Posted on March 21, 2010 by glesnerb
Participants in the Spring Workshop of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism has spent the past two days discussing how law schools can help students to respond to the economic crisis. One of the exciting presentations from the program was by Fred Rooney of the Community Legal Resources Network of CUNY Law School. He discussed a concept of “The Longitudinal Law School” — a law school’s continuing obligation to its graduates. He described two programs of the CUNY Community Legal Resources Network – “a collaborative that supports CUNY Law School graduates as they work to set up and run solo or small-group practices devoted to serving pressing needs of the poor and disadvantaged in communities that are underserved by lawyers.” Components of the program include the “Launchpad for Justice” program in which new graduates have an opportunity to provide critical legal services and continue their professional development in the time between their graduation and their admission to practice. A second program, the Incubator for Justice, which “trains CLRN members, over an 18-month period, in basic business issues such as billing, record-keeping, technology, bookkeeping and taxes while, at the same time, facilitating Incubator participants’ involvement in larger justice initiatives and in subject-based training in immigration law, labor and employment and other topics that will arise continually as these attorneys build their practices.”
As law schools are called upon to increasingly broaden their objectives, the concept of an ongoing commitment to the education of students beyond graduation is an important and often overlooked aspect of best practices.
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Posted on February 20, 2009 by glesnerb
The economic downturn puts legal education at a crossroads indeed. Travel freezes, pay cuts, tuition increases, even furloughs: law schools have clearly not escaped current economic woes. How will the economy affect the drive to improve legal education? As the budget crunch hits law schools, one can expect steps to trim faculty, rely more on adjuncts, and attempt to increase classes to generate more tuition. None of these steps are likely to bode well for the forward progress of legal education reform. Continue reading →
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Posted on January 14, 2009 by glesnerb
Reflecting on the recent AALS conference, a colleague and I were speaking about how engaging we always found programs presented by the Academic Support and Teaching Methods section because the presenters always try to model good teaching along with conveying interesting ideas and insights. This year’s program, co-sponsored by these sections, was a particularly good example. The program was “Teaching to the Entire Class: Innovative and Effective Instruction to Engage Every Student” and it delivered what it advertised: after three hours, the roomful of professors remained energized and educated. Continue reading →
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Posted on June 2, 2008 by glesnerb
The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility held the 34th Annual Conference on Professional Responsibility this past week in Boston Massachusetts. The program included a presentation entitled “Teaching Ethics and Professional Development: Legal Education at a Crossroads.” Professors Judith Wegner, Peter Joy, and I (Barbara Glesner Fines) presented the program which focused on legal education’s role in developing law students’ sense of professional identity and purpose. Professor Wegner summarized the Carnegie Report as it speaks to this issue and Professor Joy gave an overview of the Best Practices project’s discussion. Most of the session was devoted to learning from the approximately 150 judges, attorneys and law professors in attendance. The question “What is professional identity?” Continue reading →
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Best Practices for Legal Education 