clinicians with not enough to do

Join, Renew and Get Involved in SALT

We are recruiting SALT members to get involved in the work of the organization. SALT’s vitality requires your talent, expertise, and geography. When you read about the work of the Equal Opportunity, Issues in Legal Education, Human Rights, Academic Freedom, or LBGT committees, have you got some ideas that you would like to share? Is your law school doing something particularly effective that begs to be broadcasted and replicated? Are you ready to engage in work that will further social justice, equity and equality, and academic excellence on a national scale?

Take a moment to browse the saltlaw.org website to learn more about SALT at Work. First, review “SALT at Work” on the left-hand menu to see what SALT committees have been up to this year.  Then by clicking on “About Us,” you’ll find the composition of the current SALT committees.  Of course, in January 2010, when Raquel Aldana and Steve Bender take the reins as co-presidents, and new board members join while others retire, these committees will change. 

That’s why it’s a perfect time to consider where you want to commit your efforts. 

And by the way, have you renewed your membership?  Renew on line.  

Institute for Law Teaching Info

Colleagues,

 

We are writing to send you a link--http://lawteaching.org/lawteacher/2009fall/lawteacher2009fall.pdf -- to The Law Teacher, a publication of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning. The Law Teacher publishes short articles and other materials focusing on law school teaching, learning, and curriculum.

 

In particular, we call your attention to two upcoming teaching conferences.  On page 14, we describe the April “Teaching for Engaged Learning” conference, co-sponsored by the Institute and the Center for Engaged Learning in the Law.  The conference will be held at Elon University School of Law.  On page 20, we present a Call for Proposals for the Annual Summer Conference of the Institute.  The theme of this year’s conference is “Teaching Law Practice Across the Curriculum.”  The conference will be held June 16-18, 2010 at Washburn University School of Law. 

 

We’d appreciate your help in distributing The Law Teacher.  Please send this link to full-time and adjunct faculty members at your schools. If you already have received The Law Teacher from a colleague, please accept our apologies.

 

We welcome your feedback and hope you find this issue useful and interesting.

 

~Gerry and Mike                                                                                                                                

Professors Gerald Hess and Michael Hunter Schwartz                                                                                 

Co-Directors, Institute for Law Teaching and Learning                                                        

Washburn University School of Law

Gonzaga University School of Law

JOBS: Stanford Criminal Defense

Stanford Law School’s Mills Legal Clinic

Director of Criminal Defense Clinic

 

Stanford Law School’s Mills Legal Clinic invites applications for the position of Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic (CDC).  The appointment will begin for the 2009-2010 academic year.

 

The CDC is one of ten clinical programs making up the Mills Legal Clinic.  The CDC provides students opportunities to work as lawyers on behalf of criminal defendants under the close supervision of the CDC director and an additional supervising attorney.

 

At this time the CDC focuses on representing inmates serving life sentences for minor third offenses under California’s “Three Strikes” sentencing regime.  This work includes direct appeals in state courts, state habeas corpus proceedings, and federal habeas litigation.  The CDC also represents some clients during the sentencing proceedings themselves, usually when the CDC has previously succeeded in securing a new sentencing hearing for the client.

 

As we approach hiring a new director we are committed to maintaining this Three Strikes project, but we are also open to considering new additional directions for the CDC’s work.

 

Duties of the CDC Director include: direct supervision of Stanford law students, management of projects and clients; supervision and collaboration with the clinical fellow (or attorney-supervisor) and staff; teaching the clinical seminar; collaborating with clinical and other faculty at the Law School; assisting in the development of additional resources; participating in faculty governance at the Law School; and acting as liaison with the public and the Law School community.  The CDC Director will also be expected to produce published work in a relevant subject area or areas.

 

We expect that the appointment as Director of the CDC will be accompanied, depending on experience, by either an appointment as a Professor of Law within the Law School’s clinical-tenure structure or by an appointment as an Associate Professor of Law on track to clinical tenure. 

 

We seek candidates with distinguished practice experience and strong commitment to clinical education. Applicants must have at least five years experience in criminal-defense work and should have an academic record that demonstrates the capacity to be an active participant in the Law School’s academic community and the national criminal-defense and clinical-education communities.  Applicants must also have either demonstrated excellence in clinical teaching  (or the supervision of law students) or must demonstrate the potential for such excellence in teaching or supervision.

 

The applicant must either be a member of the California State Bar, or be willing to take the examination necessary for admission within one year of the commencement of employment.  Stanford University is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity.

 

Interested applicants should send a cover letter and resume (with at least three references) by mail or e-mail to: Professor Lawrence Marshall, Associate Dean for Clinical Education, Stanford Law School, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA 94305.  Email: [email protected]

 

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled but applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their materials by December 31, 2009.

Externship Website

If you are new to externships or returning to them after being away, I would like to invite you to check out the website created for faculty and administrators of externship programs, LexternWeb.  Visit http://www.law.cua.edu/lexternWeb/index.htm for links to all law school externship webpages, materials, and more.  Also, you can subscribe to the Lextern listserv from the site and join 282 other teachers and administrators of legal externship programs in sustained dialogue about externships.  For more information, please contact me:

J.P. "Sandy" Ogilvy,

Director, CUA Innocence Project Clinic

Director, Law & Social Justice Initiatives ,

Director, National Archive of Clinical Legal Education, and

Ordinary Professor of Law

Columbus School of Law

The Catholic University of America

Cardinal Station

Washington, DC  20064

tel: 202.319.6195

fax: 202.319.4459

email: [email protected]

Poverty Law Newsletter

For the law professor audience: 2009 Poverty Law Prof Newsletter

from Poverty Law by Ezra Rosser

It’s time for the 2009 edition of the Poverty Law Newsletter.  Please let me have your news items by Friday, December 11.  If you would like to be included, tell me which category(ies), listed below, the entries go in.  Format your entries by starting with your name in bold and your school in parentheses.  If you refer to someone else (eg, a co-author), please do the same for their names.

Categories:

• Upcoming Conferences
• Books and Book Updates
• Articles and Other Publications
• Speeches and Presentations
• Legislative and Regulatory Activities
• Personal Notes

For inclusion in the newsletter, please email me directly at [email protected].

It’s time for the 2009 edition of the Poverty Law Newsletter.  Please let me have your news items by Friday, December 11.  If you would like to be included, tell me which category(ies), listed below, the entries go in.  Format your entries by starting with your name in bold and your school in parentheses.  If you refer to someone else (eg, a co-author), please do the same for their names.

Categories:

• Upcoming Conferences
• Books and Book Updates
• Articles and Other Publications
• Speeches and Presentations
• Legislative and Regulatory Activities
• Personal Notes

For inclusion in the newsletter, please email me directly at [email protected].

The Bluebook publishes online "cheat-sheet"

Legal Writing Prof Blog

The consortium of law reviews that publish the Bluebook has just launched a website called "Blue Tips" that serves as a "cheat-sheet," or FAQ if you prefer, for many commonly asked Bluebook questions.  The following topics are covered:

Cases

Citation Structure

Cross-References

Miscellany

Periodicals

Punctuation

Quotations

Signals

Statutes

Subdivisions

Further, the Bluebook editors invite questions from readers that may become additional tips if the answers are of general interest: 

The editors provide authoritative guidance to reasonable questions on subjects covered by The Bluebook. The most useful answers are gathered here as Blue Tips, classified by subject. These tips are searchable and linked to the Bluebook content they address. Send your questions to [email protected]. If our answer is useful to Bluebookers generally, it may be formulated into a new tip, below.

A big hat tip to our good buddies at the Law Librarian Blog.  If you're not already subscribing to this one, you need to as it provides the best coverage on issues related to legal research, information management and social media in law school.

New Study Examines How Law Schools "Adapt" to U.S News Rankings

Law Librarian Blog

The Law School Admissions Council sent out its most recent monthly LSAC report series to the Libraries of LSAC member schools.  The most interesting one of the bunch is Fear of Failing:  the Effects of U.S. News & World Report Rankings on U.S. Law Schools, by Michael Sauder, and Wendy Espeland.  Love 'em or hate 'em, the rankings are a fact of life for law schools.  This report looks at the effect of the USN rankings on legal education, and it's not peripheral.

From the Executive Summary:

One general effect of the USN rankings on law schools is that it has created pressure on law school administrators to redistribute resources in ways that maximize their scores on the criteria used by USN to create the rankings, even if they are skeptical that this is a productive use of these resources. This redistribution is illustrated by two examples mentioned consistently by the administrators interviewed: (a) increases in marketing expenditures aimed toward raising reputation scores in the USN survey and (b) increases in merit scholarships intended to improve the statistical profile of incoming classes. A more subtle form of resource redistribution is also described in this section: the adoption of strategies by some schools to “game” the rankings.

Some forms of this redistribution comes in the forms of brochures and other publications designed to enhance a school's reputation, which is a full 40% of the ranking.  Many administrators acknowledge that many these enhancing publications are probably not read before being recycled (go green!), but peer pressure makes them spend upwards of $100,000 to produce and distribute these publications anyway.  Library volume count, by the way, represents 0.75% of the weight of an over all score.  That explains much more as to why academic law libraries are hardly ever enhanced with an eye to the rankings.

Schools game the system by giving out financial aid to students with high LSAT scores as a way of bringing in a higher quality metric to the entering class and student body as a whole.  Some schools create part-time or probationary programs to keep the academically weaker students off the books.  Student quality (LSAT, GPA) is 12.5% of the full ranking.  Things such as need-based scholarships, enhancements to programs, improved quality to areas of the school not affecting the rankings all tend to take a back seat at the most rankings-obsessed schools.  The pressure on admissions and career services offices is tremendous.  Schools put up with it because potential students do take rankings seriously.  Rankings even affects faculty recruitment and the ability of faculty to publish in quality journals.  While none of this is a surprise, the report is a nice compilation of how schools have adapted their budgets and practices to account for their survey information.  There is also a nice table that breaks down the ranking standards and weights.

The report is available on the LSAC site.  Because of the way the site is constructed, there is no direct URL.  However, anyone interested in finding it should start at the main LSAC page, click on Research Data from the menu bar running across the top of the screen, roll over the graphic for Research and select Grant Reports.  The report should be available from the page that comes up.  It's numbered GR-07-02.  [MG]

Vote for CWNETD!

Dear Blawgger,

As proprietor of one of the more than 2,500 blawgs in the ABA Journal's online directory, we thought you'd want to know that our annual Blawg 100 list was published today.

Now the real fun begins. We've invited our readers to vote for their favorite blogs from among the top 100 in each of 10 categories. Voting ends December 31. Winners will be featured in the February issue of the Journal.

Every year, the list has occasioned great debate about the state of the blawgosphere, terrific legal blogs that didn't make the list, and how lawyers can benefit from the news and analysis being produced online every day by their colleagues nationwide. Indeed, the debate that occurs on blawgs like yours has done as much to promote the legal profession's engagement with new media as the Blawg 100 list itself.

So we invite you to point your readers to the Blawg 100 and continue contributing to that conversation.

Thank you for the news and analysis you provide the legal community on your blog.

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.