Best Practices for Legal Education

Professor Carol Dweck talks about a powerful message:  “not yet”  https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en.  Her studies demonstrate that when students understand that learning occurs on a continuum and they simply have “not yet” mastered a concept, they develop a “growth mindset” that leads to significant learning gains.

Professor Dweck notes that students with a “growth mind set” engage with the material and develop a passion for learning. They want to see how far they can push themselves. They realize they can improve and that they just have to figure out how to do so. This growth mindset actually engages neurons – a physiological process which paves the way to significant learning gains.

In contrast, she notes that students with a “fixed mindset” seek external validation of their self-worth via a “good grade”.  A fixed mindset causes students to run from failure rather than look at mistakes and failure as opportunities to learn. Students with a fixed mindset literally activate many fewer neurons than those with a growth mindset.

Professor Dweck emphasizes that a growth mindset involves understanding that you will be able to master a problem but you may need to work really hard, try new strategies and seek input from others when you get stuck – http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/23/carol-dweck-revisits-the-growth-mindset.html – all critical components of good lawyering.

Learning outcomes present the opportunity to create a growth mindset in ourselves and in our students. Learning outcomes remind us that our job is to facilitate student growth along the learning continuum.  They are a tool to help students learn how to think deeply about the processes and strategies necessary to tackle new material and challenges throughout their careers. They help students move from “not yet” to “I got this step, bring on a new challenge”.

The cycle of learning outcomes and assessment puts the growth mindset into practice. As educators, we identify the outcomes, gather and interpret evidence about achievement of the outcomes, and we use the evidence to modify our teaching to further improve student learning.  For both student and teacher, learning outcomes present an opportunity for intellectual engagement with the material as we strategize how to improve.

The growth mindset can also be incorporated into our formative assessments. These assessments allow students to see if they have mastered the material “yet” or if they need to work harder and  try different approaches.  Law professors can  use formative assessments to reward the effort and perseverance that lead to mastery of the material and in doing so, we can reinforce the concept of “you don’t have this yet, but you have the ability to figure it out.”

For example, in her doctrinal courses, Professor Sandra Simpson periodically posts a five question multiple choice quiz on TWEN. Each correct and incorrect multiple choice answer comes with an explanation.   She awards points toward the final grade when a student gets all five answers right. The kicker: a student can take the quiz as many times as he or she wants in order to get all five correct answers. This kind of assessment shifts the focus from the need to immediately get an “A” to the process of developing ways to identify the information and strategies needed to master the material in order to get an “A”.  It encourages the growth mindset.

Accreditation standards now require us to identify and measure learning outcomes and engage in formative assessments. When we do so, it is useful to keep in mind the power of “not yet” and  growth mindset principles.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Power of “Not Yet”, Learning Outcomes & Assessment

Many years ago as a young professional, prior to law school, I was assigned the book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey. A leadership program I was enrolled in required its reading and prompted refection and discussion on the book’s principles among my fellow participants.

Although reductive and self-promoting, Covey’s book was a helpful entry point for me into certain fundamental approaches to professional success.  The one “habit” I still have instant recall of is Sharpening the Saw.

Sharpening the Saw, as I remember it, was the habit of taking a break from work to make sure the tools one needs to do said work are in good working order. In short, it means feeding the brain and body with restoration to keep it in good working order.

My students are buzzing around me these days sawing at a frenetic pace as they prepare for final exams, write papers, and in my clinic complete their clients’ casework. I hope the students I have worked with this year have learned a little something from me about sharpening their saws.

In both my clinical and my lecture courses I include outside material and my own commentary about the need for lawyers to keep our brains and bodies in good working order. Our professional responsibility obligations demand it, in my opinion.

Last week I was away from school, and my clinic for all five “business” days–although one of them was a national holiday, and the days prior to and after it were days we had no classes.  Still, I was nervous about leaving town although circumstances in my personal life necessitated it.  At some point in the week prior to the trip I made a very conscious decision to be unavailable, except by cell phone for true emergencies. I added an e-mail autoreply. I informed my director and my staff.  I did not check e-mail.  There were no emergencies.

And this week, my saw feels razor-sharp.  My performance and energy levels are at peak.  My patience is uncharacteristically not thin.  I can close my jaw.  My students survived last week, as did my clients and staff.  I’ll be adding to my syllabi for this semester some space for this anecdote, and connecting it to existing material from experts on teaching resilience and balance in legal education.  Covey may be off-trend, but his point is well taken.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Sharpening the Saw

It can be challenging for legal writing professors to find the time for scholarship:  creating problems, grading memorandum, meeting with students, and the many other demands of teaching leave little time for anything else. However, legal writing professors in particular benefit from scholarship, whether to meet a scholarship requirement for job advancement, indulge an individual academic interest, or pursue a love of writing.  Personally, I identify even more with the challenges my students face when I am actively engaged in writing as well.  As the co-chair of the Legal Writing Institute’s Scholarship and Development Outreach Committee, I am happy to announce that we are offering a free webinar geared to new and emerging scholars.  With travel budgets tight we hope that many of our colleagues will take advantage of this opportunity to learn about how those in our field find the time and support for their scholarship efforts.  Details about the webinar follow:

The Legal Writing Institute’s Scholarship & Development Committee is offering a free, interactive webinar for new and emerging scholars: The Perfect Time is Now:  Getting Started and Finding Support for Your Scholarship.

The webinar will take place on December 10, 2015 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. EST, and will feature recognized scholars from across the country who will offer tips and advice as follows:

Adventures in Scholarship: Journeys Taken and Lessons Learned

• Linda Edwards, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Colleagues, Collaboration & Community

• Shailini George & Stephanie Hartung, Suffolk University Law School

Scholarship Groups:  How to Start and Maintain Your Own

• Nantiya Ruan,, University of Denver, Sturm College of Law
• Todd Stafford, University of Colorado Law School
• Ken Chestek, University of Wyoming College of Law

To RSVP, please email Micah Desaire at mdesaire@law.du.edu and you will receive an email with a link for participation.

For further information or questions please contact Shailini George (sgeorge@suffolk.edu) or Nantiya Ruan (nurd@law.du.edu).

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Free Webinar for New and Emerging Legal Writing Scholars

The Legal Writing Institute, the Association of Legal Writing Directors, the Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research Section of the Association of American Law Schools and Fordham Law School are hosting a first of its kind Scholars & Scholarship Workshop on Wednesday, January 6, 2016 (immediately preceding this year’s AALS conference).  There is no charge to attend and registration is open at Joint Workshop Registration. The registration deadline is December 1, 2015.  The full Joint Workshop Program is here.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Announcement: Scholars and Scholarship Workshop on Feminist Jurisprudence

We are in the season of Thanksgiving.  I hope that all of us can step back, take a breath, and reflect on our blessings as we head into the Thanksgiving weekend, to be followed very soon by the yearly challenges of preparing and grading fall term exams.

Here are some of the things I am thankful for at this time in 2015:

1. Legal educators are becoming more knowledgeable and committed to innovative teaching and assessment methods than ever.  I attended the assessment conference at Whittier Law School that was the subject of Barbara Glesner-Fines earlier post on this blog.  I must say it was among the best conferences I have ever attended.  We had numerous examples of exemplary teaching from around the country (among my favorites were Andi Curcio, Judy Daar, Cassandra Hill, Susan Simpson, Patricia Leary, Andrea Funk, and Barry Currier… but it is hard to call out favorites since all were excellent).  I particularly give thanks for David Thomson’s reminder that not that long ago, he and his colleagues at the University of Denver School of Law hosted a conference on assessment that pushed the envelope.  What a long way we have come.

2. Legal educators are asking the challenging questions about the ways in which bar exams (particularly those developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners) are or are not assessing what needs to be assessed through national and state bar examinations.  There is a growing realization that deeper dialogue is needed since it appears that the National Conference is employing important statistical standards for assuring the integrity of their examinations, but that such standards are not enough to assure that examinations actually test student capacity to serve as competent lawyers in the public interest.

3. Clinical, legal writing, and traditional faculty members have been coming together to ask challenging questions and to offer deep insights about legal education.  This year has seen the publication of “Building on Best Practices” under the leadership of Debbie Maranville, Lisa Radtke Bliss, Carolyn Wilkes Kaas and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez.  This publication is free to legal educators, thanks to the support of the book’s publisher, Lexis.  There are many insights that are freely shared in this publication and faculties across the country and abroad should give careful attention to the insights by numerous faculty members collected there.

4. Students are increasingly choosing to attend law school for the right reasons.  They recognize that the point is not merely to gain high-paying jobs, but rather to bring justice to the world around them.  Hats off, as well, to decision makers in the federal government who have worked over the years to develop new strategies for repaying student loans based on income, in order to help students and graduates pursue the work they believe to be import in the greater good.

5. I give thanks for the strong and generous individuals who have stepped up to serve as presidents, deans and associate deans during this challenging time in legal education.  It is not easy to juggle the many issues before us, ranging from internal budget challenges to external political pressures, to navigation of demands that law graduates be “practice ready.”  My own list of those to whom and for whom I give thanks are UNC President Tom Ross (UNC JD), former UNC Law Dean Jack Boger (UNC JD), current UNC Law Martin Brinkley (UNC JD), and Associate Dean Jeff Hirsch, among many others around the country.  Leadership jobs in this era are not easy ones.  They take courage, smarts, and equinimity.  We should all give thanks to those who provide important leadership in extremely challenging times.

6. Congratulations to President Obama, a distinguished legal educator in his own right.  I have never been prouder than when I see him call for thoughtful and careful resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States.  Those who came to the United States and met its indigenous peoples did so in part as refugees seeking to worship as they chose.  Now, endangered people from Syria and the Middle East are similarly seeking a chance to raise their families in peace.  We should respect the religious freedoms of others and their need for safe harbor in an increasingly dangerous world.  We thank our colleague, President Obama, and wish him well in his efforts to bring reason to bear in this very emotional time.

7. Please, if you can, post your own grounds for thanksgiving.  This is my favorite holiday of the year, and I hope our collective sense of gratitude will live on every day of the year.  Taking a moment to reflect and recognizing those who help us collectively move forward in the interest of justice is time well-spent.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Carnegie Report, which criticized traditional legal education, designated three “apprenticeships” for educating today’s lawyers: 1) the “cognitive apprenticeship,” which focuses on expert knowledge and modes of thinking, 2) the “apprenticeship of practice,” which educates students in “the forms of expert practice shared by competent practitioners,” and 3) the “apprenticeship of identity and purpose,” which “introduces students to the purposes and attitudes that are guided by the values for which the professional community is responsible.”  Since the Carnegie Report, numerous authors have published texts intended to develop “the apprenticeship of practice.”  However, until now, there have been no texts that covered the “apprenticeship of identity and purpose.”

In “Developing Your Professional Identity: Creating Your Inner Lawyer” (2015), I have taken a new approach to learning professional ethics and professional identity.  Traditionally, legal ethics professors have taught students the ethical rules, cases that interpreted the rules, and how to apply the rules to facts.  In other words, legal ethics was taught exactly like contracts, torts, and property.  Professional identity is more than knowing how to apply ethical rules.  It is personal; it involves the inner person (your moral compass).   Professional identity is a lawyer’s personal morality, values, decision-making process, and self-consciousness in relation to the practices of the legal profession.  It provides the framework that a lawyer uses to make all a lawyer’s decisions.

My book takes a variety of approaches to help law students develop their professional identities. Chapter One asks students to take a close look at themselves by asking questions about their childhood, their college years, and who they are today.  Chapters Two (Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner), Six (Overcoming Cognitive Biases), and Seven (Attorney Well-Being) give students the tools they will need to develop their professional identities. Chapter Two also introduces students to “practical wisdom,” an important approach to understanding and solving ethical problems. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 deal with professional identity within certain topics–the attorney-client relationship, the lawyer and society, and attorney advertising and solicitation of clients. Chapter Eight presents the legal profession’s and society’s views on lawyers and the legal profession. Chapter Nine focuses on the student’s role as a lawyer. It asks students what area of law they want to practice, how they will deal with clients, their place in the legal profession, standards of civility in the legal profession, and working with subordinates. Finally, Chapter Ten contains a variety of extended problems to help students further develop their professional identities.

Students can use this book either an independent study text, or professors can adopt it as a classroom text.

For too long now, legal education has focused on learning to think like a lawyer and memorizing legal rules.  It is time to learn how to be a lawyer.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

 Editors of the ABA Journal announced today they have selected BEST PRACTICES FOR LEGAL EDUCATION as one of the top 100 best blogs for a legal audience.

“For us, at the ABA Journal, this isn’t just another award. We view our annual list as service to our readers, pointing them to a collection of some of the very best legal writing and commentary on the Web. Yes, we hope those selected are proud of it. But we also hope that our readers will recognize the list itself as another portal to some very vivid, informative and entertaining conversations about issues we all care about.”

Grateful appreciation to assistant editor Jessica Persaud for her strong administrative, communication and writing skills and  to Eileen “Nina” Roepe for her technological  troubleshooting.   Congratulations also to all the collegial contributors who make this blog current and interesting!

About the ABA Journal:

The ABA Journal is the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association, and it is read by half of the nation’s 1.1 million lawyers every month. It covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. ABAJournal.com features breaking legal news updated as it happens by staff reporters throughout every business day, a directory of more than 4,000 lawyer blogs, and the full contents of the magazine.

About the ABA:

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

Thank you to our readers who care deeply about legal education and who  are interested in finding ways to improve it!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on We made ABA BLAWG 100 2016!

At the Conference on Building an Assessment Plan from the Ground Up, Professor Judith Daar of Whittier Law School presented her journey through assessment from “Reluctant Assessor” to a professor who values assessment. Professor Daar described how she first began thinking about assessment in the context of Assisted Reproductive Technology. She described for the audience the effects of statutory requirements that doctors be required to report multiple births resulting from IVF and the effect of that “assessment” in lowering IVF multiple births. Having seen that assessment makes a difference in medical settings, she was then ready to try some assessment in her own classroom. She created a pre- and post-test survey instrument in adverse possession unit that was intended to assess preparedness and comprehension. In creating this approach to assessment, she drew on the model required to award continuing education credit in medical education. While in the pre-test, many students accurately stated the holding in an adverse possession case, but after her class in which she criticized the court’s opinion, with the intent that students would learn critical analysis. However, her post-test demonstrated that many students thought that critique meant that they had misstated the holding in the case. Thus, she was surprised to see that she thought she was teaching a skill of critical analysis but the results caused her to realize that the students thought that in modeling that critique she was teaching substance. This caused her to realize how much students relied on the didactic of the classroom to “deliver the law” – that they do not trust their own ability to learn. A fascinating challenge !

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on A Reluctant Assessor’s Conversion

More from the Building an Assessment Plan from the Ground Up Conference:

Dean Susan Duncan, Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, presented from the dean’s perspective on assessment. She began her remarks by reinforcing the notion that all faculty have to be involved. She noted her concern that the conference is largely attended by legal writing professors and the disproportionate number of women at the conference and urged attendees to be sure that this does not become a service obligation that is “farmed out” to female faculty and legal writing faculty. She also noted the few number of deans in the audience, reiterating the message that deans must be fully supportive of assessment for it to be successful.

Dean Duncan noted that the new accreditation requirements (referring to both assessment and the experiential course requirement) will have an impact on resources, including:
• Devoting of new faculty positions to teach the experiential learning courses
• Paying stipends for field-work supervisors
• Training faculty for increased skills teaching or for better assessment
• Increasing teaching assistants (research assistants are a usual part of the law school environment, but she suggested that teaching assistants may become a more important part)
• Bringing in outside advisors or consultants
• Reducing teaching and service loads to assist faculty in transitioning to the new environment of assessment and skills instruction
In addition, the positive resource result may be that Deans can use the results from assessment plans in fundraising.
She suggested that one of the many benefits of assessment may be the increased formation of professional learning communities in law schools, in which faculty with shared interests will work together to share assessment practices and data.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on A Dean’s Perspective on the Costs and Benefits of Assessment

More good stuff from the Building an Assessment Plan conference today: Maryann Jones, Dean Emerita, Western State College of Law, and Educational Consultant, spoke of the “paradigm shift” that legal education faces from a focus on teaching and faculty to a focus on student learning and accomplishments. Dean Jones related her experience in having to make that shift early on because her law school was an independent free-standing law school accredited by the regional accreditor and so was not “given a pass” on assessment as are many law schools that are part of larger university systems. She noted, however, that increasingly regional accreditors are paying attention to law schools, with more than one accreditation report noting that “The law school lags substantially behind the rest of the institution in terms of assessment of student learning.”

She provided a list of very helpful hints in building an assessment plan:

• The plan has to be an integral part of the whole institution, not housed in an “assessment office” and not only in the curriculum, but must also include student services and co-curricular programs.
• There must be an institutional commitment of resources
• The faculty must own assessment. The plan must be built from the ground up, from the beginning, led by the faculty. You cannot simply hand the faculty a plan and tell them to “implement it” She emphasized the importance of one-on-one and small group conversations to develop that plan.
• One size does not fit all. An assessment plan cannot be “plug and play” but must address its own mission and within its own resources and culture. On the other hand, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are many good models that can provide a starting point.
• Be creative. Work with what you have.
• Do not make too many learning outcomes. Keep it manageable.
• Get training. Regional accreditation programs often provide good training. There are great books available.
• When you start the dialogue on assessment, bring in a facilitator who is familiar with assessment in the law school context.
• Do not underestimate student involvement. Talk about student learning outcomes in classes. Widely disseminate your program learning outcomes.
• Include institutional research – assessment is data driven, so you have to determine how you are going to gather that data from the beginning.
• Close the loop on assessment. How will you use your results. Is it on the agenda of faculty meetings? Do you have quality improvement or action plan at the end of an assessment cycle? Do you regularly conduct program review (comprehensive review periodically)?

Thank you Maryann!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Advise on Building an Assessment Plan from Dean Maryann Jones

In the morning session of the conference on Building an Assessment Plan from the Ground Up, presenters shared an overview of assessment in action.

Professor Andrea Curcio, Professor of Law and Co-director Externship Program at Georgia State University College of Law, presented on “The Purposes of Assessment” by providing two powerful examples of how assessment challenges faculty to change and improve their teaching. The first of these targeted a learning outcome of developing cultural sensitivity. She described challenging survey results from her law school regarding student ability to perceive their own cultural lens and the teaching challenges those results presented. The second was the learning outcome of analytical reasoning and her efforts in her civil procedure class to improve student skill through formative feedback. For both of these, Andrea has published articles that provide resources and analysis of these assessments.

Professor Vicki VanZandt of the University of Dayton School of Law and Professor Kelley Mauerman of Whittier Law School presented a primer on “Assessment 101” including much of the language of assessment, providing examples from their own schools off their curricular planning process.  They emphasized the importance of starting small and building an assessment plan from activities faculty already engage in. They reminded the audience that not every outcome needs to be assessed every year, providing examples of their law school’s own curriculum maps and assessment plans. Read the learning outcomes and performance criteria from Dayton here: https://www.udayton.edu/law/_resources/documents/academics/learning-outcomes-and-performance-criteria.pdf and from Whittier here:

https://www.law.whittier.edu/index/experience/mission-and-goals/institutional-goals/

Professor VanZandt is the co-author of Student Learning Outcomes and Law School Assessment: A Practical Guide to Measuring Institutional Effectiveness (Carolina Academic Press 2015) available for purchase here: http://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611632668/Student-Learning-Outcomes-and-Law-School-Assessment

More resources will be available, including slideshows and handouts from the conference.  Keep watching!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Resources from the Building an Assessment Plan Conference

The conference on “Building an Assessment Plan from the Ground Up” is being held today at Whittier Law School. Professor Andrea Funk, Associate Dean for Lawyering Skills and Institutional Assessment
Professor of Lawyering Skills at Whittier, has created a comprehensive program for the sold-out crowd of faculty, most of whom have some responsibility for assessment planning at their law schools. For your use and enjoyment, I will be blogging from the conference today. Professor Judith Wegner,  Burton Craige Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, began asking us to all think about words that begin with “A” and reflect on how many of those are disagreeable: aspirin, ache, anger, accreditation, assessment! She provided a powerful overview of three of these “A-words” that many faculty find very foreign: pressures for accountability in accreditation processes that require assessment of student learning outcomes. You can read more about the history and context of accreditation here:  .  Download her slideshow here (scroll to “Assessment”).

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Building an Assessment Plan Conference off to a great start!