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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

Assessments Requiring Reading Statutes Not Covered In Class:Lessons I Learned

Posted on June 03, 2008
I teach the second half of a year-long first-year civil procedure class. We spend the semester reading and interpreting the Fed. R. of Civ. P. Throughout the semester, I give the students hypothetical questions that require them to read and interpret the applicable Federal Rules...

Best Practices and the Formation of Professional Identity

Posted on June 02, 2008
The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility held the 34th Annual Conference on Professional Responsibility this past week in Boston Massachusetts. The program included a presentation entitled “Teaching Ethics and Professional Development: Legal Education at a Crossroads...

Want to Contribute to a Book on Law Teaching and Learning?

Posted on May 30, 2008
The Center for Engaged Learning in the Law (CELL) of Elon Law School plans to publish a short book on law teaching and learning this fall with the Carolina Academic Press. The goal of the book is to provide a handy and concise reference guide from the perspectives of practitioners, students and teachers...

Creating a Cohort

Posted on May 30, 2008
On May 16, the day before they crossed the podium in cap and gown, 13 law students were sworn in as members of the New Hampshire Bar. None of them had taken the traditional bar exam. All of them had participated in an intensive two-year bar preparation course as part of their enrollment in the [...

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Family Law Education Reform Project

Posted on May 29, 2008
More synchronicity in the slow but steady march to transform legal education. This email floated across the family law list serve. This is an exciting project! Dear Colleagues:We are pleased to announce a new initiative to help us address the integration of family law and family practice in the classroom...

Team Based Learning

Posted on May 23, 2008
Ever hit snags when having students work in small groups? Student evaluations often tell the story: Best thing about this class: Small group work!!!! Worst thing about this class: Small groups!! I’ve always felt bad for the students who hate small groups...

Using a text book with Best Practices in mind

Posted on May 22, 2008
When was the last time you had to read a case book in a subject you knew nothing about? If it’s been a while, I recommend you try it. Multiply that experience by four. Add to that experience the practice of daily carrying 20 pounds of dead weight...

University-wide Re-accreditation as a Catalyst for Best Practices

Posted on May 20, 2008
Law schools that are units within a larger university structure will be a part of the university-wide re-accreditation process. It is not unlike the ABA re-accreditation process. It involves a self-study, standards, a site visit and a report. The academic enterprise of a university is so complex that the process may involve multiple years [...

Faculty Hiring and Best Practices

Posted on May 20, 2008
As one academic year winds down, plans are already being made for next year’s faculty hiring. What does that have to do with Best Practices? One could argue that to implement the vision of the Carnegie Report and Best Practices law schools should only hire applicants who have practiced law for at least a decade and have become “masters” [...

Meet minimum competencies to pass a course?

Posted on May 20, 2008
Identifying rules. Analyzing and synthesizing authorities. Applying them to facts. Organizing coherently. Using accurate punctuation and grammar. Citing to authority. We tell students that all of these are important in legal writing classes, but in all honesty, we show a different message...

Intercultural Communication, Cultural Knowledge and Self-Awareness

Posted on May 09, 2008
Several of the sessions at the recent AALS clinical conference in Tucson raised issues that involve what many call cultural competence. (EXCELLENT CONFERENCE, by the way). All agreed that these issues are very difficult to address. I have an article coming out in the Wash...

Using Standardized Clients in a Classroom Course

Posted on April 30, 2008
As part of the joint project with the UNM medical school that I described in earlier blogs, we used standardized clients in my Family Law course the same way standardized patients were used at the Medical School, as a potential tool of assessment. I am now thinking about using them again next year in [...

Worst Practices in Legal Education

Posted on April 25, 2008
I got the idea for this blog post from Chuck Weisselberg. We all feel unworthy sometimes to tout what we do as BEST Practices. It?s probably easier to name the poor practices of legal education. So here?s the beginning of my pet peeves : 1) Acceptance of law professors who disparage and show immense disdain [...

Insights From Legal Writing Prof

Posted on April 23, 2008
As I was frantically trying to clear out my emails to stay under my disk quota, I ran across an email sent to the faculty by Barbara Blumenfeld, our Legal Research and Writing Director. I had saved it because I liked it. I thought it could use a broader audience so I asked [...

What Does Competency Look Like?

Posted on April 21, 2008
Lately, I find myself asking myself a question right before teaching some material, “What does competency look like in this subject area?” I ask this in part because of student statements about the opaqueness of legal ed — that they do not know what we want them to be learning, exactly...

A Colleague?s Thoughts on Curricular Planning

Posted on April 20, 2008
As we have been working on curricular planning, one of my colleagues, Laura Gomez could not attend an early meeting (I think she was at a book signing or her son’s field trip or something). With her permission, I am posting her thoughts: Initially I’d like to thank Suellyn for turning our attention to the Carnegie [...

Curricular Planning and Educational Outcomes

Posted on April 12, 2008
As I said in my last post, the Best Practices book suggests that a law school?s curriculum should ?achieve congruence in its program of instruction?. Congruence requires that law schools harmonize educational programs with mission; curriculum with educational outcomes, and instructional objectives with curriculum (p...

What Makes a Good Law Professor: A Student Perspective

Posted on March 31, 2008
As a recent graduate (< 1 year) of Albany Law School, and a current Graduate Fellow in the Albany Law School Clinic, I?ve had the unique opportunity to be on both sides of the legal education fence. Recent conversations with both doctrinal and clinical professors regarding the student experience in law school has made it [...

What Do the Best Law Teachers Do?

Posted on March 26, 2008
Recently, Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz from Washburn University School of Law, and a contributor to this blog, sent me the following email: Dear Colleagues, I am in search of the best law teachers in this country, and I could use your help...

Curricular Planning and Mission

Posted on March 21, 2008
Warren Binford, Annette Appel and I are leading a concurrent session at the AALS Clinical Conference in Tucson this May. Our session is entitled ?Strategic Planning: Learning From Our Mistakes and Growing From Our Experiments.? We are planning to engage the audience in some strategic planning techniques...

Building on Strengths: University of Denver Sturm College of Law and Best Practices

Posted on March 14, 2008
The University of Denver, Sturm College of Law is using some of its faculty lunch series to think about and talk about the Carnegie Report and Best Practices. I spoke at a faculty lunch on March 12 about Best Practices. I asked the organizer, Laura Rovner, in advance of the presentation about whether I should [...

Washington and Lee Embarks on a New Third Year Curriculum: Embraces the Carnegie Report and Best Practices

Posted on March 07, 2008
Washington and Lee University School of Law is dramatically changing its curriculum by creating a new third year curriculum devoted to professional development through simulated and real-client practice experiential learning. Influenced by the Carnegie Report, Educating Lawyers, and Best Practices for Legal Education, the new third year curriculum integrates legal theory, doctrine and the [...

Requiring Midterm Assessments in First-Year Courses

Posted on March 06, 2008
Maybe this is already well-known, but (without conceding that paper-and-pencil exams of any sort necessarily constitute useful assessment of integrated legal skills and knowledge), I thought it was a slightly encouraging example of movement on the assessment front...

Adaptive Learning Environments: Interactive Outlining?

Posted on February 28, 2008
After recently having numerous discussions with teachers and students about the value of students outlining a course, one thing is clear – the age-old practice of outling is thriving. One thing that is not as clear is the value of a practice that does not involve any teacher-student interaction...

International Conference on the Future of Legal Education: Update and Report

Posted on February 27, 2008
The International Conference on the Future of Legal Education was held recently, Feb. 20-23, and it was the most comprehensive look to date concerning new initiatives in legal education around the world. The materials from the conference are available at http://law...

Future of Legal Education Conference

Posted on February 22, 2008
If you were uable to attend this conference, you can view the PowerPoint slides from a Presentation by Paul Maharq and Liz Li: | View | Upload your own Here’s more about the conference: Paul’s Blog: http://zeugma.typepad.com/zeugma/2008/02/the-future-of-l...

March 4th: Formative Feedback Day in America

Posted on February 20, 2008
I was asked in a comment to my last post on formative feedback, How are we going to motivate teachers to do the extra work required to give such feedback? The answer is to show how learning increases if formative feedback is a regular part of the educational process...

Adaptive Learning Environments

Posted on February 20, 2008
The theme of the CALI conference this year is transforming legal education, picking up on the Best Practices theme and the Carnegie Foundation Report, Educating Lawyers. One area where the horse already has left the barn involves learning environments...

Externships ? A Bridge to Practice

Posted on February 20, 2008
I just returned from an excellent conference: Externships 4 ? A Bridge to Practice. This was the fourth in a series of national conferences by and for law school externship program faculty. The theme of this conference was ?challenging faculty and administrators to consider the role of externships in the curriculum in light of the [...

RFP: Best Practices Conference at the University of Washington

Posted on February 20, 2008
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS ? DEADLINE MAY 15, 2008 Legal Education at the Crossroads Ideas to Accomplishments: Sharing New Ideas for an Integrated Curriculum Friday, September 5, 5-9 p.m. Saturday, September 6, 9 a.m. ? 4 p.m. Sunday, September 7, 9 a.m...

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