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Best Practices For Legal Education

Source of information on current reforms in legal education arising from the publication of Roy Stuckey’s Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers.
By Mary Lynch, Editor

Post Frequency: 1/day

Last Entry: July 19, 2010 at 23:07:04

ABA STANDARDS REVIEW CONTINUES TO SPARK ROBUST DISCUSSION AND STRONG COMMENTS

Posted on July 19, 2010
As mentioned in an earlier post, the next ABA Standards Review Committee meeting will be held in Chicago on July 24th and 25th at the Conrad Chicago in the Magnolia Ballroom, Salon A and B. ( If you are interested in attending, contact Charlotte ?Becky? Stretch at StretchC@staff...

New Casebooks Focus on the Practical

Posted on July 16, 2010
By: Sarah Ricks and Evelyn Tenenbaum Many law teachers are eager to implement the ideas in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) and in the Carnegie Foundation?s Educating Lawyers (2007). But traditional casebooks are not focused on helping students to develop practice skills and professional identities – as the Carnegie Report recommends...

What constitutes ?substantial opportunities??

Posted on July 12, 2010
Recent posts discuss the proposed new Learning Outcomes implications for clinical offerings. There is concern about the move from the original language requiring ?substantial instruction in professional skills? to requiring that ?every student? complete ?at least?one appropriately supervised learning experience? mandated in the proposed new Standard 303...

FOR JULY ABA MEETING: CLEA CONCLUDES PROPOSED ACCREDITATION REVISIONS ?DIMINISHES LEGAL EDUCATION?

Posted on July 12, 2010
The ABA Committee examining the review of accreditation standards next meets in Chicago July 24-25 to continue its development of outcome measures standards and to begin its consideration of amending or deleting the security of position provisions in Standard 405(c)...

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The Eighth International Clinical Legal Education Conference, July 7-9, 2010

Posted on July 02, 2010
The Eighth International Clinical Legal Education Conference will be held at Northumbria University Law School, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, July 7-9, 2010. The Conference will explore the role of clinical legal education in modern law schools. Professor Paul Maharg (formerly of the University of Strathclyde and now on Northumbria Law School faculty), author of [...

Beyond the Case Method

Posted on July 01, 2010
Harvard Law School has begun teaching a course on practical skills, creative thinking and excercising judgment for their 1L students called The Problem Solving Workshop. The course is designed to take students through an entire case, from the first time the client walks into the office, to the resolution...

AALS? Caution Regarding Outcomes Unpersuasive

Posted on June 11, 2010
The AALS recently commented on potential revisions to the Standards for Accreditation of Law Schools that are currently under development by the ABA?s Standards Review Committee. In its letter to the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the AALS doubts that reliable and valid outcome measures have been documented to exist and [...

Study Suggests that Success in Skills Means Success in Law School

Posted on June 10, 2010
By: Professors Jenean Taranto and Rosemary Queenan Among different academic variables, a student?s ?Lawyering Skills Grade? is ?the strongest predictor of law school success.? That is the conclusion Leah M. Christensen, Associate Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, reached in her article ?The Power of Skills Training: A Study of Lawyering Skills [...

AALS Sends Letter to ABA Urging Adoption of 3 Principles

Posted on June 10, 2010
On June 1, 2010, the President of the AALS, H. Reese Hansen, wrote to the Consultant on Legal Education of the ABA’s Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar concerning the ABA’s two year review of the law school accreditation standards...

Upcoming Dates for Standards Review Committee

Posted on June 08, 2010
The following locations have been confirmed for the next two Standards Review Committee Meetings. July 24-25, 2010 Conrad Chicago 521 North Rush Street Chicago, IL 60611 The times for the meeting, which are subject to change, are: July 24: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p...

ABA Curriculum Survey Coming!

Posted on May 24, 2010
Catherine Carpenter is chairing the ABA Curriculum Committee, which is gearing up for an update of its 5 year old curriculum survey. Last time the major curricular change was the increase in the number of clinical programs. It will be interesting to see how law school offerings have changed in the last five years and [...

Infusing Best Practices Into an Immigration Law Clinic, or Rubrics and Competencies Needn?t be Feared

Posted on May 24, 2010
In the Immigration Clinic at Southern New England (shortly UMass School of Law ? Dartmouth), which is reverting to a full-year curriculum after two years of experimenting with a single semester, I have been trying to adjust the curriculum to implement several of the principles embodied in Best Practices...

Membership and Outreach Committee Mentoring Program

Posted on May 24, 2010
As many of you are aware, the Membership and Outreach Committee is implementing a mentoring program for clinicians who want guidance and expertise from an understanding colleague. This program is designed to:Assist new clinicians with the transition to clinical teaching; Support clinicians at any level of professional development who are at a transition point with [...

What Makes a Law School ?Effective?? Research on Outcomes

Posted on May 24, 2010
By Larry Krieger With regard to the current discussion of improving curricula and pedagogy in law schools, it might be worth seeing our article (with Kennon Sheldon, Ph.D) in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007: Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory (Law and SDT)...

Clinical Law Review?s Clinical Writers? Workshop ? Deadline June 2nd!!

Posted on May 18, 2010
Clinical Law Review’s Clinical Writers’ Workshop Workshop on October 2-3, 2010 at N.Y.U. School of Law Registration Deadline: June 2, 2010 The Clinical Law Review will hold its third Clinical Writers’ Workshop on the afternoon of Saturday, October 2, and the morning of Sunday, October 3, at NYU Law School...

Experiential Learning: The Louisiana Senate Bill 549 Attacks Clinical Education

Posted on May 11, 2010
The following is an article that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Clinical law students and the Louisiana citizens who benefit from their good work are getting an education on the political process. The Clinical Legal Education Association has written a letter to express concern over the bill...

Law Schools Could Take a Hint From Medical Schools on Curriculum Reform

Posted on April 30, 2010
The following was supplied by Sarah E. Ricks, Clinical Professor and Co-Director, Pro Bono Research Project, Rutgers School of Law – Camden: By Katherine Mangan Phoenix The nation’s legal-education system needs a major overhaul so that students graduating with more than $100,000 in debt can find jobs in a shrinking market and graduate ready to practice...

Video from 12th Annual Professor?s Workshop Now Available

Posted on April 27, 2010
The one and a half hour video recording of the 12th Annual Professors? Workshop, Curriculum Adaptation: Teaching Environmental Law in an Era of Climate Change and Other Global Challenges held at Pace Law on February 19, 2010 is now available!?Click here and the link to the video will be at the bottom of the page...

Using Innovative Teaching Materials

Posted on April 26, 2010
Here is a recent entry on the Law School Innovation blog dealing with teaching materials. It is a reminder of one of the barriers to implementing best practices. This is particularly relevant to encouraging newer colleagues to incorporate best practices...

News from the AALS Clinical Section

Posted on April 26, 2010
Dear Friends in Clinical Legal Education: I just sent this e-mail out over the AALS communication platform, so I?m sorry if you have received this message twice. I want to make sure that our Section members who are not yet on the platform also get the message...

Diversity In The Legal Profession

Posted on April 22, 2010
Back in June of 2009, an ABA summit was held to address diversity in the legal profession. A final report with recommendations has been released. Professor Margaret Montoya, one member the ABA’s Legal Scholar Team, and professor at University of New Mexico School of Law, has drafted the following summary of the report...

NYT OP ED:

Posted on April 12, 2010
Kudos to the NYT for focusing on the teaching, academic freedom rights and public service mission of law schools and their clinics. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/opinion/12mon3.html?emc=eta1 NYT Editorial “First, They Get Rid of the Law Clinics Published: April 11, 2010 Law school clinics give students real-world experience in advocacy and provide underserved communities with legal representation...

AALS to ABA: Concern over Possibility of Changes to Security of Position

Posted on April 11, 2010
On March 15th, 2010, AALS President H. Reese Hansen and Executive Director Susan Westerberger Prager submitted a letter to the ABA’s Standard Reviews Committee identifying their concern about proposed changes to the accreditation standards for law schools and announcing the formation of a special AALS Advisory Group chaired by GW Professor Thomas G...

ABA Accreditation & Proposed Skills requirement

Posted on April 07, 2010
Professor Barbara Schwartz recently posted this query on a clinic listserv and would like feedback: “I am co-chair of the curriculum committee this year, and we are in the process of finalizing a new mandatory skills requirement to comply with ABA accreditation standards...

Efforts to Reform Legal Education Can be Discouraging

Posted on March 24, 2010
We know that many law schools are engaged in making exciting, forward-looking changes to their curriculums and methods of instruction. Unfortunately, there is clear evidence that some schools are just not interested in improving their programs of instruction and the ABA is not currently interested in forcing them to do so...

The Longitudinal Law School

Posted on March 21, 2010
Participants in the Spring Workshop of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism has spent the past two days discussing how law schools can help students to respond to the economic crisis. One of the exciting presentations from the program was by Fred Rooney of the Community Legal Resources Network of CUNY Law School...

Wegner Dicusses Legal Education, Student Employment, & the Economy

Posted on March 16, 2010
In her new article, Professor Judith Wegner of UNC School of Law, addresses: “the implications of the recent economic downturn, the market for law graduates’ employment, and implications for legal educators. The article disagrees with the premises of a student author who contends that legal education should increase reliance on adjunct faculty and reduce emphasis on [...

Imagine?Learning from Real Life

Posted on March 12, 2010
Students choose to enroll in law school. They arrive on the first day excited to begin learning the law. Unfortunately, most students lose this excitement for learning somewhere on the road to graduation, and instead, turn their interest to actually practicing...

Journal of Legal Education Calls for Third Year Curricular Reform Efforts

Posted on March 02, 2010
Our friends over at the Journal of Legal Education are soliciting examples and articles that relate to Third-year curricular reform efforts. The publishers are looking for information as simple as referrals to websites describing your innovations, or as polished as full journal articles...

My Experiment with teaching Trusts and Estates, Outcomes-Style

Posted on March 01, 2010
For the past two years, I have served on two distinct but related committees having to do with ?the future of legal education.? Here at William Mitchell, I am on the ?Future of Legal Education Task Force,? in which capacity I contributed to writing a lengthy report on ?Outcomes-based education,? portions of which have appeared [...

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