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Deans & Legal Education
A Selected Bibliography
October 2008
James J. Alfini, Making the Case for Legal Education and the Legal Profession , 37 U. T ol . L. R ev . 1 (2005).
This article encourages the broadening of the role of the law school dean as leader and visionary. In addition to making the case for his or her law school, a law school dean needs to take every opportunity to make the case for legal education and the legal profession.
Alfred C. Aman, The Role of a Law School Dean in a Research University , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 557 (2000).
The author contends that it is the role of law schools to educate, rather than to train, lawyers. He examines challenges to law school deans in “maintaining the value of education for its own sake, ‘even' in a professional school.”
Steven C. Bahls, Leading Students to Distinguish Between Career and Vocation: Reflections from a Lutheran Law School , 35 U. T ol . L. R ev . 11 (2003).
The author argues that law schools (specifically, law deans and faculty) should encourage students to reflect on their vocations as lawyers, assessing their beliefs and values and determining how those can best lead them to serve the interests of justice, rather than simply deciding what type of legal career they wish to have. He also discusses the special place that vocational reflection has in the Lutheran tradition, and outlines five steps in the reflection process.
Daniel L. Barnett, Triage in the Trenches of the Legal Writing Course: The Theory and Methodology of Analytical Critique , 38 U. T ol . L. R ev . 651 (2007).
Critiquing student papers is an important aspect of teaching legal writing because it provides students with a unique educational experience during the first year of law school. Therefore, analytical and organizational issues should be the focus of the critique of the draft, and comments on basic writing should be made on the final paper.
Donald L. Burnett, Jr., Professionalism's Second Wave: A Sampling of Issues Arising within Legal Education , 36 U. T ol . L. R ev . 19 (2004).
The author discusses the duality of law schools as graduate schools and professional schools in light of the 1992 McCrate Report.
Ronald A. Cass, So, Why Do You Want to Be a Lawyer? What the ABA , the AALA, and US News Don't Know That We Do , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 573 (2000).
The author briefly critiques the accuracy and usefulness of both the U.S. News rankings and ABA and AALL standards tools for assessing and ensuring the quality of legal education.
Jay Conison, Success, Status, and the Goals of a Law School , 37 U. T ol . L. R ev . 23 (2005).
What determines success for the American Bar Association? Or closer to home still - and the subject of this essay - for a law school? We tend to think that a law school's ultimate purpose is to serve students, the legal profession, and our system of justice. But that is very abstract. How does it translate into a means to gauge success?
Michael Coper, Legal Knowledge, the Responsibility of Lawyers, and the Task of Law Schools , 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 251 (2008).
The author ponders various philosophical questions, including “What is a lawyer? What is the purpose of a lawyer? What, indeed, is the discipline of law? And, most importantly, how can we, as law teachers, produce lawyers who add value to society and make the world a better place?”
Michael Coper, Law Reform and Legal Education: Uniting Separate Worlds , 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 233 (2008).
Law reform and legal education have traditionally been separate worlds, rarely in danger of collision or even constructive combination. This separation is not good for either law reform or legal education, or for the legal profession, the discipline of law, or the advancement of society. These two separate worlds can and should be brought together, so that legal education has a conscious and deliberate law reform ethos and focus.
Bernard Dobranski, New Lawyers for a New Century: Legal Excellence and Moral Clarity: The Founding of Ave Maria School of Law , 36 U. T ol . L. R ev . 55 (2004).
The author describes his experience leaving Catholic University School of Law to become the dean at the newly formed Ave Maria School of Law, which is privately funded by Domino's former owner, Thomas Monaghan.
Stephen J. Friedman, Why Can't Law Students Be More Like Lawyers? , 37 U. T ol . L. R ev . 81 (2005).
The author argues that law schools need to align legal education more closely with the realities of law practice or the gap will be closed by other institutions, such as the growing number of CLE providers.
Jon M. Garon, Take Back the Night: Why an Association of Regional Law Schools Will Return Core Values to Legal Education and Provide an Alternative to Tiered Rankings , 38 U. T ol . L. R ev . 517 (2007).
Despite the success of legal education in American, the system is on a path to ruin because of the confluence of American Bar Association accreditation, U.S. News and World Report influence, and Association of American Law Schools hegemony. Students have too few price choices and far too much debt while the public has legal services that are too expensive to provide representation for a significant portion of the population.
Joseph D. Harbaugh, Preparing Legal Information Managers for Practice in the Digital Age , 33 U. T ol . L. R ev . 81 (2001).
The author discusses Nova Southeastern's innovative use of technology in expanding distance education
Lawrence K. Hellman, Conceptualizing a Law School as an Integral Part of the Legal Profession , 36 U. T ol . L. R ev . 73 (2004).
The author expounds on what being part of the legal profession means to this law school, Oklahoma City University .
David J. Herring, Clinical Legal Education: Energy and Transformation , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 621 (2000).
The author discusses the impact of the clinical education movement on legal education, drawing on his experience as someone who entered legal academia as a clinician.
Patrick E. Hobbes, Noblesse Oblige: Four Ways the “Top Five” Law Schools Can Improve Legal Education , 33 U. T ol . L. R ev . 85 (2001).
The author discusses four concerns with the current state of legal education – the importance placed on the U.S. News rankings; recruitment of faculty by other law schools; recruitment of top students by other law schools; and the shift from need to merit-based financial aid - and proposes ways that top law schools can lead the charge in addressing these concerns.
Dennis R. Honabach, Precision Teaching in Law School : An Essay in Support of Student-Centered Teaching and Assessment , 34 U. T ol . L. R ev . 95 (2002).
The author recommends tailoring instruction to suit individual student needs, rather than teaching to a hypothetical “average” student. He considers the reasons behind current teaching strategies and the technological and methodological changes necessary to implement changes.
Dennis R. Honabach, Responding to “Educating Lawyers:” An Heretical Essay in Support of Abolishing Teaching Evaluations , 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 311 (2008).
The quality of legal education has been under attack for some time and numerous fixes have been suggested. Nevertheless, if the goal is to adequately prepare students for the practice of law, as the Carnegie Foundation's recently released report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law , suggests, there is still a long way to go. The author believes that “the intriguing question is why, after all this time, we law professors, as members of a profession that takes great pride in being problem solvers, have seemingly failed so miserably at improving legal education.”
Howard O. Hunter, Thoughts on Being a Dean , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 641 (2000).
Drawing on his experience, the author considers two factors that impede innovation in law schools and suggests a number of ways to improve legal education.
John D. Hutson, Preparing Law Students to Become Better Lawyers, Quicker: Franklin Pierce's Webster Scholars Program , 37 U. T ol . L. R ev . 103 (2005).
John Hutson, the dean of the only law school in New Hampshire, the Franklin Pierce Law Center, shares his experience of effecting changes in the state bar exam.
Lisa A. Kloppenberg, “Lawyer as Problem Solver:” Curricular Innovation at Dayton , 38 U. T ol . L. R ev . 547 (2007).
In 2005, the University of Dayton School of Law began to offer the "Lawyer as Problem Solver," a comprehensive curricular revision aimed at producing problem-solving graduates well prepared for practice. Building on a tradition of experiential learning at Dayton , the new curriculum integrates skills more comprehensively, provides practice-related tracks for subject-matter concentrations, and offers an accelerated option that allows students to graduate in as little as two calendar years.
Anthony Kronman, The Socratic Method and Development of the Moral Imagination , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 247 (2000).
The author explores the strengths of the case method in the development of moral imagination.
Jeffrey E. Lewis, “Advanced” Legal Education in the Twenty-first Century: A Prediction of Change , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 655 (2000).
The author believes that legal education will change to encompass a growing trend toward specialization in the legal market. Law schools will give JD students more opportunity to concentrate in specific areas of the law in their third year, moving the type of specialization that normally takes place in an LLM program into the final year of JD programs.
James Lindgren, Fifty Ways to Promote Scholarship , 49 J. Legal Educ . 126 (1999).
Author offers fifty proposals to create the intellectual environment for scholarship that will improve the quality, productivity, and visibility of law school faculties. His ideas range from allocation of funds and time off, to hiring and retention practices.
Joan Mahoney, The Future of Legal Education , 33 U. T ol . L. R ev . 113 (2001).
The author proposes moving first year doctrinal classes into undergraduate education, creating a law major, in order to free up the law school curriculum to offer more electives, including skills and clinical classes.
Gabriel A. Moens, The Mysteries of Problem-Based Learning: Combining Enthusiasm and Excellence , 38 U. T ol . L. R ev . 623 (2007).
This essay discusses how “problem-based learning,” as a teaching method, facilitates the pursuit of enthusiasm and excellence among university students, especially law students.
John E. Montgomery, Incorporating Emotional Intelligence Concepts into Legal Education: Strengthening the Professionalism of Law Students , 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 323 (2008).
Law schools are inadequately developing an ethos of professionalism in law students. Legal education focuses predominately on analytical reasoning, less so on professional skills, and minimally on professionalism.
Henry H. Perritt, Jr., Taking Legal Communications Seriously , 33 U. T ol . L. R ev . 137 (2001).
The author sketches an agenda for a discussion of how to teach communications skills to law students.
Bill Piatt, One View to Add to the Many , 34 U. T ol . L. R ev . 143 (2002).
The author discusses his views on the commitment to diversity in legal education.
Donald J. Polden, Educating Law Students for Leadership Roles and Responsibilities , 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 353 (2008).
While leadership education is relatively commonplace in American business schools, it is not a familiar part of the curriculum at American law schools. This essay describes this new educational initiative and the fundamental reasons for this approach to preparing law students for the roles and responsibilities they will assume in their communities and in the legal profession.
Karen H. Rothenberg, The Practice of Law , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 731 (2000).
The author muses on the phrase “practice of law” and its implication of ongoing study.
David Rudenstine, Common Ground: Law Schools in American Life during the New Age of Faith , 37 U. T ol . L. R ev . 143 (2005).
This essay addresses the question of the interface between faith and the underpinnings of legal education.
Suellyn Scarnecchia, Serving the Most Important Constituency: Our Graduates' Clients, 36 U. T ol . L. R ev . 167 (2004).
As a new dean, the author is concerned with whether law students are ready to practice law, that is, whether they are competent to represent a client.
Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez, Leading Change in Legal Education: Good News for Diversity , 31 Seattle U. L. Rev. 775-781 (2008).
The author briefly discusses two new books on legal education, Educating Lawyers and Best Practices for Legal Education . She considers the impact of the changes those books recommend for minority law students.
Robert E. Scott, The Lawyer as Public Citizen , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 733 (2000).
The author examines public attitudes toward lawyers as expressed by “lawyer jokes” and contrasts those attitudes with Thomas Jefferson's admonition that a lawyer should strive to be a public citizen.
John E. Sexton, “Out of the Box” Thinking about the Training of Lawyers in the Next Millennium , 33 U. T ol . L. R ev . 189 (2001).
The author discusses trends affecting the legal profession, including globalization, specialization, service consolidation, and changing technology and considers their impact on the future of legal education. He specifically considers whether these changes will (or should) lead to fundamental changes, such as abandoning the traditional, three year educational program.
Geoffrey B. Shields, Legal Pedagogy: What Can We Learn from Business Schools?, 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 369 (2008).
The author considers “how legal education might be modified to better prepare our students to deal with the opportunities and challenges which are available to them.”
Mathew D. Staver, Liberty University's Lawyering Skills Program: Integrating Legal Theory in a Practice-Oriented Curriculum , 39 U. T ol . L. R ev . 383 (2008).
The author discusses Liberty University 's efforts, as a new law school, to design and implement a curriculum that emphasizes the development of lawyering skills.
Anthony A. Tarr, Legal Education in a Global Context , 36 U. T ol . L. R ev . 199 (2004).
To respond to the reality of an increasingly interconnected global community, the author advocates two compulsory 3-credit survey courses: one in international law (that includes international institutions and human rights components) and a comparative law course that covers selected issues from the perspective of the common law, the civil law, and one Asian legal system
Lee E. Teitelbaum, Ethics in the Law School Community , 31 U. T ol . L. R ev . 757 (2000).
This article was presented as a talk to new students about the law school as a just and ethical community
Bradley Toben, What Should Our Students Justifiably Expect of Us as Teachers? , 33 U. T ol . L. R ev . 221 (2001).
The author discusses the central role of teaching in legal education and offers his thoughts on ways to ensure that a law school stays focused on quality teaching.
David E. Van Zandt, Globalization Strategies for Legal Education , 36 U. T ol . L. R ev . 213 (2004).
The author posits that t he best international law preparation for emerging global practices is to develop a strong foundation in the basic principles of Anglo-American law (i.e., contracts, corporations, financial regulation, and dispute resolution). The author also states it is necessary to understand the underlying business objectives and practices that drive the legal services business in the international sphere. He concludes that American law schools are better positioned than any other institutions to prepare students, both domestic and foreign, to move seamlessly from domestic to international practice in today's competitive global economy.
Barry R. Vickrey, Are We Gatekeepers? , 34 U. T ol . L. R ev . 179 (2002).
The author describes the steps the University of South Dakota Law School has taken to ensure that its graduates meet the character, as well as the educational, requirements for bar admission. He also briefly indicates areas in which bar admission authorities could help law schools accomplish that task.
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