live webcasts, but these arguments will now also be featured on iTunes U. A quick look at iTunes U shows that the Texas oral arguments are not the only ones available on the site. In fact, dozens -- if not hundreds -- of U.S. Supreme Court argument are also available, for free, through the Oyez Project. Here, for instance, is the iTunes U link to oral argument in the landmark case of Bush v. Gore. Listen to that one a few times on the treadmill and see if the justices' controversial...

You've already ordered your U.S. Supreme Court baseball cards. Now it's time for all of you appellate law geeks aficionados to take the next step and get yourself some good oral arguments on iTunes to listen to while you work out. The Tex Parte Blog reports here that St. Mary's University School of Law will now be making recordings of Texas Supreme Court oral arguments available, for free, on iTunes U, Apple's online repository of free educational content and lectures, presentations, videos and podcasts from all over the world. For three years now, St. Mary's and the Texas Supreme Court have partnered to provide the court's oral arguments through live webcasts, but these arguments will now also be featured on iTunes U. A quick look at iTunes U shows that the Texas oral arguments are not the only ones available on the site. In fact, dozens -- if not hundreds -- of U.S. Supreme Court argument are also available, for free, through the Oyez Project. Here, for instance, is the iTunes U link to oral argument in the landmark case of Bush v. Gore. Listen to that one a few times on the treadmill and see if the justices' controversial...

ABA and loan relief

National Law Journal: ABA proposes law student loan relief

Karen Sloan

November 10, 2009

The American Bar Association is lobbying the Obama administration and Congress to extend relief to recent law school graduates who went into debt to finance their legal educations but haven't been able to find a job because of the recession.

The ABA wants the government to let unemployed graduates convert private loans into federal ones. The change could allow them to defer repaying those loans for as long as three years.

The effort is in its early stages — executives of the largest provider of private law school loans, Access Group Inc., weren't even aware of it, according to spokeswoman Linda Smith.

"This is really intended to give them some breathing room," said ABA President Carolyn Lamm.

read the rest here

Steve Ellmann reviews Arc of Justice

Now Without Hesitation: Ossian Sweet and the power of client narrative

Ossian Sweet and the power of client narrative
We often worry that clients' voice is lost in the process of representation. The story that gets told, though not false, is a story keyed to the elements of the case, or to some other persuasive need, rather than to the client's understanding of the narrative of his or her life. But my co-author Ann Shalleck, in her chapter on "Narrative Theory and Narrative Practices" in our new book (Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (2009) -- see my previous post for the book announcement) emphasizes that clients' own narratives change over time, and in part as a result of the influence of the lawyer. Sometimes those changes are benign. Sometimes they may not be.

In his fascinating book Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (2004), Kevin Boyle tells the story of Dr. Ossian Sweet and his trial. Dr. Sweet was an African American physician, living in Detroit, who in 1925 made the decision to move with his family into a house in an all-white neighborhood. The results were disastrous. A white crowd swelled around his house on each of his first two nights in it; the second night, members of the crowd began hurling stones at the house, and as the stones fell someone (or someones) in the house fired into the crowd, wounding one person and killing another. Dr. Sweet and the 10 other people in the house were all arrested and charged with murder.

As Boyle tells the story, Dr. Sweet emerges as a conflicted man, who was almost overcome by anxiety as the mob surrounded his house. He seems not so much to have decided to risk everything for the sake of his right to purchase this house as to have been unable to back down from the purchase as the extent of the peril he and his family faced became clear. None of this is to his discredit; the fact is that he did exercise his right to purchase a house anywhere he could afford, and he determined to defend the house against attack, and he did so. (He did not, however, fire any shots himself.)

Boyle tells us that after their arrests, Dr. Sweet and most of the others initially told the authorities, falsely, that they weren't in the house that night to defend it but rather were just waiting for dinner when the trouble began. (Boyle, at 173-74.) Apparently it was Clarence Darrow, perhaps accompanied by Walter White of the NAACP (which had made this case a cause), who persuaded the defendants to tell the story more fully. In Boyle's words:

"For the longest time, Darrow sat with Ossian and the others, listening to them recount the evening on Garland Avenue, gently pressing them to admit to the shooting rather than cling to the unlikely stories they had concocted the night of the police interrogation, quietly reassuring them that the case could be won even if they had fired into the crowd, bridging the chasm between the famous white lawyer and ten desperately afraid colored men with his remarkable gift for empathy." (244)

Along the way, however, Dr. Sweet's understanding of his own story changed. "[H]e began to see the road he had followed to Garland Avenue as much straighter, his steps more purposeful, than they had actually been." (247) Perhaps Dr. Sweet was influenced by his sense of what a jury might respond to, and perhaps he was moved by the praise that his supporters offered for him. I don't mean that he falsified any concrete fact of his story, just that he came to see it as a story of his own manifest heroism.

That may have been fine for the two trials, at the first of which Dr. Sweet responded to cross-examination "with a dignity so fierce it was inspiring" (290), and at the second of which "he seemed to straighten in his seat as the questions were asked.... Now the fear was gone, replaced by unbending pride, the terrified little boy of Bartow given way to a New Negro willing to risk everything in defense of his family, his home, and his principles." (327-28) And the trials ultimately ended in complete legal victory for the defendants.

Unfortunately, it was not fine for Dr. Sweet as a person. Between the two trials, Dr. Sweet and his wife, Gladys (also a defendant), went on a tour planned by the NAACP. A pastor accompanying them said that "Each day he [Dr. Sweet] got more egotistic." (306). The same man said that "I averted no fewer than four scenes ... [and] abated five quarrels between the Sweets." (306-07)

Perhaps all would have been well in time. But as it turned out, Gladys Sweet and the Sweets' one-year-old daughter Iva contracted tuberculosis, very possibly from the jail in which they were confined after the arrests, and both died of it. (344) Dr. Sweet lived in the house he had bought for many years, but his life went awry in multiple ways, and at the age of 64 he shot and killed himself. (344-46) Would he have handled better the challenges he faced if he had not come to see himself, at one point in his life, as a more unambiguously heroic man than he (or almost anyone else) could be? We don't know. But the book leaves the strong impression that the case, the cause, became so great that it changed even the individuals whose cause it was, and not entirely for the better.

*******************

For me, reading Arc of Justice raised another, more personal question. In 1925, my grandfather, James Ellmann, was a young attorney practicing in Detroit and raising a family along with his wife Jean. He would go on to be active in civil rights issues, but the first trace of that activity that I've found so far on the web is in the mid-late 1930s. There's no sign that he was involved in any way in the Sweet case. I can't help but think, though, that he must have been inspired by this celebrated, dramatic case, involving local people and the most prominent lawyer of the age. So I hope that one of the effects of this case -- which brought Dr. Sweet freedom but not happiness, and helped launch the NAACP's legal challenges to racism even while Northern cities' residential segregation intensified (342-43) -- was to play some part in my grandfather's political development, and so my father's, and so mine.

Bob Dinerstein to get PIncus Award!

The AALS, the Section on Clinical Legal Education's Executive Committee, and the Section's Awards Committee would like to announce that Professor Robert Dinerstein, Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, will be awarded the William Pincus Award at the AALS Annual Conference in New Orleans, in January, 2010, at the Clinical Section luncheon on Saturday, January 9, 2010.  The Pincus Award honors one or more individuals or institutions of clinical legal education who have demonstrated excellence in service, scholarship, program design and implementation, and other activity beneficial to clinical education or to the advancement of justice.

 

 

Professor Dinerstein exhibits these qualities in abundance, and he continues to be a leader of the clinical movement in legal education.

Professor Dinerstein has been a tireless advocate for clinical legal education and a mentor to countless members of the clinical teaching community.  In his scholarship, in his own clinical work as a mentor to his students, as an advocate for clinic clients, in furthering clinical legal education in the United States and in other countries, and in his years of service in furthering the development of clinical legal education both through the AALS and the ABA, he has contributed and continues to contribute to the development of clinical legal education.

He is an author of important articles about clinical legal education pedagogy and the theory of practice, and he has made significant contributions to the field.  His service to the clinical community includes serving as a Chair of the Clinical Section, the AALS Standing Committee on Clinical Education, CLEA's Best Practices Project and the Best Practices Implementation Committee, and important committees of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, including the Standards Review Committee and the Council of the Section.  He has amply demonstrated his continued commitment to improving legal education and the role of clinical legal education.

 

Professor Dinerstein's work toward advancing the cause of clinical education, his scholarship, and his commitment to his students and clients make him a worthy recipient of the 2010 William Pincus Award.

 

Technology in the Classroom -- comments? thoughts?

Hello all,

 

I am preparing the upcoming newsletter for the AALS Teaching Methods section. I'd like to include section members' thoughts on the use of technology in the classroom (and I don't mean students' use of laptops to surf the internet rather than listen to the lecture!). If you have found the use of some technology (clickers, podcasts, webinars, course websites, etc.) has enhanced the teaching of your subject in some way, I'd love to hear about it.

 

I'll publish entries up to around 500 words or so. Let me know the subject you teach, where you teach, and how you've used technology to do any of the following: (1) make your job easier; (2) enhance the students' learning of the subject; (3) test the students' comprehension of the subject matter; (4) encourage collaborative or interactive learning; or (5) anything else I'm not thinking of.

 

I'd like to receive submissions no later than November 23rd.

 

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

Rachel Croskery-Roberts

Associate Director, Legal Practice Program

Michigan Law School

SSRN: alternatives to bar exams

"An Alternative Model to United States Bar Examinations: The South African Community Service Experience in Licensing Attorneys" 

Georgia State University Law Review, Vol. 20, No.4, Summer 2004
Florida International University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-16

PEGGY MAISEL, Florida International University College of Law
Email: [email protected]

This Article examines the system of educating and licensing attorneys in South Africa to determine whether that country’s experience can provide guidance to jurisdictions in the United States that are considering proposals to reduce or eliminate the importance of bar examinations. The analysis set out here is supplemented by a companion article, providing a first-hand account of the South African system by Ms. Thuli Mhlungu, who was educated and sought admission to the bar during the last years of apartheid and the early years of the new democratic regime.

Examining the situation in South Africa makes particular sense because South Africa is a country whose tortured history parallels the United States’ history in many ways. Further, the South African system (1) has always required some form of practical training prior to admission as an attorney; (2) expanded the way to fulfill the practical training requirement ten years ago to include two alternatives being considered in the United States - community service apprenticeships and practical training courses; and (3) suffers from societal problems similar to those of the United States, including under-representation of people of color within the legal profession and inadequate resources to provide access to justice for indigent persons.

Any analysis of how helpful a consideration of the South African history of bar licensure can be for jurisdictions in the United States initially requires an understanding of the structure of that country’s bar, its system of legal education, the historical method it used for licensing law graduates, and the racial composition of its bar. Part I of this Article sets out this historical framework. After providing that historical information, Part II discusses the post-apartheid changes to bar admissions, the rationale for those changes, and how successful they have been. Part III examines key issues jurisdictions in the United States will face if they try to institute a parallel system. Finally, Part IV offers a suggestion for how U.S. jurisdictions might try to duplicate the successes achieved in South Africa.

SSRN: a student's perspective on clinic

"The Five Lessons I Learned through Clinical Education" 

CLPE Research Paper No. 40/2009

NADIA CHIESA, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: [email protected]

Legal education has long been criticized for failing to prepare students for the realities of the practice of law. This article explores how clinical legal education programmes, offered at many Canadian law schools, may respond to this criticism and provide an alternative to traditional legal education. Through a reflection on the experience of working as a student at a community legal aid clinic, the author offers a student's perspective on the challenges and rewards of pursuing this type of legal education and discusses how clinical legal education may better equip law students for their future career.

Memo to the appointments committee: how to interview minority candidates

from hunter of justice by Nan Hunter

The hiring conference for entry-level law professors, known universally and grimly as the meat market, starts today. Having survived my one year as a candidate and many years on the hiring side of the table, I herewith pass on the following advice from a non-lawyer, but similarly experienced, historian, my friend Claire Potter, aka the Tenured Radical:

...[I]n lieu of giving bad advice to candidates, I thought I would give advice to those people who were doing the interviewing instead. And it's a particular kind of advice: how not to look like a fool when interviewing what we now call a "diversity candidate." Now for the sake of brevity, let's say the candidate is either a man or a woman (technically all women are diversity candidates), but may also be either of color or queer (technically queer people are never diversity candidates. Unless they are -- for some other reason.) Because these categories are too internally various, and because in fact there is surprising overlap in some of the ways you could possibly offend the people who occupy them, let's call them: Martians. And we'll assume for the sake of clarity in what follows that "you" are not a Martian, and that "I" am. Are you ready? Let's begin.

1. Do not tell irrelevant stories about your friends who are Martians, or that your daughter decided to come out as a Martian last year and how great you feel about it. I understand that you are doing this to make us Martians feel as though we are among friends, and to demonstrate your absolute lack of Martianophobia or your committed anti-Martianism. I appreciate that. Really, I do. But you know what? It suggests just the opposite. It suggests that the Martian in your presence, who is me, is making you uncomfortable, and that you are bravely overcoming it. We Martians are used to being in the minority, but it makes us impatient to have other people remind us of it all the time -- in the name of pro-Martianism, no less. So we will all do better during the interview if you stick to scholarship, teaching and what the actual requirements of the job are.

2. Do not take me to a Martian restaurant for dinner. First of all, a Martian restaurant that is not on Mars, or in a place with a significant Martian population, is likely not to be any good. It will serve Martian food cooked to the taste of the non-Martians who populate your planet. So I will find this depressing. But furthermore, it suggests that I, as a Martian, am in danger of feeling alienated on your planet because I may not be able to access my "culture." Though a Martian, as a scholar and an intellectual, I probably feel I am a little more cosmopolitan than that.

3. While we are at dinner, stay away from topics that betray how invisible the other Martians on campus or on your planet are to you. Telling me that I may wish to live on the planet one light year away because it has a larger Martian population is one way of conveying this, as is: explaining that retaining single Martians is so difficult because it is so difficult to meet and other, marriageable, Martians on your planet; or announcing that, incredibly, there is a Martian Episcopalian church that serves the entire planet right in your canyon! So even though there aren't many Martians on campus, there will be a terrific community for me. On Sundays. (Did I say I was religious? Are you sure?)

4. Admit it if your college does a crappy job of recruiting and serving the needs of Martians. Most colleges and universities that are not on Mars do -- it's not up to you to apologize for it. As in (1), don't tell me about the one Martian who graduated Summa and won the department prize twelve years ago. And although there may be serious Martian politics on campus, don't assume that I share your view of what it means to be progressive on these issues, even -- or especially -- if you are a fellow Martian.

5. Refrain from hinting to me coyly that there is someone I "really need to meet" but not telling me why. This is the most frequent way that people have of dropping a few hairpins that I am a Martian (duh), and this other person is a Martian, but being a person who doesn't really "see" or believe in interplanetary differences, you aren't going to say the word "Martian" (wink, wink.) Most Martians find this tiresome. We aren't at a job interview to meet other Martians: we're there to get a job. And if meeting another Martian on campus is important to me, I'll tell you so.

6. Try to police your references to Martian stereotypes, whether social or intellectual. Don't ask me, for example, why I ended up a historian and not a flight engineer; don't tell me that the special barber I need to cut the hair around my antennae is in the next town over (we don't all have antennae, ok?); and don't, for heaven's sake, if I am interviewing for a Renaissance Literature position, reassure me that the Martian Studies program is very welcoming. Don't put the chair of Martian Studies on my schedule without asking me, if I am not interviewing in Martian Studies, or set up lunch with the one other out Martian to talk about how I might like to work up a Martian survey course once I get a firm grip on the courses I am actually being hired to teach.

And last of all -- if you make any of the above errors, please forget about it and move on -- don't embarrass all of us by dwelling on your faux pas and trying to repair the damage. Martians are used to being in the minority, and we can take care of ourselves, thank you very much.

JOBS: A list of 69 Fellowships

More Fellowships for Aspiring Law Professors

from TaxProf Blog by Paul Caron

Following up on my August post, Fellowships for Aspiring Law Professors (2009-10 Edition):  Jonathan Gingerich (J.D. 2010, Harvard) of the Harvard Legal Theory Forum has compiled this very helpful spreadsheet with detailed information (including application deadlines, qualifications, salaries, and duration) on 69 teaching and research fellowships.

Symposium from “Critical Race Theory at 20″ published

from Poverty Law by Ezra Rosser

Iowa Law Review has published an issue of papers coming out of the “Critical Race Theory at 20″ conference that was held at Iowa.  The papers are below:

Celebrating Critical Race Theory at 20
Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Liberal McCarthyism and the Origins of Critical Race Theory
Richard Delgado

The Re-Emergence of Race as a Biological Category: The Societal Implications—Reaffirmation of Race
Alex M. Johnson, Jr.

Post-Racialism
Sumi Cho

Jim Crow Ethics and the Defense of the Jena Six
Anthony V. Alfieri

Oh Puleez: Do We Really Need to Teach Them Not to Do That?

By Mary Alice Robbins, Texas Lawyer

Adam Reposa, the Austin, Texas, criminal defense solo who made a gesture simulating masturbation toward a prosecutor while standing before Travis County Court-at-Law No. 6 Judge Jan Breland, faces 90 days in jail. In an 8-1 decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reposa's application for a writ of habeas corpus in his contempt case.

Judge Lawrence Meyers, the lone dissenter in Ex Parte Adam Reposa, did not write an opinion. The CCA's unpublished opinion, written by Judge Paul Womack, presents the following summary of Breland's testimony at Reposa's contempt hearing: On March 11, 2008, Reposa appeared as counsel for a defendant in a criminal case in Breland's court. Breland asked Reposa to stop whispering to his client while she was trying to explain a plea offer to the client. After the prosecutor, Assistant County Attorney Bill Swaim, protested about Reposa's continued whispering, Reposa made the simulated masturbation gesture toward the prosecutor while looking at Breland.

Acting on Swaim's motion, Breland held Reposa in contempt. Senior Judge Paul Davis of Austin, sitting by assignment, subsequently found Reposa guilty of contempt and sentenced him to 90 days in jail. Reposa appealed to the CCA on June 2, 2008. The CCA had set bail for Reposa pending the disposition of his case.

In its decision Wednesday, the CCA overruled Reposa's five issues challenging the judgment of contempt and sentence. With regard to Reposa's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, Womack wrote for the majority, "Regardless of the fact that the gesture was not directed at Judge Breland, it nevertheless was a purposeful act of disrespect and an affront to the dignity of the court. As such, it rises to the level of criminal contempt."

Swaim declines comment on the CCA's decision.

When told of the CCA's decision, Reposa said, "Oh well." When asked what happens next, Reposa says he doesn't know. "I need to talk to my lawyer," he says.

To read more, go to:  http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202435009683&rss=newswire

SSRN: ASSESSMENT and EMPIRICAL STUDIES

"Assessing Differently and Using Empirical Studies to See If it Makes a Difference: Can Law Schools Do it Better?" 

Quinnipiac Law Review, Vol. 27, 2009
Georgia State University College of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2009-22

ANDREA ANNE CURCIO, Georgia State University - College of Law
Email: [email protected]

Recent scholarly literature criticizes law school assessment methods as being pedagogically unsound, an ineffective way to develop good lawyers, and as standing as an unjustifiable barrier to diversifying the profession. With the publication of Educating Lawyers, and Best Practices, the academy finally has begun to engage in the kind of scholarly scrutiny of assessment that has long been the practice in other disciplines. This essay seeks to move the discussion from a focus on law school assessment shortcomings, to a discussion of the scholarly work necessary to examine and improve assessments. It does this by providing concrete suggestions for alternative law school assessments which attempt to incorporate into large-section courses the Carnegie apprenticeships of legal analysis, practical skills, and professional identity. The essay acknowledges that whether these alternatives, or even our existing assessment methods, are valid and reliable is an undetermined question. Thus, the essay urges empirical exploration of law school assessments. It provides guidance to those seeking to design empirical assessment research studies and it suggests some empirical assessment studies that can and should be done. It concludes by arguing that given the high stakes of law school assessments, law professors should devote the same level of scrutiny to assessments as is given to other scholarly pursuits.

Tweeting in Class

November 5, 2009

DENVER — Do Twitter skeptics really believe the popular microblogging service offers no educational value, or are they just afraid of it?

For W. Gardner Campbell, director of the Academy of Teaching and Learning at Baylor University, there is no question that fear of straying from the status quo has inhibited the development of Twitter as a teaching tool. “I go to conferences like Open Education 2009, and I come back with T-shirts like this: ‘Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute,’ ” he said Wednesday at the annual Educause conference here. “And all it adds up to is more punishment at the hands of well-meaning, sometimes, but ultimately self-preserving institutional structures.”

read the rest here

Gender Bias Bingo

from Feminist Law Professors by Ann Bartow

“Share your experiences of at least three bias types listed below, and you will win the highly coveted “Real Professors Play Gender Bias Bingo” T–shirt!” Preview bingo card here. Play here!

New Teaching Resources from SALT

Hi all,

 

To support those interested in developing empirical scholarship about teaching and assessment issues, SALT's Committee on Issues in Legal Education has put together a list of potential social science collaborators.  The list contains the names of social science academics across the country who have expressed a willingness to collaborate with law professors who want to do empirical work on teaching and assessment but who do not have a social science background. 

 

Additionally, with the help of Washburn University Law School, SALT has developed an assessment listserv.  The listserv is a sounding board for those thinking about, or involved in, scholarship about teaching and assessment.  We read each others' work, answer questions about research design and implementation, and generally support each other in whatever way possible as we develop this area of scholarship. 

 

There is a link to both these resources on the SALT homepage: www.saltlaw.org.

 

Feel free to pass this notice along to other people listservs.  We are trying to spread the word about these resources.

 

Take care,

 

Andi Curcio

Professor of Law  [& Chair of SALT Cmte on Issues in Legal Education] Georgia State University College of Law

404 413 9157

[email protected]

Conference on Public Education at Howard

Reaffirming the Role of School Integration in K-12 Public Education Policy: A Conversation Among Policymakers, Advocates and Educators

Friday, November 13, 2009, 10:00 AM Howard University School of Law Washington, D.C.

Register Soon! Registration Closes on Friday, November 6.  Click Here to Register for this Conference This conference brings together a wide range of government officials to converse with educators, civil rights advocates, and scholars who support racially and economically integrated K-12 public schools.  Participants will learn about racial and socioeconomic integration incentives in current and proposed federal policies, regulations and spending programs.  Panelists and audience members also will discuss current integration efforts on the ground that sustain quality integrated schools and stable communities.

JOBS: Loyola LA Juvenile Law

Clinic Director

Loyola Law School Center for Juvenile Law and Policy

Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, is accepting applications for the Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic.  The candidate will be expected to teach, supervise and direct clinical faculty, social workers, staff, and certified law students representing youth in the Los Angeles juvenile delinquency courts.

 

The Center is a community legal clinic that brings public service, education and advocacy together to improve the quality of legal services provided to children in the juvenile delinquency system.  The clinic provides free legal services to youth in the Los Angeles delinquency courts while providing law students with a vital skill set and the opportunity to practice in the public interest. 

 

The Clinic Director is responsible for all litigation conducted on behalf of the Center.  This includes the clinic’s representation of youth in the delinquency courts and the informal traffic courts.  The Director also works with our partners to identify clients to be represented by the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy.  The Director is jointly responsible for creating and implementing curriculum for a year-long “live-client clinic” and class, for creating, administering, and grading final exams, for assisting students with job placement, and for supervising a post-graduate fellow and new clinical faculty hires.  The Director is also expected to represent the Center at community events and participate in local committees and advocacy groups, as well as advocate for systemic change. 

 

Candidates must possess strong written and oral communication skills and a demonstrated commitment to indigent defense.  The ideal candidate should possess at least five years of relevant experience and have substantial jury trial experience.  Successful teaching, student supervision and appellate experience is desirable.  Candidates must be licensed to practice law in the state of California. 

 

The salary offered is competitive and will be based on experience.  Loyola Law School offers an attractive benefits package. 

 

Loyola Law School maintains a strong commitment to diversity in its faculty.  Applications from women and members of groups traditionally underrepresented in legal academia are especially welcome.

 

Applicants should submit the following:

Ø  A cover letter describing the applicant’s relevant experience, interest in clinical supervision and an explanation of how the position fits with the applicant’s professional goals

Ø  Resume

Ø  Writing sample of 10-15 pages

Ø  Three letters of recommendation mailed directly to the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy from the author

 

Complete applications must be received by January 8th, 2010. 

 

Please send all materials to:

 

Roxanne Hill

Clinic Director Applications

Center for Juvenile Law and Policy

Loyola Law School

919 Albany Street

Los Angeles, CA 90015

[email protected]

Legal Aid Groups Reap Tobacco Settlement Windfall

by Petra Pasternak, The Recorder

Christmas has come early for California's legal aid organizations.

This month, $40 million is going out to more than 100 nonprofits and charities across the state from money left over in a class action settlement with makers of chewing tobacco.

The money -- in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars -- will help local legal groups avoid cutting services and jobs as they struggle through the recession.

A check for $800,000 arrived at the San Francisco office of California Rural Legal Assistance about a week ago. Jose Padilla, its executive director, said CRLA was bracing for a shortage of about half a million dollars next year in its $13 million program, thanks to uncertainty about federal and state funding. The cy pres money will save the organization from having to cut pay by 7 percent through furloughs, or laying off six to eight of its 60 lawyers. "This is a godsend," Padilla said.

The Asian Law Caucus ran at a surplus last year, but this year fundraising for its $2 million budget is below expectations, said Executive Director Mina Liu. The $400,000 it received Tuesday "will change the conversation" at its board meeting in November. Liu said that, had the money not come in, the legal aid organization would have been discussing cutting services in some harder-to-reach parts of California, including several hundred underserved clients in the Central Valley. The money gives her confidence to go ahead with the two hires, including an attorney, to deal with increased demand for housing and elder law services. "A lot of the issue is cash flow, as opposed to where we are in terms of income and expenses," Liu said. "Cy pres boosts the cash reserves so that we know we can be a little bit more aggressive in terms of program development."

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles ended last year in a deficit, according to Executive Director Silvia Argueta. After cuts in travel and training and a hiring freeze, the organization is close to its $15 million budget this year. Argueta said the $700,000 in cy pres money received last week will allow the nonprofit to consider hiring a lawyer for housing work and an intake screener for domestic violence complaints. "We were going to reduce some services, including foreclosure counseling," Argueta said. "Some of our grants are ending for that work."

The Bar Association of San Francisco's Volunteer Legal Services Program received its check for $500,000 last week. The organization is planning furloughs that will cost staff between 5 and 10 percent of their salaries in 2010. "Thanks to this money, we will be able to forestall anything more drastic than that," VLSP Executive Director Tiela Chalmers said.

To read the rest of the article, go to: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202434993401&rss=newswire

NEWSLETTER DEADLINE

Two Weeks Until Newsletter Deadline

 

I'm sending another reminder to send information for the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education fall 2009 newsletter.   The deadline for submissions is Monday, November 16.  Please send submissions by e-mail to [email protected]. 

Send:

1)information about the 2010 Annual Meeting and any events during that meeting

2)Section committee reports

3) information about your programs - cases, students, etc.

4)promotions, transfers, new hires, etc.

5)publications by clinicians

6)information from CLEA or other kindred organizations

7)information about conferences or meetings of interest to clinicians

8)announcements

9)jobs

10)Anything else of interest to clinicians

When possible, include a digital photo so we can attach faces to your names.

The newsletter is sent to everyone who is up-to-date in their dues in 2008 or 2009 so make sure your dues are paid (check the clinic database located at http://cgi2.www.law.umich.edu/_GCLE/Index.asp 

Please do NOT send items over three pages in length without checking with me; I reserve the right to cut anything that is too lengthy.  Please do not send long press releases - if you can, distill information so we can read about everyone's programs.

 

Seeking New Newsletter Editor

I am reproducing the announcement about seeking a new editor below; we have heard from a couple of people who might be interested, but if anyone else is interested this is a good time to let us know. 

 

I have been newsletter editor for over nine years and feel a need to step down.  The Section is developing an electronic communication platform and it would be great if someone with an interest in electronic communication might take over as newsletter editor.  If you are interested or willing to serve this need, please contact me (Kim O'Leary) or the Section chair, Carol Suzuki ([email protected]) to express your willingness to serve. 

 

Kimberly E. O'Leary
Thomas Cooley Law School
300 S. Capitol Ave.
Lansing, MI 48933
517-371-5140, x2626

Conference in London: "REGULATING AND DEREGULATING LAWYERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY"

             CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS          

      "REGULATING AND DEREGULATING LAWYERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY"

                          London, England                      

                          June 3 & 4, 2010                      

     The University of London's Institute of Advanced Legal 

     Studies (IALS), the University of Westminster School of 

     Law, and the Cleveland State University College of Law are 

     holding a conference on "Regulating and Deregulating 

     Lawyers in the 21st Century" June 3 & 4, 2010 at the IALS.  

     This announcement invites paper submissions from 

     individuals interested in contributing to this debate. It 

     is anticipated that papers and presentations will be 

     published subsequent to the meeting. 

     FURTHER INFORMATION:

     For further information interested individuals should 

     contact:

     CONTACT:       David Barnhizer

     Email:         MAILTO:[email protected]

     Tel:           216-687-2315

     CONTACT:       Avrom Sherr

     Email:         MAILTO:[email protected]

     Tel:           +44-207 862 5859

     CONTACT:       Andrew Boon

     Email:         MAILTO:[email protected]

     Tel:           +0207 911 5153

     OVERVIEW:

     Contextual critiques of the current situation are welcome, 

     with a primary focus on trends impacting legal professions 

     in the US and UK, and strategies for improved regulatory 

     approaches (including deregulation) in the US, UK and 

     Canada. The aim is concrete discussions of strategies for 

     effective regulation and deregulation in the numerous and 

     distinct economic and client-varied modes of law practice.  

     Issues include the failure of self-regulation, controlling 

     the numbers of lawyers, revising rules on the unauthorized 

     practice of law, consumer protections aimed at creating 

     incentives for lawyers to provide improved service to their 

     clients through the potential for liability, and removal of 

     inappropriate entry barriers.

     The structural transformation of legal practice in the 

     corporate hemisphere and elsewhere is more advanced in the 

     UK than in the US. This includes multi-disciplinary law 

     practice and a push to list law firms on the stock exchange 

     as some law firms in Australia started a few years ago.  

     The Smedley Report from the UK's Law Society considers the 

     problems of regulating such practices when there are 

     already serious regulatory failures in the other areas that 

     will be combined into multi-disciplinary practices.

     Expected total meeting size: 60-75 participants.

     Abstracts by 30th March 2010; Papers by 31st May 2010.  

     Publication in a planned book and journals emanating from 

     the conference. 

SSRN: Schrag on Public Interest Lawyers

"Why Would Anyone Want to be a Public Interest Lawyer?" 

PHILIP G. SCHRAG, Georgetown University - Law Center
Email: [email protected]

This is the inaugural address for the Delaney Family Professorship in Public Interest Law at Georgetown University Law Center. It elaborates ten reasons why law graduates might want to enter into long-term careers as public interest lawyers.

GAO slides on the cost of law school and on diversity

from Poverty Law by Ezra Rosser

An interesting GAO “report,” really a collection of slides, some quite good, on law school cost and diversity: GAO, Higher Education: Issues Related to Law School Cost and Access, Oct. 2009.

A NEW JOURNAL REVIEWING RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Welcome to Jotwell

November 2nd, 2009 | Michael Froomkin | Jotwell | Add a comment

Welcome to Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots). Here you will find leading academics and practitioners providing short reviews of recent scholarship related to the law that the reviewer likes and thinks deserves a wide audience.

Jotwell is a special type of law review housed on a set of inter-linked blogs. As a law review, Jotwell has only one mission: to bring to readers’ attention great recent scholarship related to the law. As a blog we invite your comments, and hope that some of our reviews will spark a conversation.

On the Jotwell main page you should expect new content once or twice a week, although as we add more sections contributions may become more frequent. Each of the subject-specific sections will have something new at least once a month. In any case, every time a new review appears in any of the subject-specific sections, an excerpt with a link to the full text will also appear here on our front page at http://jotwell.com.

There are three ways to read Jotwell.

1. You can visit this page, the main Jotwell site, which aggregates all the sections; or you can sample just the sections you like, choosing from the list in the right column.
2. If you use a newsreader, you can sign up for the RSS feed for the main Jotwell section, or select among the feeds for the subject sections by choosing the link to the RSS feed found in each section.
3. Or, if you prefer to get your updates by e-mail, you can click here to request a message every time we have new article, or click on the email link found in every subject section for a more tailored, and less frequent, reminder.

Please send your comments and suggestions, and do feel free to comment on the articles as well. We hope you will make Jotwell part of your regular reading and that you will find things you like (lots).

It's Ranking Time Again -- Here's CLEA's Statement on the Issue

CLEA’S STATEMENT ON LAW SCHOOL CLINICAL PROGRAM RANKINGS

The Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) issues this statement because the US News & World Report ranking elections are upon us.  Many of those who receive ballots in their capacity as clinical directors or faculty members find this ranking process very uncomfortable. There are a number of problems with the ranking of clinical programs, not the least of which is that it pits us in competition with each other, when we as a group see ourselves on the same team in a shared struggle for social justice, equity, and improved legal education. Second, there are no articulated factors for ranking clinical programs, so to a degree the voting is a bit of a popularity contest.  Third, some schools unfairly suffer because they do not have the budget or the support of their administration to produce and mail clinic brochures, or to send their clinic faculty to annual conferences.

            While we might wish the rankings would disappear or hope for collective action, the USN&WR rankings are likely here to stay and this year's clinical program ballots will soon be sent out. So, what can we as faculty who teach clinics do?  CLEA, acting on the recommendation of its Rankings Committee (Michael Pinard, Bob Kuehn, Karen Lash, Carolyn Grose, Margaret Johnson, and Karen Tokarz), urges those ranking clinical programs to focus on key factors such as the range and quality of clinical curricular offerings available to students, the law school's security of position, academic freedom, and governance rights for faculty who teach clinics, and the extent to which the school has fulfilled the goal of diversity in hiring for clinical positions with long-term security.

            The five principles identified in the AALS Task Force on Clinicians in the Academy provide helpful guideposts for ranking.  That Taskforce Report sets forth five fundamental principles that are essential for every law school to recognize and apply: (1) to end the marginalization of clinical legal education within the academy; (2) to recognize that clinical legal education is vital to the academy's goal of ensuring that law students develop as effective thinkers and practitioners and are instilled with the ethical and social dimensions of the profession; (3) to provide for security in position and academic freedom for faculty who teach clinics; (4) to provide compensation and resources for faculty who teach clinics equal to those received by non-clinical faculty so that those who teach clinics may fulfill the multi-faceted requirements of their unique positions and so that schools may recruit and retain excellent educators and develop outstanding clinical programs; and (5) to provide equal governance rights for faculty who teach clinics to ensure that the legal academy meets its societal obligation to educate for the professional development of the whole student, develops curricula that is comprehensive, integrated, innovative and relevant, and secures clinical legal education's indispensable role within the academy. 

            Beyond the issue of how to handle this year's ballots, CLEA believes that the issue of clinical program rankings and of infusing clinical education more into the equation (and balloting) for overall school rankings are topics worthy of continued conversation and strategizing and welcomes further ideas and input on these issues.