Thought Provoking Resources for Best Practices Blog Readers

Posted on August 17, 2015 by jwegner

I have had the chance to learn about legal and professional education from some of the best.  I wanted to take this opportunity to share some related resources with readers of this blog.  Each of the resources here is free, and each amply rewards readers who need less than five minutes to scan for interesting and thought-provoking content.

Law School Vibe. A fairly new, thought-provoking blog is one called “law school vibe” developed as a team effort by colleagues at the University of New South Wales School of Law in Sydney, Australia.  During my research leave “down under” I learned a great deal from the smart and innovative educators there.  Here’s the address:  https://lawschoolvibe.wordpress.com/  It’s easy to subscribe and there are many excellent posts (by bloggers Alex Steel, Colin Picker, Justine Rogers, Pru Vines, and Carolyn Penfold among others.  Topics have included student collaboration, how to teach statutory interpretation, the role of “content for all,” new approaches to international education, ethical issues (Does “Just Call Saul” translate abroad?  How should academics deal with plagiarism?), and more.  Rather than simply providing information, this blog asks engaging questions that are worthy of reflection and conversation with colleagues.  Posts arrive to subscribers about every two weeks.  Make it a habit to read these engaging thoughts.

Tomorrow’s Professor.  The Tomorrow’s Professor is a wonderful listserv that typically arrives twice a week from Stanford University’s Engineering Professor Rick Reis.  Here’s the address for those who would like to subscribe:  https://tomprof.stanford.edu/ Billed as “online faculty development,” it definitely delivers the goods for all of us who are interested in higher education, not just junior faculty or those in the sciences.  Posts focus on teaching and learning, research, academic careers, the academy, and graduate students.  Most posts are drawn (with permission) from other sources so readers often have the benefit of a quick summary or chapter excerpt from literature they would likely not otherwise encounter.  Recent posts include coverage of “desirable difficulties,” “capstone courses,” academics as “public intellectuals,” and cross-cultural mentoring among other things.  In some ways the Best Practices blog seeks to create a similar resource for legal educators, but why stop there?  Enrich your reading and learn something from those with complementary expertise.

Inside Higher Education.  Inside Higher Education (available at https://www.insidehighered.com/ ) is a terrific resource for those interested in following trends affecting higher education more generally.  This on-line resource offers daily summaries of this on-line publication’s coverage of developments affecting higher education.  The focus is a bit different from the resources above, but coverage should appeal particularly to those interested in or currently serving in leadership positions.  Enticing recent posts include “how to kill committee meetings,” and that’s only the start.  Sign up for free daily news summaries.

How About You?  What are your favorite sources of insight about teaching and learning, or about changing patterns of higher education more generally?  Share them with our readers. If you have time before the semester gets too frantic, offer brief summaries of your favorite resources such as those included here.

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What Am I Doing Here?

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Jill Engle

I force my students to reflect. The clinical students must submit a written piece at Orientation entitled “What Am I Doing Here?” and in my lecture course, I give written assignments early in the semester forcing them to ponder the theories behind Supreme Court decisions and the relevance to those in their own lives.  But what about me? What good is reflective learning without reflective teaching?

Like many of you, I suspect, reflection is an implicit and sometimes even explicit aspect of my pedagogy. I set learning outcomes.  I review best practices scholarship and refine my plans accordingly. I explore new material. I google. It’s a large, messy, fun sandbox we play in.

But as summer draws to its inevitable close, I find myself more drawn to the pause that reflection can invite. As teachers, we are encouraged to pause, at least ostensibly.  Semesters have endings, followed by “breaks”.  Education is full of built-in pauses.  What we do during those pauses, I think, matters much more than we realize. And I say that knowing that many of you, also like me, don’t have the “full stop” experience during the summer that some have.  Clinical teaching means client work, and direct representation of individual clients in state trial court litigation means no full stops.  Summer is just a season like the other three. Also it’s family law–enough said.

So when comes the pause?  Whenever it can.  In my world, it comes in the space between my deep inhales and exhales during tough moments in court.  Some days this summer it came early in the day, with coffee and the newspaper on my front porch.  And sometimes the pause was several days long, as vacations should be.  But at some point, every day, I pause deliberately to practice mindful movement or stillness, or a little of both.  Simply put, I practice yoga and meditation.  New Age? Maybe.  Relevant to my health? Absolutely.  Related to law teaching? Well, that’s the thing.

I found myself this past week adding more and more references to mindfulness, to reflection, and to just slowing down and pausing to savor moments, to my syllabus and my PowerPoints for class. My students are getting a little neuroscience about brain chemistry’s link to mindful reflection with their Family Law this semester.

I’ve been passionate about this for several years, but my clarity about the links between science and law grows constantly.  Aren’t we better students of anything when we harness our brain’s maximum power?  And that’s what mindfulness does–the science clearly shows it changes your brain for the better.  You’re a better learner, and a better teacher.  And what about stewards of the law–aren’t we better legal advocates if we are calmer, more open to legal theory, and more effective at conflict resolution?

This week I’ll share some of the science with my students, and then I’ll explain my new classroom rules: no phones, no computers, and we start each class with a moment of silence.  Then we’ll crack the new edition of the Bluebook and be off to the races.  That’s what we’re doing here.

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Pepperdine’s proactive approach to the California Proposal

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Mary A. Lynch

EXCELLENT Post from Pepperdine’s’ Jeff Baker over on Clinical Law Prof Blog on their proactive approach to the California proposal! Congratulations Pepperdine!

Pepperdine adopted these standards as graduation requirements beginning with the Class of 2017, “in advance of the rules’ formal enactment, to ensure that our students and our school are prepared and to accomplish these objectives well and eagerly.  We are actively building capacity in our program of clinical education, adding clinics, creating practicums, developing new experiential opportunities across every law school center, examining our curriculum, and building a flexible, compliant program to generate pro bono opportunities for students.   The new rules have given us great incentive to innovate and adapt, with a renewed focus on professional formation, and to live into our own mission.”

Jeff also mentioned that he spoke at a panel last year at Pepperdine’s Judicial Clerkship Institute”  where there was “much discussion about experiences students should seek and receive to prepare for elite practices and judicial clerkships,”  The consensus from judges, bar leaders and academics at that conference?

students need more courses and experiences that will generate wisdom, creativity, humility, integrity, diligence and excellence, within a pervasive understanding of lawyers’ roles and obligations to society.

Justice Jon Streeter, formerly president of the California Bar and chair of TFARR “expressed confidence and optimism that the rules will be adopted.”

It sounds like California will do the right thing in changing times when human nature resists change…

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What’s going on in California? “TFARR- recommended” 15 credits of competency training

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Mary A. Lynch

For those who did not closely follow the California State Bar debate on the requirement of 15 credits of competency training for bar admission (the work of the Task Force on Admissions Regulation Reform, or “TFARR”), I summarize the current status.  (Although I am currently co-prez of the Clinical Legal Education Association, known as CLEA, this post is not written with that hat on.)  This is my own thinking, albeit, informed by the excellent work of the CLEA Advocacy committee.

The TFARR process was two-staged, over a three year period, with opportunities for public comment throughout. CLEA  participated in that process and submitted five separate comments on the proposals that are available at http://www.cleaweb.org/advocacy under “Briefs and Other Advocacy” (documents 4-8).

In the end, TFARR recommended 15 credits of competency training which can be achieved in a variety of ways (in addition to how experiential credits can be earned under the new ABA regulations), and which include six credits of summer work. You can read the TFARR Phase II Final Report  at: http://www.calbar.ca.gov/AboutUs/PublicComment/Archives/2014PublicComment/201411.aspx

The process was complete in November, 2014, with final TFARR recommendations to the State Bar Board of Trustees (that responded to public comments) and unanimous adoption by the Board: http://board.calbar.ca.gov/Agenda.aspx?id=10891&tid=0&show=100008800&s=true#10013881 (agenda item 113). The TFARR Phase II FInal Report represents a compromise based on extensive input.

Lately, some confusion has arisen because of a letter posted to the AALS website authored by a non-standing committee of Deans.  The confusion arises because:

  1. Neither AALS nor this special Dean’s committee ever participated in the two stage TFARR process and so appear to be sort of “johnny come latelys, ” and
  2. The letter mistakenly focuses on an earlier draft of the final proposal failing to recognize the compromises already reached in the final proposal.

I understand that there are efforts underway to correct the confusion which makes me happy since the Deans’ letter is signed by two people whom I have long admired in a variety of contexts.

Other blogs are already exploring the 15 credit  proposal and its interesting and creative approach. For example,   “Kudos to California”  What do our readers think?

Filed under: Best Practices, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Externships, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices and Clinics, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Catalysts For Change | Tagged: , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Gender and Lawyers’ Worklives

Posted on August 6, 2015 by dmaranville

As we think about how to improve legal education, it’s always helpful to understand  our students, their careers, and what they value.   UW Law reference librarian Mary Whisner shared this item, that I missed when it initially came out:

Harvard Study: Women Lawyers Work More Than Men,

Bloomberg BNA Big Law Business, May 12, 2015

Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession released the results of a widespread survey of its graduates which suggests women work more hours on average than men, among other potentially myth-busting findings.

Through a survey of HLS graduates from the classes of 1975, 1985, 1995 and 2000 and other research, it provides a detailed portrait of the gender gap within the legal profession, including all the ways women have advanced or failed to advance.

. . .

https://bol.bna.com/harvard-study-women-lawyers-work-more-than-men/

The study also finds the women graduates satisfied  with the substance of their work, but dissatisfied with their compensation, while the reverse is true for men.

The full study (86 pp.) is David B. Wilkins et al., The Women and Men of Harvard Law School: Preliminary Results from the HLS Career Study (2015).

Would these findings about Harvard Law grads would hold true for lawyers generally.  If so, are there any implications for legal education?

Here’s one speculation:  Perhaps men experience more cultural push towards financial security and success in the form of work in Big Law. They might also experience less cultural encouragement toward emotional self-awareness, introspection about purpose in life,  and a service orientation. If so, the result might be that more men focus on external motivations and pursue the Big Law path,  even when it’s a bad fit with their interests, skills and values. They then find themselves less satisfied with the substance of their work. (And, given gender myths about women’s lesser commitment to the workforce, the men might be able to meet expectations with fewer hours.)  If so, legal education would be well advised to improve efforts to help students develop their professional identify, focusing both  on developing students understanding of lawyers work in different settings, and on students’ own talents, interests and values.

Another speculation:  Perhaps women tend to be less confident about the quality of their work and log more hours as a result.  Legal education could help them appreciate their own talents and skill level.

Other thoughts?

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Lawyers Need “Soft Skills”—So Why Aren’t Law Schools Teaching Them?

Posted on July 28, 2015 by sgeorge326

There can be little doubt that law schools are largely proficient in teaching “hard skills” such as knowledge of the law, legal analysis, research, writing, and drafting. But what about “soft skills”—the general set of skills which influence how people interact, such as communication, leadership, critical thinking, confidence, team building, time management, creativity, public speaking, and problem solving, just to name a few? Most can agree that these skills are needed to be a successful lawyer, but we can also probably agree that they are not being taught in law school.
Other professions have been teaching and using these skills for some time while law schools have been slow to embrace them. Business and medicine are just two examples. If we agree that proficiency in these skills would not only make for happier clients but also more productive working relationships, why not make the teaching of these skills part of our curriculum? Perhaps some lawyers, professors, and students believe that you are either born with these skills or not—and that no specific training is needed to improve them. However, that is simply not true. Research proves that it is possible to develop these skills just as one can develop other skills. As noted in the ABA’s LawPractice Today, “[i]t is astounding that [soft skills] are not taught in law school, and that fact only serves to increase the responsibilities of law firms to create and implement training initiatives that focus on developing an attorney’s service-oriented skills… [a]nd so law firms have begun to teaching these skills—so why shouldn’t law schools?”
The question, of course is how to teach them. I, along with two of my colleagues, am working on a book aimed at bridging this gap by providing information law school professors can use to teach important skills—such as problem solving, creativity, and mindfulness, to their students. While some resources certainly exist, more are needed, along with the recognition of the importance of the skills and a willingness to teach them.

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Lawyer Job Satisfaction and Comparing Downward

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Steven Friedland

In law school, we learn about model answers, class ranking and, for lack of a better term, perfection. It usually seems to be about striving to perform better and comparing to others ahead of ourselves, no matter where we are placed – or place ourselves – in the ranking queue. Yet, along comes work by Nancy Levit and Doug Linder, two professors of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, who examined lawyer happiness. While many people think that money would have a huge impact on happiness, that apparently was just not accurate according to a reported study. But other factors mattered. What struck me about this exploration, in particular, was the finding that “comparing downward” was a good way to promote happiness.

The way I understand it, a downward comparison means to appreciate what we have and see the hundreds, thousands and more people who have less than we do, not those people/lawyers who have more. That would be comparing upward – to the friend at the more prestigious firm, the other friend who is ranked higher in six different categories at school, or to the person who just received the prestigious clerkship you applied for as well.

I know I compare upward quite a bit. I went to Harvard, but was not a top performer (no summa for me), did not get the top clerkship, job, etc. It actually is pragmatically useful, though, to recognize the advantages to comparing down. I really like and use a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that does indeed implicitly compare down:

 “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

This quote is posted in my office and at home, for good reason.

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What Makes Your Subject Distinctive?

Posted on July 17, 2015 by glesnerb

As law schools continue to develop their learning outcomes, an important question we all should consider is, “what makes my course distinctive?”  For example, in my research on assessment in legal research courses, I was struck by how much the analytical and problem solving skills developed by legal research instruction are the same as those developed by many other courses in the law school curriculum.  That led me to ask, “what makes legal research instruction distinctive?”  The answer was not simply, as an outsider might suggest, that legal research classes teach tools for finding law (digests, Westlaw, etc.).  Rather, I was struck that legal research instruction is distinctive in the extent to which an effective legal researcher must have an appreciation for the power of taxonomies, must exercise imagination in the context of realistic boundaries of time, cost, and purpose, must be able to ask for help, and must develop strong metacognitive practices (to continually question “is this process working?”).  The difference is of degree rather than kind of course, but it is a distinctive difference nonetheless.

Given the narrow focus of legal education, it seems that this question of distinctiveness or “value added” is the most critical question I can ask in planning my courses.  Not that the distinctive outcomes of my courses should be the sole, or even dominant outcomes.  Legal education outcomes require an iterative process and cross-curricular experiences for students to become competent and to enable transfer of learning to new settings.  Yet, understanding what makes my outcomes distinctive forces me to justify my outcomes and consider their connections with other law school outcomes.

So what makes my outcomes in Professional Responsibility distinctive?  Certainly the identity of the anticipated uses of the doctrine we are learning leads me to choose to emphasize professional identity formation outcomes as important if not distinctive.  In most law school courses, students are learning the law to serve others and are encouraged to use, interpret, and advocate about the law to achieve a client’s objectives.  In Professional Responsibility, the students will be using the law to advise themselves.  My outcomes include expecting that students will be able to clarify their observational standpoint when considering issues of professional ethics; recognize that self interest clouds judgment and ways to gain more objectivity; and differentiate the approaches to interpretation of law that one might use to advocate for a client regarding past conduct from approaches that are wise, ethical, and effective when interpreting the law to guide our own future conduct.  Finding effective methods to assess students development of these perspective is a challenge but I have found that simply asking students to read cases of attorney discipline and ask, “what went wrong with the attorney’s thinking?” is a good place to start.

What makes your course outcomes distinctive?  How has that led to distinctive assessment practices?

Filed under: Best Practices, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals | 1 Comment »

Building on Best Practices now available as eBook

Posted on July 9, 2015 by dmaranville

Are you trying to:

  • Develop a meaningful law school mission statement?
  • Understand new accreditation requirements, learning goals, and outcomes assessment?
  •  Expand your experiential offerings?  Decide whether to use modules or courses?  An on-site clinic, an externship, or community partnership?
  •  Teach ALL of your students in the most effective ways, using a full range of teaching methods?
  • Add to your curriculum more of the professional identity, leadership, intercultural, inter-professional and other knowledge, skills, and values sought by 21st century legal employers?
  • Lead thoughtfully in the face of the challenges facing legal education today?

These and other topics are addressed in Building on Best Practices:  Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World,  now available in ebook format from LexisNexis at no charge.

The print version is not yet out.  LEXIS-NEXIS is taking advance orders for $50, plus shipping.  BUT we understand that they will make one copy available to every US legal educator for free upon on request.  Details on this and international availability still to come.

Thanks, and congratulations, to book project sponsor Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), the more than fifty legal educators who participated as authors, and the countless others who assisted as readers and in numerous other ways.

And, a huge shout-out to my wonderful and talented co-editors, Lisa Radke Bliss, Carrie Wilkes Kaas, and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez.

Filed under: Best Practices, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Externships, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices and Clinics, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Diversity & Social Justice, First Year Law School Innovations, International Initiatives and Models, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Journal of Experiential Learning Summaries By: Myra Berman

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Jessica Persaud

The second issue of Touro Law Center’s Journal of Experiential Learning will be uploaded online prior to the start of the Fall 2015 semester. This issue is devoted to incubator and residency programs and their contribution to legal education, particularly to the post-JD part of the educational continuum. The creator of the law school incubator movement, Fred Rooney of Touro Law, is the guest editor for this edition. Be sure to check the website, www.tourolaw.edu/jel for the latest uploads. Articles for the Incubator & Residency issue include

Incubator Development at Home and Abroad: Anecdotal Stories from the Trenches

Fred Rooney

Law School Based Incubators and Access to Justice – Perspectives from Deans

Patricia Salkin, Ellen Suni, Neils Schaumann and Mary Lu Bilek

Incubating Community Law Practices: A Model for Lawyer Training & Access to Law

Luz Herrera

Innovate, Collaborate, & Serve: Louisiana’s “LIFT” – A Legal Incubator and Accelerator Program Startup Guide

Amy Duncan

The Pro Bono Requirement in Incubator Programs: A Reflection on Structuring Pro Bono Work for Program Attorneys

Davida Finger

Creating a Post-Graduate Incubator Program through a Law School-Bar Association Partnership

Robyn L. Meadows, J. Palmer Lockard and Elizabeth G. Simcox

A Custom Tailored Form of Post-Graduate Legal Training: The Rhode Island Center for Justice

Robert McCreanor

Implementing Psychological Resilience Training in Law Incubators

Mark Heekin

An Examination of the Special Role Career Service Professionals Can Play in the Development and Success of Law School Incubator Programs

Sumana Wolk and Erica Edwards-Oneal

The third issue focuses on pre-JD experiential learning programs, many of which are pipeline programs offered by undergraduate institutions. The guest editor of that issue is Diana D. Juettner, J.D. Chair of the Department of Social Sciences at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York. If you or a colleague would like to contribute, please contact Coordinating Editor, Associate Dean Myra Berman at mberman@tourolaw.edu.

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DOE Gainful Employment Rule Affects For-Profit Law Schools

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Peter Joy

Federal district courts in New York and the District of Columbia have rejected challenges to the Department of Education’s “gainful employment rule”. A recent story in The American Lawyer, “New Rule Spells Trouble for For-Profit Law Schools”, explains how the DOE gainful employment rule will likely affect for-profit law schools. The gainful employment rule, which is based on graduates’ annual incomes and their discretionary incomes, requires a for-profit school’s graduates to have debt payments that are 8% or less of their annual incomes, or 20% or less of their discretionary incomes. A school fails the test if student debt payments exceed 12% of annual incomes or 30% of discretionary incomes. A school is considered “in the zone” if loan payments of graduates are greater than or equal to 12% of their annual incomes, or payments are greater than 10% but less than or equal to 30% of discretionary incomes. A for-profit school becomes ineligible for federal loans if it fails both the annual income and discretionary income tests in any two of three years, or if it fails both tests or is in the zone for four years. The story also explains that graduates’ enrollment in income-based repayment programs is not considered in the government’s application of the new rule. The American Lawyer story contains tables that project how the rule could be applied based on available debt, income, and employment information for graduates at the six for-profit law schools. The DOE gainful employment rule goes into effect July 1, 2015.

Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness | 1 Comment »

Law School Curriculum Review & Reform: Lessons Learned

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Paula Schaefer

In 2012, my dean asked me to chair a review our curriculum at the University of Tennessee College of Law. He asked our committee to consider the current three-year curriculum in light of our learning outcomes. It sounded like an overwhelming job.

During the first year of our curriculum review, I remember reading the book Reforming Legal Education: Law Schools at the Crossroads. Michael Hunter Schwartz and Jeremiah Ho wrote a great chapter titled Curriculum Reforms at Washburn University School of Law.

I would describe Schwartz and Ho’s chapter in two ways: (1) full of practical suggestions about the process for reviewing curriculum and considering reform; and (2) terrifying.

I stole many of the practical, process-related suggestions from their chapter. We had a committee retreat where we spent an uninterrupted day discussing the curriculum. Committee members went door-to-door and talked to each faculty member about the curriculum and possible changes. The committee developed two proposals for curriculum reform and discussed these proposals with the full faculty. I am sure there are other ideas we borrowed from Schwartz and Ho.

The terrifying part of Schwartz and Ho’s chapter was this line: “[O]ne might conclude that, after nearly three years of work, Washburn’s curriculum reform efforts have been unsuccessful.”

Three years? We may do this for three years and feel it wasn’t a success?

Of course, Schwartz and Ho go on to explain that there were successes in the three-year process. (The Washburn faculty reached a consensus on key issues and made progress toward some important goals detailed in the chapter). But it was daunting for me to think that the process would be difficult and might take three years.

In 2015, the University of Tennessee College of Law faculty adopted a package of significant changes to the 1L curriculum. While the substance of those changes is important, I think it is also important to contribute to Schwartz and Ho’s discussion about the process. So here are a few of the lessons I learned about the process of curriculum review and reform over the past three years.

1) Three Years is a Good Start. When we started, three years sounded like a long time to work on a curriculum review. I now know that three years of curriculum review passes in the blink of an eye. We needed that much time to understand our curriculum, talk to faculty, alumni and students, research what was happening elsewhere, create proposals for change, seek more input, and generate new proposals.

2) Less is More. Our committee accomplished something in three years because we narrowed the focus. Even though our original committee charge was to review the entire curriculum, we ended up focusing on the first year curriculum. That was a more manageable project. Also related to “less is more,” after two years we realized the committee was spread too thin. Our dean originally gave the curriculum review charge to the Academic Standards & Curriculum Committee. For two years that committee juggled the curriculum review and the regular business of Academic Standards. In the third year, our dean created a separate task force to focus solely on the curriculum review. That change made us much more efficient in year three and allowed us to reach a faculty vote on a package of proposals.

3) Seek Input from Faculty, Alumni, and Students Multiple Times, in Multiple Settings. Throughout the three years of our curriculum review, we talked to faculty, alumni, and students. When we met with alumni and students, we gave them the chance to address the room, answer questions anonymously (with clickers), and respond in writing to questions. We often continued these discussions on the phone, by email, and in person. We were able to compile all of this input and share it with the faculty. The committee spent even more time gathering ideas from the faculty in one-on-one meetings, in multiple forums, in small group sessions, and in many informal conversations over the course of three years. Seeking input in all of these settings helped us learn from all of our stakeholders and resulted in a variety of suggestions.

4) Compromise Can Lead to Something Better. Near the end of our second year of the curriculum review, the committee presented the faculty with two packages of possible reforms to the 1L curriculum. Discussing and debating the merits of these proposals helped the committee see potential problems we had missed and opportunities for meaningful change. With that information, we met with small groups of faculty to generate ideas about new classes and other innovations. In these meetings, members of the faculty often suggested they wanted to take the lead in making a change or teaching something new. As the third year came to a close, the faculty approved a package of 1L curriculum changes that was substantially better than what the committee had suggested at the end of year two.

5) Curriculum Review “Success.” Three years ago, it was unnerving to read that Schwartz and Ho thought we might not find curriculum reform “success” in three years. But I now know that is a good thing. Curriculum review and reform does not have to be perfect, because we are never done. Curriculum review should be an ongoing process. This allows us to identify what is working and determine what we will do next as we prepare students for practice.

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

Lawyers as Leaders

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Paula Schaefer

Leadership courses can prepare law students for the leadership roles they will assume as they serve their clients, law offices, and communities.

The University of Tennessee College of Law’s Institute for Professional Leadership offers courses and programming aimed at developing students’ leadership skills and professional values. Doug Blaze directs Tennessee’s program and has co-taught the course “Lawyers as Leaders” for several years. The course integrates readings on leadership, class discussions, and guest appearances by lawyers from various practices. Blaze says that students have described the course as “one of the most meaningful and valuable” courses that they took in law school.

Stanford Law School’s Deborah Rhode wrote the book Lawyers as Leaders and teaches a course titled “Law, Leadership, and Social Change.” Stanford’s course addresses the responsibilities and challenges of leaders and considers topics including: leadership styles, organizational dynamics, conflict management, innovation, diversity, and ethical responsibilities.

At Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, the Program on Law and Leadership consists of seven initiatives that “make leadership an integral part of the law school experience.” These initiatives include workshops, a speaker series, a dean’s roundtable, collaboration and partnerships, scholarships, a conversation series, and various courses. Ohio State’s “Lawyers as Leaders” class “is designed to help students understand the hallmarks of skillful leadership and management.” The course combines theory, case studies, and simulations.

Other schools with notable leadership programs and courses include Columbia Law School, Elon University School of Law, and University of Minnesota Law School.

These programs recognize that all lawyers need to be prepared for the leadership roles they will inevitably play in their personal and professional lives. Tennessee’s Doug Blaze says, “We want to prepare lawyers who will make a positive difference in the profession and in their communities.”

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Law Students and Mindfulness Training

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Paula Schaefer

The Wall Street Journal recently featured a story on the growing movement among law schools to provide “mindfulness” training for students. The article describes mindfulness as “[a] Zen-inspired blend of meditation, breathing exercises and focus techniques.”

As noted in the WSJ article, University of Miami School of Law is one of approximately two dozen schools offering mindfulness classes. According to its course catalog, Miami’s course is titled Mindfulness in Law: Cultivating Tools for Effective Practice. The course description notes that two local bar associations have formed the “Mindfulness in Law Joint Task Force” to explore mindfulness in practice. In the course, students are introduced to mindfulness “as a collection of tools of awareness that can enrich one’s skill set in relationship to the stimulating and challenging aspects of legal practice.” The full course description can be accessed here.

The WSJ story is available here.

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Why More States Should Not Jump on the Uniform Bar Exam Bandwagon

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Ben Bratman

In May, New York became the 16th state—and by far the most prominent—to adopt the Uniform Bar Exam, the standardized licensing test for lawyers created and promoted by the National Conference of Bar Examiners..

With such an influential state on board, the UBE is now all the rage. New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman proclaimed in his announcement of the Court’s decision that it “will reverberate among the other states,” ultimately leading to adoption  of the UBE throughout the country. The president of the Florida Bar responded to the decision by predicting that the northeastern states will soon follow New York’s lead and also acknowledging that Florida will give accelerated consideration to the UBE. And UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky argued in an L.A. Times op-ed that California should join New York in adopting the UBE.

Before other states react to the reverberations by crowning the UBE as the predominant or sole bar exam in the nation, the entire uniform exam initiative merits closer scrutiny. To be sure, adoption of the UBE throughout the country would make law licenses much more portable for beginning lawyers recently out of law school. That is a worthy goal, but the UBE is a dubious and potentially damaging means for achieving the desirable end of greater interstate license portability, especially because there is a different and more benign way to achieve that end.

A comprehensive consideration of the UBE suggests to me five reasons why additional states should step back from the precipice and be very cautious about joining the UBE bandwagon.

I discuss my five reasons in greater length here and, without annotations, here. In sum, they are as follows:

  1. The UBE perpetuates a flawed bar exam and is fundamentally inconsistent with recent trends in legal education and the legal profession
  2. The UBE would represent a regressive change to the current bar exam in several state
  3. The advantage of having the National Conference set a singular scoring methodology for all bar exams is overstated
  4. National implementation of the UBE would decrease the chance of meaningful bar exam reform by taking power away from states and giving it to the National Conference
  5. There is another means for achieving license portability that has far fewer drawbacks than the UBE

The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is administered as roughly half of the bar exam in 49 states and is a very reliable test from a psychometric perspective. Why not allow applicants who achieve a passing score on the MBE on any jurisdiction’s bar exam to apply for admission to any other state without the necessity of taking the bar exam again? Minnesota, North Dakota, and the District of Columbia already permit this, and other states need only follow their example.

A state adopting this approach in lieu of the UBE would be giving full faith and credit to whatever the written portion of the exam is in the original jurisdiction instead of forcing applicants to take its written portion. Since most states scale the scores from their written tests to the MBE, the policy is psychometrically sound. In fact, in many cases, the written tests of the two states at issue would be very similar, and the only variable would be awareness of local law, which could be covered through a CLE program.

Instead of putting its energies into national adoption of the UBE, which would decrease the quality of the bar exam in many states and drastically reduce state autonomy and flexibility, the National Conference could simply push for more states to adopt the policy already maintained by Minnesota, North Dakota, and D.C. We already have a uniform bar exam, and the National Conference already has enough power.

(Some of my article expands on the astute observations made by Professor Dennis Honabach in a piece he wrote in the ABA journal Professional Lawyer last year. ABA members can retrieve full text here, or on Westlaw, it’s at 22 No. 2 Prof. Law. 43.)

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