Best Practices for Legal Education

The following post comes to us from a very special blogger, Shailini Jandial George, who is a Professor at Suffolk University Law School.

You have experienced a scenario like this: your students come to class with laptops, I pads and phones. They text and email during class. They giggle at something on their screens while you’re lecturing. They’re typing too fast to be taking notes on your lecture. You walk around the room and see Facebook or other social media sights on their screens. If you’ve experienced any of this, or just generally wonder about your students’ ability to focus and concentrate when they are used to this kind of constant stimulation, you’re not alone.

Our students grew up on computers, are used to googling the answers to questions, and are not in the habit of reading. Rather, they read in bits and starts, often clicking on hyperlinks before they read one document front to back. They often do at least two things at once. Research shows that this constant multitasking affects the brain and its ability to learn. Learning happens when we pay attention and process information. Multitasking prompts the wrong part of the brain to fire up (the part once used by cavemen to sense danger and flee) as opposed to the front of the brain used for deep focus and concentration. Some ideas as to how we can change this:

1.Teach students how to learn. They think they know, but they likely have never heard the term metacognition (“awareness and knowledge of one’s own cognition”). They should be instructed in the steps of learning and that law school involves the highest levels of learning—levels they may not have approached prior to law school.

2.Instruct students on the perils of multitasking. While they likely think they can do many things at once, that’s not true unless the two things are like reading and chewing gum. They should know that science has proven that we’re actually task “switching”, jumping from task to task, and that we leak a little mental efficiency with each “switch”.

3.Teach students about successful learning methods. Many are used to highlighting and rereading to “learn” material. Cognitive educational theory shows that those are the two least successful study techniques. Study techniques involving self-questioning, self-explanation, intermittent study of topics, and testing are more successful.

4.Teachers should design their courses by first considering the learning objectives and goals and working backwards to ensure they are met.

5.Teachers should use more visual aids and visual exercises so as not to overtax any one learning “channel”. Straight lecture can overburden the verbal channel. Visual aids and exercises engage more of the students’ learning channels and promote higher levels of learning, particularly where those exercises engage students’ higher order thinking skills.

6.Teachers should use more assessments so students can determine early and often whether they are learning the material. These assessments should mimic the type of assessments on which students’ grades will be based.

Have you found that your students are distracted? Do you wonder if class or the work holds their focus? I’d love to hear others’ perspectives!

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Yesterday,  I sat on the stage of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) and for the 24th time fondly watched law students traverse the stage, receive their juris doctoris diploma, and begin their post-law school lives.  I listened to my 24th Commencement Speaker,  National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg.  She urged law graduates to look to courageous and humble role models including  Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., who pioneered equal access to justice and reminded us that “it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.”   Ms. Totenberg and other honored speakers, including the student representative, did not ignore the difficult economy these graduates face.  They just did not let such challenges limit the enjoyment of the spectacularly beautiful day or define the worth of the graduates. There was an infectious air of optimism and hope honoring the hard work done, the dreams shared, and the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired. One of those graduates was this blog’s own Stephanie Gianchristofaro-Partyka who has spent the past year assisting in all things “Best Practices. ”  We cross our fingers along with her as she waits to hear back from criminal defense employers.   Good-bye, thank you, and good-luck to Stephanie from this blog’s contributors and readers!

Once the ceremony ended and the last photos with families were taken, faculty returned to grading! The ABA Weekly Newsletter and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/05/10/law-prof-lets-scrap-the-gentlemans-c/ , have both reported on a grading proposal by University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Professor Joshua Silverstein, namely that  “Law Schools Should Mostly Ditch C Grades.”   http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/law_schools_should_mostly_ditch_c_grades_law_prof_argues

Silverstein notes on his SSRN site that “C marks virtually always denote unsatisfactory work in American graduate education.  Law schools are the primary exception to this convention. It is time we adopted the practice followed by the rest of the academy.” 

Reasons to “ditch” the C’s include:

• inequity – many law schools ranked in the top tier by U.S. News essentially have eliminated the use of C grades, while policies in fourth-tier schools often encourage or require large numbers of Cs
• jobs – grading policies which encourage low grades damage students’ placement prospects
• stress – Cs do psychological injury to law students generally familiar with achieving A’s and B’s

I find Professor Silverstein’s arguments persuasive, but the need to make the arguments saddens me.  Almost seven years ago, Roy Stuckey et. al. urged law schools to stop “sorting” students by a method that is only helpful to prospective employers looking for a simple screening system and instead to provide formative and evaluative assessment of law students and graduates.  This shift would  create a more competent profession and more able learners. Such an assessment structure would eliminate the issues which Silverstein’s C’s raise.  (You either become increasingly competent to practice and engage with the law or you need to re-assess your life goals!)  Despite this reasoned plea, the media and the academy is still stuck in a mindset that focuses on sorting methods and “grade inflation” rather than on better preparation and assessment of law students to serve clients and society.

Thankfully, my final grading this semester includes such assessment methods: clinical performance evaluations, student reflections and hybrid field supervisor evaluation and input.   In end of semester meetings, after 14 weeks of clinical pedagogy, this group of students was able to honestly evaluate strengths, abilities not yet acquired and ways to obtain necessary  skills and abilities either  in the next year of law school (second years) or in the early years of practice/pro-bono/business work (third years).  And I was able to review a series of simulations, real work product, classroom activities and a feedback loop to determine my grades. The students were able to acknowledge the psychologoical and personality issues which obstructed their growth and identify practice situations well-suited or ill-suited for them.   These students have learned to be more reflective, to “own” their education and career formation, and to care deeply about their role in improving justice and the profession. Justice Powell and Nina Totenberg would be proud of them …..and so am I.

What do you think about Silverstein’s arguments and about your effective assessment methods?

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The “transparency” of law school employment statistics has been widely criticized and robustly discussed over the past few years,  resulting in changes to ABA accreditation rules and to law schools’ documentation and reporting of their graduates employment status.  Just last week, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) http://iaals.du.edu/,  announced a new employment calculator intended to be used as an alternative to the traditional and, in the opinion of many,  biased current ranking system:

  Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, an initiative of IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, is pleased to announce Law Jobs: By the Numbers™ (http://educatingtomorrowslawyers.du.edu/law-jobs), an interactive online tool that gives prospective law students the most transparent and complete law school employment rate information available.   

So what makes this calculator more transparent?  According to the website, it is an incredibly “powerful” tool because  “It lets the users create their own rates and, because we have made the formulas completely transparent and accessible, it teaches them how different criteria can impact the employment rates reported by schools, publications, and organizations.

If you click on it, you will notice that users can “choose their own” formulas such as  “whether bar passage is required, whether a position is full time, or whether a job is funded by the law school.” formula stands up against those from leading publications and organizations.  You can also choose to rank all schools or compare specific schools. 

I spent just a few moments on the calculator and found it to be very interesting and informative about employment parameters and about the type of information which goes into creating employment  “statistics, misleading statistics and outright lies’ (to paraphrase a famous quote).   I also believe that the more alternative information and evaluation sources available, the less power US NEWS has to lead legal education by the nose. And that, my friends, seems like a step forward!   

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The Upcoming Standards Review Committee Meeting takes place on April 26 and April 27.

You can find a link to the proposed draft for review regarding Bar Passage here.

You can also find a link to the agenda for the meeting and other proposed materials here.

Please take a look when you have a chance, and let us know what you think! If you are attending this meeting, please let us know and leave a comment with an update to share anything you feel like passing along! We look forward to hearing your comments.

-Stephanie

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Karen Sloan
The National Law Journal
04-24-2013

It turns out that if you ask 30 different law professors, practitioners, judges and bar association leaders how to fix legal education, you’ll get about 30 different answers.

The lack of consensus about what ails law schools and how to fix them was on display Wednesday during a daylong conference hosted by the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Future of Education.

Participants in the forum struggled for agreement about what is driving the rising costs of legal education—or about how schools and regulators should respond to declining job prospects for new lawyers and flagging interest in law degrees.

“What the task force is doing is very difficult politically. It’s very difficult conceptually. And its very difficult pragmatically,” said Valparaiso University School of Law dean Jay Conison, the task force’s reporter.

The conference brought members of the year-old task force together with dozens of experts and interested parties in effort to guide the deliberations and help shape the task force’s recommendations. Though no clear direction emerged, panel members said the exchange of ideas was useful.

“Among the things the ABA is working on, this may be the most important,” said ABA president-elect James Silkenat. He told attendees that he is asked about the task force’s work whenever he meets with bar and law school leaders.

The task force hopes to release preliminary recommendations during the late summer or early fall, with a final report to follow in mid-November, said former Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard, its chairman. Members already have heard from several hundred people in public hearings and through written comments, he said.

The task force is considering what law schools, the ABA and groups that control bar admissions should do, said Loyola University Chicago School of Law dean David Yellen, a member of the panel.

The wide-ranging discussion,held at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, veered from whether to use the ABA’s law school accreditation standards to force change, to whether a law degree is even necessary for many of the emerging jobs in the legal industry.

The attendees also appeared to struggle with whether the task force’s mission lies with the needs of law schools, the larger profession or the broader society. When asked specifically what should be done, the responses fell across the board.

Some said law schools should be required to spell out the core competencies that students should develop at set points during their legal educations; others, that tuition reduction was the first priority. Several attendees endorsed higher teaching loads. No single idea dominated.

The ABA’s accreditation standards were a major focus. However, no consensus emerged about whether to relax the standards in order to give law schools more room to experiment with curricula, or to tighten them to force specific changes.

University of Pennsylvania Law School dean Michael Fitts and former Southwestern Law School dean Bryant Garth argued that any attempt to bear down would stifle innovation and ultimately prove counterproductive.

But loosening up seemed wrongheaded to task force member Jolene Yee, an attorney from Newport Beach, Calif. Too many people have urged the task force not to just tinker around the edges, she said.”I feel like we are at a critical place in the profession. I’m not sure [deregulating law schools] is enough.”

If a law degree isn’t necessary for every job in the legal industry, perhaps some schools will develop programs intended to train people for non-lawyer jobs within the legal industry, suggested Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch.

“What are law schools and what should they be doing?” Berch said. “There’s a tension between what I see as a broad education and the need for what I see as legal technicians. I don’t know that these people are lawyers at all.”

At several points throughout the day, panelists and task force members discussed the idea of a tiered system of legal education that students could exit at different levels depending on their career aspirations.

Any recommendations by the task force would require approval from the ABA’s House of Delegates, and there is still a lot of work to be done before a report is issued, Shepard said.

“The trail from here to the House of Delegates seems a long way to me,” he said.

Contact Karen Sloan at ksloan@alm.com. For more of The National Law Journal’s law school coverage, visit: http://www.facebook.com/NLJLawSchools.

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I’d like to ask you all to take a look at this article when you have a chance! It is an excellent post by Susan Rutberg, and I hope that you all take a few minutes to check it out!

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