Happy Birthday Professor Roy Stuckey! Roy’s birthday was celebrated at the AALS Annual Conference.
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Examples of curricular reform
Posted on January 4, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch
At this afternoon’s AALS plenary session on “Rethinking Legal Education For the 21st Century”, wonderful discussion occurred on legal education reform in a packed room of avid listeners. Two of the Carnegie Foundation Report’s authors, Judith Wegner and Bill Sullivan, discussed the findings of the report. Professor Martha Minow described curricular reform and process at Harvard. New Mexico Dean Sue-Ellen Scarnechia discussed the need for experiential and non-experiential teachers to build respect and collaboration capital and to break down biased perceptions of each other. Panelist Vicki Jackson of Georgetown reported on Georgetown’s first year course “FIRST WEEK. ” (Scheduled for the first week of the second semester, FIRST WEEK offers a brief and intensive integrated simulated experience in which students work with problem based materials in a global lawyering context based on legal concepts such as contracts or torts which were taught in the previous semester). Continue reading
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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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Input & Ideas from Jan 08 AALS Conference
Posted on January 2, 2008 by Mary A. Lynch
It ‘s a new year for Blogging and here we are in the Exhibit Hall at the AALS Conference. Come visit us on the 1st floor, make a left and go all the way to the end and you’ll find us against the wall! Interestingly, we are right next to Harvard University Press!
Conference attendees: please provide us with suggested blog topics. Let us know what to add to the Best Practices Blog resources. How can we improve on the Blog format? To provide input and ideas, please reply to this post (below). Thanks for participating in this collaborative, progressive endeavor!
Mary A. Lynch,Albany Law School
Blog Editor, Best Practices Implementation Committee
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Lawyers Appreciate…
Posted on December 26, 2007 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
I got this e-mail from from Victoria Pynchon:
“I know everyone is busy with shopping, family and wrapping up year-end. I’ve nevertheless taken the liberty of tagging each of you with the “Lawyer’s Appreciate” meme tag started by Stephanie West Allen of Idealawg and Julie Fleming Brown of Life at the Bar. Continue reading
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Articulating Outcomes – Help for Law Schools
Posted on December 20, 2007 by ghess
If law schools are to assess outcomes, an early step is to answer the question, “What outcomes?” The prospect of articulating outcomes for a law school may seem overwhelming for many deans and faculty members. But existing resources give law schools a well developed starting point. In the 1990s, the MacCrate Report set out a list of professional skills and values. In Outcomes Assessment for Law Schools (Institute for Law School Teaching, 2000), Greg Munro gave detailed examples of outcomes appropriate for law schools and for Continue reading
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Measuring Student Learning Outcomes- Assessing Core Knowledge of Torts
Posted on December 19, 2007 by ssparrow
As I grade this semester’s torts exams I am again struck by how critical it is to give students practice in applying concepts. I am noticing that all students are more effective writing about an issue when they have had two or three chances to practice writing about it before the final exam. This semester students had an ungraded writing assignment which asked them to analyze 2 elements of a negligence claim – duty and breach of duty. Then they wrote a practice midterm and a midterm which asked them to analyze duty and 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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Who Has Been Using Best Practices?
Posted on December 17, 2007 by Roy Stuckey
When Best Practices for Legal Education was published in March, 2007, a box of 32 copies was shipped directly from the printing company to most law schools.
Subsequently, the following law schools requested enough copies for their entire faculties to have a copy: 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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ABA Seeks Input on Outcomes
Posted on December 17, 2007 by Roy Stuckey
The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has created a Special Committee on Outcome Measures. The charge to the Committee is:
“This Committee will determine whether and how we can use output measures, rather than bar passage and job placement, in the accreditation process.” 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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Best Practices for Legal Education 