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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

International Perspective on Best Practices Blog

Posted on October 22, 2009
I bet some of you missed the fact that October 5th is World Teachers’ Day. Yeah for us! Rah for the team! The UK’s Centre for Legal Education’s Digital Directions notes that the Best Practices blog is the only blog “focused on legal education as their primary theme...

The Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program

Posted on October 22, 2009
John Burwell Garvey, of Franklin Pierce Law Center and Anne F. Zinkin, of the New Hampshire Supreme Court have published a paper entitled, “Making Law Students Client-Ready: A New Model in Legal Education.” The primary focus of the paper is to detail the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program, which among other advantages, allows successful graduates to bypass the traditional [...

Carrie Kaas and Mary Lynch?s Best Practices Presentation, or NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

Posted on October 16, 2009
Best Practices Presentation Oct. 15, 2009 at So. New England School of Law

Interdisciplinary Collaborative Education in Law Schools

Posted on October 14, 2009
A few weeks ago, we were fortunate to host a group of educators who are interested in interdisciplinary collaborative education in the form of partnerships between law schools and the health professions at a conference held at Georgia State University College of Law...

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Assessment Experiment: Letting Students Teach, Part Deux

Posted on September 18, 2009
As a sequel to the June 16, 2009 blog “Collaboration Experiment,” I wanted to share a great experience one of my students had last semester. I teach a clinic at Albany Law School that handles unemployment insurance cases. We get referrals from a legal aid office under their Private Attorney Involvement initiative and early last [...

ABA Top 100 Blawgs

Posted on September 17, 2009
The ABA Journal is conducting its annual survey to find the Top 100 legal blogs (blawgs). Please take a minute to vote for Best Practices! Your support is very much appreciated. Thanks, The Best Practices Bloggers Posted in Uncategorized

Putting Best Practices Into Practice: Implementing Change One Step at a Time

Posted on September 16, 2009
In 2007, CLEA published Best Practices for Legal Education, which articulated ways to effectively educate law students to leave law school better prepared to practice law responsibly, effectively and ethically. Since, then, Best Practices has been part of the collective conversation about reform in legal education, a conversation evidenced by list serve discussion, [...

Report on Crossroads III ? the Denver Conference

Posted on September 14, 2009
Just back from a fantastic conference on assessment. Check out the great program, including materials and eventually video of the sessions (keep checking the site) http://www.law.du.edu/index.php/assessment-conference/program. Noting the patting self on the back aspect of the following, I must say, we had a fantastic Best Practices Players session...

Externships: The New Economic Indicator?

Posted on September 11, 2009
[From The National Law Journal] The recession makes externships a sweeter deal for students The lousy legal hiring market is encouraging unpaid student work, but deeper forces are also at play. Emily Heller September 7, 2009 Without summer associate programs to rely on, law students are turning to alternate ways of gaining practical experience and making connections that could lead [...

Incorporating Clinical Experiences in Classes

Posted on September 08, 2009
I’ve been thinking about ways of incorporating clinical experiences in doctrinal classes. The importance of this practice has not only been demonstrated by our Best Practices authors and the Carnegie Foundation, but especially by our own observations of our students as they enter clinical courses...

National Law Journal Reports on Carnegie and BP reforms at Duke, UCLA, Dayton and ?..

Posted on September 07, 2009
Duke Law School dean David Levi Image: Jason Doiy UCLA School of Law’s Michael Schill LAW SCHOOLS Reality’s knocking The recession is forcing schools to bow to reality. Karen Sloan September 7, 2009 Washington and Lee University School of Law has thrown out its traditional third-year curriculum and replaced it with a series of legal simulations meant to prepare students [...

First Day

Posted on September 03, 2009
Ah, the first day of law school. The 1Ls are ready to go. Orientation may have fed some of their apprehensions, but it?s also gotten them excited about beginning their law school journey. The returning 2Ls and 3Ls have done a variety of things over the summer...

Upon My Honor

Posted on August 31, 2009
On August 20th, Albany Law School 1L?s filtered into our largest moot courtroom, the nervous excitement of the first week still lingering. Standing before them was Northern District of New York Magistrate Judge, the Honorable Randolph Treece. With Dean Thomas Guernsey at his side, Judge Treece spoke about values like ?honesty? and ?integrity...

TERMINOLOGY AND MEANING: Experiential & Learning & Context-based & Lawyering Role & Structured Supervsion &?..

Posted on August 22, 2009
I think we are at a point in the legal education reform movement, where terminology to identify the complementary but distinguishable kinds of “Experiences” and kinds of “Learning” seems important.(Deborah Maranville, Russell Engler, Sue Kay and I are working on a piece which analyzes some of this…...

Utilizing Best Practices for Formative Assessment in a Trust & Estates Course

Posted on August 05, 2009
The summer months often supply the time, energy, distance (from the inexorable demands of the academic year), and desire to re-envision our courses. A colleague and BP blog author, Carolyn Grose, is engaged in redesigning a Trusts & Estates Course with a focus on using BEST PRACTICES for Assessment...

National Law Journal: Temple Dean JoAnne A. Epps Describes the Current ?Tipping Point? For Law Schools & Her School?s Re-Evaluation of Upper Level Curriculum

Posted on July 28, 2009
As I read Dean JoAnne Epps July 20th National Law Journal?s opinion piece on the call to legal education reform, I am reminded that each one of us understands the themes and threads of this movement differently. These differing threads and themes weave together in rich texture and ultimately strengthen the commitment to reform...

Educating Teachers: On Becoming a Student Again at the Summer Institute for Clinical Teaching

Posted on June 26, 2009
I have just returned from Washington, D.C., where I spent the last week fully immersed in clinical teaching methods at the second Summer Institute for Clinical Teaching at Georgetown University Law Center. There were approximately 25 attendees, many with years of teaching experience, who came from all over the country to engage in four days [...

Ideas from the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Conference

Posted on June 23, 2009
“Implementing Best Practices & Educating Lawyers: Teaching Skills and Professionalism Across the Curriculum (POST 1) Two Favorite Teaching Techniques: The Letter Exercise & Hess?s 3R?s”. Here I am at Gonzaga U, in beautiful Spokane, Washington amidst a group of over 100 thoughtful and experienced law teachers and administrators who truly care about teaching, have studied what [...

Collaboration Experiment: Letting the Students Teach

Posted on June 16, 2009
In response to several inquiries of Albany Law School?s Family Violence Litigation Clinic students concerning tax issues related to separation and divorce, we decided to engage in an experiment that turned out to be a huge success. The Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (”LITC”) and Family Violence Litigation Clinic (”FVLC”) students were asked to prepare and [...

Best Practices and Supreme Court Nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor: the Importance/Impact of Experience & Intercultural Knowledge

Posted on May 31, 2009
As the right and the left examine and attack President Obama?s nominee, Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, we should take a look at her from a ?Best Practices? perspective. Although the focus of Best Practices is the legal academy, its values transfer well to consideration of a Supreme Court nominee...

Roy Stuckey Weighs in on Clinicians? Job Security

Posted on May 26, 2009
The debate about job security and status has been with us continually for over 30 years, and it will be with us for many years to come. There is no most correct answer. I can agree with almost everything that has been written in this [clinic list serv] stream...

The Future of Family Law Education

Posted on May 25, 2009
A family law education conference with topics and demonstrations to enliven your teaching. Friday, June 26-7, 2009 / William Mitchell College of Law / St. Paul, Minnesota Register Today! The Family Law Education Reform Project began a national effort to more closely align family law teaching with family law practice...

Denver to Host Conference on Assessment Next Fall

Posted on May 21, 2009
I am pleased to announce that the University of Denver will be hosting a conference in September focused on Assessment in Legal Education. Here is the opening paragraph for the request for proposals. Check out the RFP and Conference program at: http://law...

An Experiment in Outcomes-Based Education at one Law School

Posted on May 18, 2009
What follows are excerpts from a report presented to the William Mitchell faculty and administration, prepared by the “Future of Legal Education Task Force,” of which I am a member. It’s exciting stuff. We’ll see where it goes ...

THE ROLE OF CRITICAL THEORY SCHOLARSHIP IN BEST PRACTICES

Posted on May 07, 2009
As law schools and law faculty engage in legal education reform, the question arises: What is the role of critical theory or theory-critique? Some of our friends and colleagues in the critical race, feminist, post-feminist and other theory-critique schools may feel left out of the dialogue/teaching initiatives when, in fact, such “theory-critique” skills are an important [...

AALS Steps Forward on Best Practices, Carnegie and LEARN Recommendations

Posted on May 04, 2009
The AALS?s Standing Committee on Curriculum Issues sent an e-mail to law school deans and others last Friday requesting information about ?ways in which law teachers are enriching their classroom teaching by bringing in background materials that go beyond the judicial opinion...

Externship Collaborations

Posted on April 15, 2009
Cost is often cited as an obstacle to providing real experiential learning opportunities. Overcoming those cost barriers will require creativity. That’s one reason I’m so excited about an experiment coming out of the Washington state Access to Justice Board’s ATJ & the Law Schools Committee...

Play, Creativity, Improvisation

Posted on April 10, 2009
Why are play, improvisation, and creativity showing up in so many different conferences and publications these days? And what do they have to do with best practices in legal education? The 2008 AALS Conference in New York included an Open Source presentation on play, and a Clinical Section presentation on improvisation...

If You Build It, They Will Come

Posted on April 09, 2009
I have long believed that alumni will financially support law school programs that are designed to prepare students for practice. I also believe that such programs will give schools an advantage over peer institutions in recruiting students. The experience at Washington & Lee supports my theses...

The Law Teacher

Posted on April 07, 2009
The latest issue of The Law Teacher is out– http://www.washburnlaw.edu/faculty/schwartz-michael-institute/15-2lawteacher(2009).pdf. Several of the articles address topics near and dear to those of us interested in legal eduaction reform. In particular, Harriet Katz’s “Personal Assessment” paper offers an exciting tool for building reflection skills that can be adapted to even the most doctrine-and-theory course you teach...

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