Best Practices for Legal Education

For professors assigning group work for credit, there is a website that can help allocate the share of credit to be given to each person. It’s called Spliddit (spliddit.org), and was developed by a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist. The idea is not ‘about doing the calculations for you, it’s about using a fair method that you probably wouldn’t have thought about yourself.” As described in a campus publication explaining the site, “the algorithm…works by asking each contributor to ignore his or her own effort and instead assess how much each of the other colleagues contributed to the final product.”

As more and more professors utilize group work in their classes, this website could be of great utility. While I have not used it myself, and while we know many law professors and many law students are mathaverse, it may be worth a look, especially since it doesn’t actually require the professor or the student do actually do or understand higher mathermatics.

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Bar examination passage rates are down again in many states. Last year’s results led to accusations that exam administration caused the decline, and counteraccusations that schools were at fault for admitting less qualified students than in prior years. Determining the possible cause of this year’s decline is complicated by the addition of a new subject (Civil Procedure) to the Multistate Bar Exam. In response to the declines, some blame an easy scapegoat — too many electives (especially experiential courses) and too few bar-tested courses. While limiting experiential or clinical courses or credits or mandating more bar courses presents an easy way of appearing  to do something,  there is no available evidence that students who take more experiential or clinical courses do worse on  the bar exam, and only a limited, weak positive correlation between bar courses and bar exam success.

Fueling this finger pointing against experiential courses was a comment from the president of the National Conference of Bar Examiner s (NCBE) on factors that could explain the decline in bar passage percentages: “In addition, the rise of experiential learning may have crowded out time for students to take additional ‘black-letter’ courses that would have strengthened their knowledge of the law and their synthesis of what they learned during the first year.”¹ She suggested another factor could be that schools are requiring fewer bar courses, “thereby permitting students to miss (or avoid) core subjects that will appear on the bar exam.” A possible connection between clinical courses and declining bar scores was also later raised by the NCBE’s director of testing and research.²

Unfortunately for the debate over the causes of bar exam failure and what schools might do to address the problem, these statements were made without reference to any supporting evidence. Indeed, none exists. In response to my inquiry whether there was any empirical basis for asserting that students with more experiential coursework perform, on average, worse on the bar exam or that taking more bar courses will increase  a student’s chances of success, the NCBE president replied that she was unaware of any research but would check with her testing staff. A follow up six months later confirmed there still was no supporting study to share.

I too am unaware of any published study examining the relationship between experiential or clinical coursework and bar passage. There are a number of studies showing the value of clinical courses in enhancing the practice skills and professional identity of students. But no data on the relationship of coursework to bar success include results for experiential courses. Studies do consistently find that law school grades and LSAT scores have the strongest relationship to bar exam success.³

Regarding a relationship between enrollment in bar courses and bar passage, published studies show no, or a small, positive relationship, but only for a narrow range of students. The earliest study sought to determine whether an Indiana bar admission rule mandating successful completion of courses in 14 subject matter areas was likely to increase the probability of passing the bar examination. Reviewing data from three administrations of the exam, the authors found “[n]o course or group of courses had any consistent relationship to success or failure on the bar exam.”⁴ They concluded:

The lack of consistent positive and significant relationships between taking or not taking bar- related courses and bar examination pass rates suggests that requiring these courses will not increase the likelihood that law school graduates, at risk of failure, will pass rather than fail the exam.

The most recent study reviewed coursework and bar results for students at St. Louis  University (SLU) and Hofstra University. Five years of bar results for SLU students showed:

No statistically significant relationship between the number of upper division, bar examination subject matter courses taken and bar examination passage for graduates who ranked in the first, second, or fourth quartiles or for graduates who ranked in the bottom 10 percent of their graduating class.⁵

There was a statistically significant relationship for students in the third quartile but only 4.1% of the difference in bar passage rates for that group could be explained by the number of bar examination su bject-matter courses taken while in law school; 95.9% of the difference in this quartile between those who passed and those who did not was due to other factors. A follow-up study with data provided by Hofstra similarly found no relationship between the number of bar subject-matter courses taken and bar passage for graduates who ranked in the first, second, or fourth quartiles and only a weak relationship for students in the third quartile.⁶The most likely explanation for these results is that students  in the top half of the class already pass the bar at sufficiently high rates that additional bar courses help very little, if any, and that students in the bottom quartile are so lacking in analytic skills that merely putting them in the audience of yet another lecture class fails to address the cause of, or provide a solution to, their problems.

So, while some authors claim, without empirical support, that bar courses will improve a student odds of passing the exam,⁷ and while schools continue to advise their students that the key to bar success is enrollment in bar courses, published studies do not support those claims.

But, all is not lost. Statistical analysis of bar performance at a number of schools has found that specially designed academic support and bar passage programs can improve passage rates, especially for students who have not performed well in law school.⁸ As one statistician told me, “accurately identifying [at]-risk [students] and then ensuring access to targeted, effective programs does make a difference.”

Of course these programs require a much greater commitment of a school’s resource than simply piling more bar courses on at-risk students. Yet, irresponsibly scapegoating experiential courses for bar failure or forcing students to take more upper-class bar courses as a purported solution is, as the authors of the most respected study warned, “overly simplistic” and “will not solve the bar examination failure problem.”⁹

Notes

^1. Erica Moser, President’s Page, THE BAR EXAMINER 4, 6 (Dec. 2014).
↩

^2.Mark A. Albanese, The July 201, MBE: Rogue Wave or Storm Surge, THE BAR EXAMINER 35, 46 (June 2015).↩

^3. See, e.g., Michael T. Kane, et al., Pass Rates and Persistence on the New York Bar Examination Including Breakdowns for Racial/Ethnic Groups, THE BAR EXAM- INER 6, 15 & n. 7 (Nov. 2007); Keith A. Kaufman, et al., Passing the Bar Exam: Psychological, Educational, and Demographic Predictors of Success, 57 J. LEGAL EDUC. 205, 214 (2007).
↩

^4. 4 Philips Cutright, et al., Course Selection, Student Characteristics and Bar Examination Performance: The Indiana University Law School Experience, 27 J. LEGAL EDUC. 127, 136 (1975).↩

^5. Douglas K. Rush & Hisako Matsuo, Does Law School Curriculum Affect Bar Examination Passage? An Empirical Analysis of Factors Related to Bar Examination Passage Between 2001 and 2006 at a Midwestern Law School, 57 J. LEGAL EDUC. 224, 233 (2007).↩

^6. Id. at 224.↩

^7. See, e.g., “Students should take most bar-tested courses during law school . . . . Although there is a lack of empirical evidence that taking bar courses correlates with bar success.” Denise Riebe, A Bar Review for Law Schools: Getting Students on Board to Pass Their Bar Exams, 45 BRANDEIS L. REV. 269, 308 (2006-07). Ironically, the footnote associated with the recommendation that students take most bar-tested courses contradictorily states: “Although law school professionals routinely advise students to take bar-tested courses, there does not appear to be any statistically verifiable support for the practice.” ↩

^8. See, e.g., Scott Johns, Empirical Reflections: A Statistical Examination of Bar Exam Program Interventions, 54 U. LOUIS- VILLE L. REV. (forthcoming 2016) (University of Denver); Mario W. Mainero, We Should Not Rely on Commercial Bar Reviews to Do Our Job: Why Labor- Intensive Comprehensive Bar Examination Preparation Can and Should Be a Part of the La w School Mission , at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2546001; Derek Alphran, et al., Yes We Can Pass the Bar. University of the District of Columbia, David A Clarke School of Law Bar Passage Initiatives and Bar Pass Rates – From the Titanic to the Queen Mary, 14 U.D.C. L. REV. 9 (2011)(U.D.C.); Linda Jellum & Emmeline Paulette Reeves, Cool Data on a Hot Issue: Empirical Evidence that a Law School Bar Support Program Enhances Bar Performance, 5 NEVADA L. REV. 646 (2005) (University of Richmond). ↩

^9. Rush & Matsuo, supra at 236. One of the authors of the study explained, “if you want students to pass bar exams, teach more logic, reasoning and test taking skills.” Doug Rush, Comment to Did You Know That “Bar Courses” Don’t Matter?, Best Practices for Legal Educ., July 25, 2008, http://bestpracticeslegaled.albanylawblogs.org/2008/07/25/335/#comment-289.↩

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The new year (and the new semester) is here like a gust of refreshing cool after a fall of unseasonable weather. Let me offer some new food for thought as readers have time to reflect perhaps over the upcoming long weekend honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• New Reading. I wanted to recommend a couple of things worthwhile readings that have just come my way.
  1. I enjoyed the opening plenary at the AALS annual meeting, featuring a very thought-provoking paper on the future of the legal profession (and legal education) in coming days. The presenters were Ben Heineman, Jr. and David Wilkins (with Bill Lee as a co-author). The paper is available at https://clp.law.harvard.edu/assets/Professionalism-Project-Essay_11.20.14.pdf . Its title is “Lawyers as Professionals and Citizens.” The authors welcome comments.
  2. A second significant paper considers empirical evidence relating to types of experiential education and student enrollment and satisfaction tied to different career goals. Take a look at Margaret Reuter and Joanne Ingham’s paper, The Practice Value of Experiential Legal Education: An Examination of Enrollment Patterns, Course Intensity, and Career Relevance, 22 Clinical L. Rev. 181 (2015) which uses significant NALP data to illuminate these questions. It’s also available through SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2704573
  3. Finally, a post from Stanford’s Rick Reis, of Stanford’s Tomorrow’s Professor initiative (noted in an earlier posting) is worth consideration. It summaries some important lessons on the challenges of institutional assessment and offers an excellent wet of websites that can help law schools and their faculties meet the new challenges resulting from strengthened ABA requirements. (TP Msg. #1455 Planning Effective Assessment] https://tomprof.stanford.edu/.

• Reflections on Teaching. I’m teaching a large section of property law again this spring, after a couple of years with other assignments. I’m also 65 and have been talking with my husband about prospects of retirement. So, I’ve been unusually reflective about my teaching this term, and have found that very liberating. I have been thinking about what I’ve learned in 35 years of teaching, and about what endures, and what my students might best gain from me (in addition to mastering basic principles of property law). So, this week I’ve spent more time offering reflections on history and jurisprudence (and perhaps a little less on doctrinal hypotheticals than had been the case in some past years). Yesterday I talked at length about Johnson v. M’Intosh (the first of Justice Marshall’s “Indian trilogy”) and explained what I’d been learning about the great Cherokee chief, John Ross and about his nemesis President Andrew Jackson (I strongly recommend “Jacksonland” by Scott Inskeep that covers this territory exceedingly well). Today I told them about law reform litigation and the case of State v. Shack (in which New Jersey’s great state supreme court of the 1970’s held that a farmer who had employed a large number of migrant farm workers could not claim that he had a right to exclude a legal aid lawyer and a doctor who had come to see clients and patients). Somehow stopping to think about what I really know, and what is most worth knowing and sharing has been especially uplifting. My experience may be of interest to others of you who are at different life changes. Ask yourself “what do I know that is most important at this time in life to share with my students”… and act accordingly.

Good luck with the start of the semester.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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 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!

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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 !

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