A Call for a Response: “Why are Law Professors So Unhappy?”

Posted on January 7, 2008 by vmerton

Yet another connection that might be made to another blog, to TaxProfBlog in fact :  http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/12/why-are-law-pro.html#comments

“Why Are Law Professors So Unhappy?” asks renowned tax law professor and scholar of pedagogy Paul Caron.  He cites a recent book,The Three Signs of a Miserable Job (2007), for the proposition that the key characteristics of an unhappiness-making job are: 1) anonymity;  2) irrelevance, when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others; and 3) “immeasurement,” which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success.  He then suggests that law professors are surprisingly prone to these ills.

Caron’s post has elicited much commentary and controversy, not only on his blog but on several others.  Maybe someone ought to respond along the lines that law professors might suffer far less from these misery indices if they made more of a commitment to teaching, or rather to the actual perceptible learning of their students.  I don’t trust my own ability to write the post in a way that would easily be heard by its intended audience, but somebody should.  Great opportunity to link to BPBlog from one of the best-known blogs in legal academe.

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Concerns, Critiques and Challenges Welcome!

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch

Many of the current posts on this Blog support the implementation of Best Practices recommendations as well as the recommendations made by the Carnegie Foundation in Educating Lawyers.  Do not be dissuaded, however, from posting your concerns and  critiques.  Let us know if you disagree with the recommendations.

Nor should you hesitate to point out the obstacles or challenges to implementing Best Practices.  Let us know what you think!

 For example, a faculty member at  my school during a curriculum committee meeting questioned the statement that current law graduates are not adequately prepared for practice.  How would you respond?

Will implementing Best Practices result in a “checklist” approach to legal education instead of encouraging rich and varying experiences?

Currently, legal education has not created nuanced outcome measures for our teaching.  Without such tools, how can we even begin to discuss implementing Best Practices? 

What are other concerns you have? Please post a reply (below).

Mary Lynch, Albany Law School

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Assessing for Justice with SALT

Posted on December 20, 2007 by joanhowarth

The Bar Exam Committee of SALT (Society of American Law Teachers) is working to address many of the problems with current licensing practices that are described and decried in Chapter One of Best Practices (“The Licensing Process is Not Protecting the Public” at pp. 11-15).  SALT’s perspective is that access to the profession has been captured by an interlocking system of the LSAT, conventional law school grading, and bar exams.  These mutually reinforcing assessment tools operate as a terrible bar to the profession, disproportionately keeping out people of color, while failing to adequately test minimal competency to practice law.  Inspired to action by this critique, SALT’s Bar Exam Committee has engaged in many projects in the past few years, including:    Continue reading →

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Carnegie Foundation and Law Schools Join to Promote “Legal Education Project”

Posted on December 17, 2007 by Peter Joy

          The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Stanford Law School have recently joined together to sponsor “The Legal Education Study Project” as a follow-up to the Carnegie Report, Educating Lawyers.  The Study Project has started with ten law schools that have made curriculum change a major focus in recent years, and the Study Project’s goals are to promote curriculum changes in law schools.  A major focus is for law schools to do a better of job of addressing issues of professional identity lawyering skills, and to Continue reading →

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How can we persuade law teachers to embrace change?

Posted on December 17, 2007 by Roy Stuckey

On December 7th, Bill Henderson made the following comments on the Empirical Legal Studies blog site, http://elsblog.org, “[The Carnegie report] contains some great ideas, but as a group, law professors are not listening.  More troubling, the book has no strategy for getting their attention.” Continue reading →

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Law Schools Unite to Change Curriculum

Posted on November 13, 2007 by Justin Myers

In the spirit of Best Practices for Legal Education, a coalition of 10 law schools, including Harvard, Stanford, and Vanderbilt have agreed to work together to improve legal education.  For more information on this project click here .

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Should the Best Practices Initiative Rank Schools?

Posted on October 23, 2007 by Mary A. Lynch

There has been a lot of chatter on the national clinic listserv about how to reply to the US News & World Report surveys.   How do any of us who  have not taught at another school really know how good their teaching is or how “best” their practices are?  Should the Best Practices group form their own evaluation process?  Should schools be ranked according to how well they prepare students to practice law?  or how well they evaluate and monitor their own teaching and curriculum?  Even if we wanted to rank schools, how could we do so without falling prey to the same kind of biases and flaws which pervade the US News process?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Mary

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