Managing Expectations in the Law School Classroom

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Jessica N. Haller

On behalf of Andrew Henderson, PhD Candidate, ANU College of Law, The Australian National University

Developing a relationship with students in an online setting is a challenge. There are the problems with technology (‘You’re muted!’) and the usual interruptions (‘I’ll come and watch Paw Patrol in a minute’). But all those usual tricks we use as law teachers to ‘read the room’, especially at the start of the semester, don’t quite work.

And that can be a problem. A recent survey of undergraduate college students found that their experience with ‘emergency’ remote teaching was not a happy one. And a lot of university professors felt the same way, especially when it came to student participation.

One of the ways I have often got out ahead of student satisfaction in face-to-face classes was to have an explicit conversation about expectations. But not just the standard, finger-wagging ‘you will do the reading’ diatribe. I ask students specifically about their expectations of me.

The idea of writing’ classroom rules’ together in schools is common.  There are lots of books, articles and blog posts about classroom agreements by school teachers.  The International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Program mandates what they refer to as an ‘Essential Agreement’.  The objective is to establish a collective agreement – with all the buy-in that brings with it – on how the class will function.

I was an elementary school teacher. I often wondered why, when I moved to law school, law teachers didn’t do the same thing.  Especially when they’re subject to a much more explicit student evaluation process.   

There is some valuable research on whether student evaluations have value as a performance assessment or management tool.  But, where they are completed honestly and sensibly, evaluation comments tend to fall into common categories.  Usually, there are comments about assessment preparation, assessment tasks and feedback. There are often comments about what was taught or how it was taught. And there is usually something about individual teaching style.

But, by the time the comments appear, it’s generally too late to do anything about a lot of them.  Assessment tasks were locked in with the faculty board months or even years ahead. And lectures are ‘done and dusted’.

Getting that feedback earlier on would, of course, have been valuable. And in an online environment, grabbing some of those expectations can be even more useful given that both students and teachers are doing something new.  Some of the comments might even explain why law students were really engaged.  They might also explain why they performed poorly or didn’t participate. It might have had nothing to do with you at all! But it will also tell you about things that you might have been able to do, or stop doing if you had known earlier.

Traditionally, I would do this in class and usually in the first seminar. I would also get students to give their expectations to another student to encourage openness. And I have talked about that more traditional process on my own blog.

But how can you do this in an online environment where no one really wants to sit in a Zoom room for more than an hour? And how can it be done to preserve a degree of sincerity and openness, especially in a first meeting?

Maybe one of the simplest ways is to use a shared document or even create a Google form with some simple questions. The settings for Google forms can be adjusted so that the respondent doesn’t have to enter their email.  Responses are helpfully collected anonymously in a single Google Sheet that can be reproduced and published.

I have also found another tool that can do the same thing in a way which is more familiar to students. A web-based app called Parampara allows users to create a questionnaire that looks like a Facebook Messenger conversation in a web browser.  Although it seems like a conversation, responses can be pre-programmed with alternative answers depending on the options that the respondent picks. I have found it much more ‘friendly’ than a Google form. And it’s free for the basic account.

While the process of collecting expectations in the classroom was valuable, I have actually found that collecting them through an online tool even more useful. Students would appear to be happy to express themselves more freely and openly. They will often talk about their expectations and where they believe they need help with aspects of the content or skills development.

For example, students have asked for specific things to be covered in more detail because they aren’t sure they understand them. Some have asked for specific advice about particular skills, like essay writing. Some have even expressed their concerns about being called on but also suggested how I can help them manage that anxiety so that they can actively participate.

Overall, it has meant that I have been able to adapt my teaching and the content to respond specifically to students’ interests and needs. Put another way, students have been actively engaged in the development of the course.

Setting out expectations at the start of the semester can be a valuable process. From a selfish perspective, it can give an early ‘heads up’ things that can be addressed before student evaluation time. But, the more valuable outcome has been that my teaching overall has improved. Using these online tools has meant that expectations are captured accurately, clearly communicated and expressed in a way that has further enhanced my teaching.

(Parts of this post appeared in the author’s blog, The Mermaid’s Purse, on 12 February 2020)

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Blended Classes: The Value of Face-to-Face and Synchronous Online Teaching

Posted on July 17, 2020 by benjmad

Like many law professors, I found myself a few months ago teaching regularly from a laptop in my home.  With little prior online teaching, I was intimidated.  Relying on expert help at our school and in the legal education community, on lots of practice using the platforms available, and on the generosity of my students (who kindly took time to do pre-class sessions), I muddled through the semester.

               When I learned we were likely to be teaching online again in some capacity, I decided to take advantage of the available resources to help understand the similarities and differences between face-to-face classes and online classes.  I was delighted to find among these resources an article by one of my favorite educators, Gerald Hess.  His article that explored many of the questions on my mind.  See Gerald F. Hess, Symposium: The State and Future of Legal Education: Blended Courses in Law School: The Best of Online and Face-to-Face Learning?, 45 McGeorge L. Rev. 51 (2013).   (Note on a separate resource: coauthored with Michael Hunter Schwartz and Sophie Sparrow, Professor Hess’s book Teaching Law by Design [Carolina Academic Press 2009] has helped me more than any other single source in designing and teaching my courses.   It should be mandatory reading for all new law professors.)

Professor Hess’s article cites credible authority that online teaching fosters students’ development of self-directed learning.[1]  My colleague, Natt Gantt, and I have been working with St. Thomas Law School’s Holloran Center to provide tools with which law teachers can both adopt development of self-directed learning and use the materials on the Holloran Center website to achieve and measure that learning outcome.[2]   We had not, however, focused on the strengths of online teaching as a means of achieving self-directedness.  Perhaps it should have been obvious to me that, if a student knows that she will be expected to actively participate in the online class, she will take more ownership of her learning.   I had to see the online format in action to begin appreciating its benefits.

               Professor Hess’s article references not only interviews of teachers and students but also empirical evidence that evaluates how effectively face-to-face, online, and blended (combining face-to-face with online) instruction achieves learning outcomes.  The findings offer support for online as a more effective means of achieving learning objectives than traditional face-to-face classes.  However, Professor Hess cautions against exaggerating these findings because most of the empirical research did not involve on law schools (but did include graduate courses).   When one compares the ability to achieve learning outcomes through face-to-face versus online teaching, however, this evidence suggests that we keep an open mind.  When comparing face-to-face teaching with blended teaching, moreover, the results show “stronger learning outcomes than did face-to-face instruction alone.”[3]

               Professor Hess explains why such conclusions make sense.   A well-designed blended classroom encourages students’ collaboration in the learning process.  Such a class also allows students to use their strengths to their advantage while developing or improving new skills.   For instance, the face-to-face class allows students who think quickly on their feet to interact with the professor and each other.   Many students, however, feel more comfortable participating online, after having had the chance to ponder a prompt or post.  All students, moreover, must actively participate in the process of learning.

               Professor Hess’s articles sets forth General Design Principles for an effective blended class.  I encourage anyone who may be teaching a blended class in the upcoming academic year to review his design principles.  I am sure they will help to ensure a class is as effective at achieving learning outcomes as possible.   I know that they showed me I still have a lot of work to do.    However, I realize now that the effort can lead to more effective teaching and learning than in what I had come to accept as the previous norm—face-to-face classes. 

[1] See Hess, supra, at 60-62.

[2] See, e.g., Larry O. Natt Gantt, II, and Benjamin V. Madison, III, Self-Directedness and Professional Formation:  Connecting Two Critical Concepts in Legal Education, 14 Univ. of St. Thomas L. J. 498 (2018); see also Univ. o St. Thomas Law School’s Holloran Center for Leadership in the Professions, Competency Milestones: Self-Directedness, https://www.stthomas.edu/hollorancenter/hollorancompetencymilestones. 

[3] See Hess, supra, at 69 (quoting Means et al., U.S. Dep’t of Educ. Evaluation of Evidence Based Practices in On-Line Learning:  A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies 28 (2010).

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Let’s Take This Period of Unprecedented Change to Consider How Grading Practices Can Affect Issues of Diversity and Inclusion in Our Law Schools

Posted on June 8, 2020 by jennifersbard

Jennifer S. Bard, Visiting Professor, University of Florida, Levin College of Law

For the last half of spring semester 2020, law schools all over the country were forced to change their method of instruction, delivery of final exams, and (in many cases) grading practices because of the demands for physical isolation following the outbreak of Covid-19.  Now that the semester is over, there is a further round of disruption as many states have delayed or even cancelled their bar exams, some have granted graduates diploma privileges, while others bravely go ahead in the face of a possibility that they will have to cancel at the last minute because of ever-rising rates of infection. 

Like the opportunities that may arise when a river is drained and a ship revealed, there may never again be such an opportunity for us to consider what role we play in the glacially slow diversification of the legal profession and how we can make our law schools more equitable, inclusive, challenging, and effective for all of our students—not just those for whom it has been particularly well suited.

With many things to choose from, my starting point for looking at things we rarely question is the marrow deep belief that we owe it to our students to sort them for the benefit of large law firms—even when our employment profile shows that very few of our students will ever work at such a place.  Since the threshold for this opportunity is a top 5 or perhaps 10 percent class rank, it may seem odd, on reflection, that we have designed a curriculum designed to compare students that may have many undesirable consequences including undermining self-esteem, discouraging learning for learning’s sake, and contributing to the lack of diversity in the legal profession.  

Over the years, other justifications have been added such as the need to motivate students or assess their progress but never have we had such a good opportunity to see what law school is like without grades or, more to the point, comparative curves.

Here are some Practices We Might Question

The Primacy of First Semester Grades

One result of the decision to go pass/fail (or some variation of the words) was to “freeze” first year first semester class ranks because it was impossible to produce comparative curves. 

The resulting phenomena gives us a chance to ask ourselves  some tough questions:

  1. Do First Semester Grades Reflect What Students Bring to Law School Rather Than What We Bring to Them? OR Do Students Who Come in Knowing the Rules Get Better First Semester Grades?

Many students, very often First Generation Students, but also some facing racial or gender identity or expression based discrimination, frequently tell us (and the many researchers who study first generation college students) some version of “everyone knew the game but me and by the time I figured it out, it was too late.” And while students living with disabilities might intersect with any of these groups, they also are often using new adaptive equipment and certainly facing new challenges that they may have been able to mitigate in college.

Certainly many of our students do know the game from the start.  The recent AALS survey “Before the JD” found a disproportionate number of students who ended up going to law school had parents who were either lawyers or professionals. While students have, themselves, created organizations to support each-other usually with the enthusiastic support of the law school it may not be enough.

Our challenge going forward is that history is told by the victors.  We can see the students who were not comfortable the first semester but then continued to graduate “at the top of their class” (a vague term that usually means somewhere in the top 20%), but we don’t hear from the ones who didn’t draw attention through academic distress, but also didn’t thrive.

It would be helpful to know more–and many schools do know more about their own students.  But so little of this information is published.

Much is being done in supplemental programs- to name them is to leave many out- such as pre-first semester programs, orientation programs  and excellent pre-law institutes like the Tennessee Institute for Pre-Law , and in wonderful conferences organized by the National Black Law Students Association,  Lavender Law, the National Association of Law Students with Disabilities,  and so many others.  

But how much more effective would it be to have a curriculum that was truly equitable and inclusive – all the way through?

2. Did Pass/Fail Grading Help Learning, Hinder Learning, or None of the Above?

Across the board pass/fail grading that makes no effort to compare students to each other is so unusual as to make any observations worth considering. The expectation was a distressing list of bad results-students putting in less effort during class, performing worse on exams — but did that really happen?

3. Ditto Open Book Exams

As above, it would be interesting to test, in the fall, the content knowledge of students who took open exams.  Not so much as to compare them with past classes, but to see what how much they learned.

4. What Will Be the Long Term Effect of the Delayed or Cancelled Bar Exams–and How Might that Change Our Curriculums?

The opportunity presented by the necessary changes to the bar exam is already in very good hands, (thank you AccesLex) but it’s still worth considering what the future will look like in states which choose provisional or full licensure.  Even decisions to delay the bar exam could raise issues of an on-going, career long licensing process, much as many doctors (but not all) must take requalifying exams every ten years to retain their “Board Certificate.” What would that mean for law schools?

To Be Continued: Part II: What Can We Learn from the Delay of Fall On-Campus Interviewing?   

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Preparing 1Ls for Persuasive Communication by Integrating Procedural Rules and Substantive Law

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Jessica N. Haller

By Louis Jim, Assistant Professor of Law, Albany Law School

My last post discussed my experience of using “classroom clickers” in the first week of law school to build a foundation to understand the hierarchy of authority, a foundation that is critical to success in all classes. In this follow-up, I discuss my experience with using “classroom clickers” to improve student understanding of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure before students write their motion and appellate briefs.

Many law schools require 1Ls to complete a legal analysis, communication, and research course. Although models may vary, those courses typically span two semesters: the first semester focuses on “objective/predictive writing” and the second semester focuses on “persuasive writing.” At Albany Law School, the course is called “Introduction to Lawyering,” which is a six-credit, two semester course (“Lawyering I” in the fall, “Lawyering II” in the spring). I started teaching the course in August 2018.

In Lawyering II, I require the class to write a summary judgment motion and an appellate brief; the students then complete an appellate oral argument. For the summary judgment, every student represents defendants who move (and are inevitably granted) summary judgment. Every student then represents the plaintiffs-appellants for the appellate brief. Students choose their side for the appellate oral argument.[1] By forcing students to switch sides, students must first write their statement of facts and argument from the perspective of the defendant, and then re-write their statement of facts and argument from the perspective of the plaintiff. This model fosters a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of both parties. But more importantly, because students must write from diametric perspectives, this model forces students to think about how organization and word choice affect the persuasiveness of their motion and brief.

The semester-long hypothetical is set in fictional State of New Scotland, and the venue of the civil action is the fictional U.S. District Court for the District of New Scotland,[2] which is in the fictional U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court hears appeals from the Fourteenth Circuit. The hypothetical involves a real circuit split on a constitutional or statutory issue and asks students to persuade the fictional district court and fictional circuit to take a position. As an “open universe” problem, students perform independent research, though I assign short research assignments to get them started. Students must recall their knowledge of “binding” and “persuasive” authority and analogize or distinguish the hypothetical problem’s facts to the facts of real cases on either side of the split.

When I first taught “Lawyering II” in Spring 2019, I presumed that every student fully understood how summary judgment actually worked because they took “Federal Civil Procedure” in the fall. But after reading the motions, I realized that I had failed to ensure that each student had a solid foundation to understand how summary judgment actually worked in practice.

Not wanting to repeat my mistake this spring, I created an in-class exercise to assess the class’s understanding of motions, appeals, and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12 and 56. A copy of the exercise that includes my comments on the objective of each question is available here:

exercise-on-rules-12-and-56-rev.-2.14.20Download

The exercise involves two separate federal housing discrimination claims against “YBR Apartments, Inc.” The plaintiff in the first claim is “Oscar Zoroaster,” and the plaintiff in the second claim is “Dorothy Gale.” Both plaintiffs claim that they have the fictional “Ruby Slippers Syndrome.” Each question in the exercise builds the prior question, and each question assesses a different aspect of Rule 12 or Rule 56. By using a “classroom clicker,” each student participates without fear of being singled out for being incorrect.

I start with Rule 12 because it serves as a good opportunity to focus the students’ attention to the elements of the claim (i.e. “Can plaintiff state a prima facie case for federal housing discrimination?”). The discussion on the questions about Rule 12 also gave me an opportunity to stress that plaintiff’s counsel should draft complaints precisely and accurately as possible in light of the information available to counsel at that time.

The exercise transitions then to assessing the students’ understanding of Rule 56. For the Rule 56 portion, I wrote hypotheticals that would assess their understanding of (1) what it means for a fact to be “material,” (2) what a “dispute as to [a] material fact” and “judgment as a matter of law” actually mean, and (3) how a district court uses persuasive authority when there is no binding authority. The posture of the last two questions in the exercise are designed to mirror the posture of summary judgment motion and appellate brief for the semester-long hypothetical, i.e. convince a district court and a circuit court to adopt the position of another circuit absent any binding authority.

Not only was the exercise useful in assessing (or reviewing) their understanding of Rules 12 and 56, but the exercise also challenged students to begin forming and making persuasive arguments to support their responses. By practicing how to develop their persuasive communication skills early in the semester, students engaged with the primary learning outcome for Lawyering II—persuasive communication. Students could then apply the exercise’s lessons to the semester-long hypothetical. Finally, students saw how substantive and procedural law is actually integrated and used in practice, an opportunity that may not always arise in other courses.[3]

[1] Students sign up on a first-come, first-serve basis.

[2] Albany Law School is located at 80 New Scotland Avenue in Albany, New York.

[3] My students complete a biweekly reflection in which they must tell me two things they learned in Lawyering that week and two things they want to learn in Lawyering. The students then have the option of writing any comments or asking any questions even if the questions and comments are unrelated to Lawyering. One student commented that she wished she saw more of how doctrinal law is actually used in practice.

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Best Practice Contributors Highlighted in Best Articles of 2019

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Jessica N. Haller

A big congratulations to our very own bloggers, Jennifer Bard and Benjamin Madison, for being featured on the TaxProf Blog!

Jennifer Bard’s article, “Are the Students Failing the Bar Exam Today Canaries in the Coal Mine warning us of a More General Need to Change Legal Education?” and Benjamin Madison’s article, “New Rubrics Available to Help Law Schools that Have Adopted Learning Outcomes Related to Professional Identity Formation” were both listed as TaxProf Blog’s “Best Legal Education Articles of 2019.”

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Refuting the False Trope on Clinical Courses and Bar Passage

Posted on January 8, 2020 by rkuehnblog

Robert Kuehn, Washington University School of Law

It has been observed that “the fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.” Until recently, this could be said about the possible influence of enrollment in clinical courses on a student’s likelihood of passing the bar examination. While there was a shortage of empirical studies on any possible relationship, there have been plenty of opinions on how taking those courses might be harmful, opinions often reflected in graduation restrictions on clinical courses and requirements for bar subject-matter courses.

But, there are now significantly more facts to refute those opinions. Two recent, large-scale studies have both found no relationship between the number of law clinic or externship courses or credits a law graduate took and her likelihood of passing the bar exam.

In a forthcoming article in the Journal of Legal Education, academic records of ten years of law school graduates of Washington University in St. Louis and Wayne State University were reviewed for any relationship between the number of law clinic, externship, or, more generally, experiential courses or credits and bar passage. After first accounting for the possible influence of law school grades on bar passage (the most significant predictor of bar success), the study found no correlation at either school between law clinic or externship enrollment and bar passage — no relationship between participation in a law clinic or externship and passage, none between the number of clinical courses and passage, none between the number of clinical credits and passage, and no evidence that students graduating with lower GPAs were disproportionately enrolling in those courses as a way to avoid doctrinal courses (another not uncommon trope). This lack of any relationship was in spite of increased enrollment in experiential courses at both schools over the ten-year period and decreased enrollment in courses teaching material tested on the bar (referred to as bar subject-matter courses).

The article notes that nationwide data on experiential course enrollment and bar passage also belie any claim the two are related. That data indicate that as enrollment in experiential courses was increasing from 2006-2016, bar passage percentages were fairly steady and that the recent decline in passage coincided with decreased, not increased, enrollment in those courses.

A recent study commissioned by the California State Bar found a similar lack of relationship between law clinic and externship courses and bar exam performance. The study reviewed law school coursework and performance on three July exams for over 7,500 bar applicants from eleven California schools. It found no relationship between the number of academic credits from law clinic courses and exam performance, either across all schools or even when reviewing schools separately. Similarly, there was no relationship between the number of externship or internship credits and performance, again when examined across all schools or within schools. The broad range of entering credentials at the eleven schools, and lack of a relationship even within those schools, indicates that the results should be applicable to most law schools, including those with lower LSATs and undergraduate GPAs for entering students.

The study results from Washington University/Wayne State and the California State Bar are similar to smaller studies at Texas Tech and the University of Denver that also reported no statistically significant relationship between enrollment in a law clinic or externship course and bar passage.

The Washington University/Wayne State and California State Bar studies further revealed that opinions about the value of bar subject-matter courses should be moderated. There were small correlations at both schools between the number of bar subject courses and bar passage. But this result (explaining less than 5% of the variability in bar outcomes) was only for low performing students and additional courses showed no marginal benefit once students took the school’s average number of bar courses.

The California State Bar study focused on whether taking a specific course was related to performance on the bar exam topic taught in those courses. It found that neither attendance nor performance in courses covering any of the 13 bar-related topics was related to performance on the corresponding California bar exam or Multistate Bar Exam content covering that subject.

Studies at other schools also indicate that enrollment in bar subject-related courses do not support broad claims about the benefit of taking those courses.

It is time to put away the misinformed trope of participation in law clinic and externship courses harming a student’s chances of passing the bar exam and let the facts do the talking. Law schools should recognize and students should be told they can obtain valuable preparation for the practice of law by enrolling in clinical courses without affecting their likelihood of passing the bar exam.

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Guiding Students From Law School Into the World

Posted on November 21, 2019 by Irene Scharf

It seems that one of the things we law professors can do to help our students develop their identities as professionals and their obligations to the greater society is to incorporate into the law school events that plug students into what’s going on in the “real world.“ I did just this in a small way this week by offering all the students the opportunity to attend and participate in a talk/discussion about the Supreme Court arguments that were heard last week in the DACA case.

The students were invited to attend a portion of my immigration clinic class. Food and pro bono credit hours helped, I’m sure, but the event brought a plentiful group of students I had not interacted with before, who were both knowledgeable about and interested in the issue of the day.  The event lasted only about 45 minutes, but that was long enough to produce a lively and I think informative conversation about oral arguments, professionalism, case theory, the role of policy, administrative law, and of course the specific legal issues raised by the case.

With so much of the law school endeavor focused on exam taking and other tasks that force students into a single-focused, competitive role, bringing them into a discussion about key issues at stake in our country in the moment could likely enhance their connections to their future and help them envision some individual goals they can aim for once out in that “real world.”

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The Legal Interviewing and Language Access Film Project (LILA)

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Jessica N. Haller

By: Laila L. Hlass and Lindsay M. Harris

Teaching effective interviewing skills is a perennial problem. Although there are excellent texts on the subject, few examples of real or model interviews exist, particularly ones which incorporate collaboration issues between student partners, language access issues with the client, and how to address issues of bias when they arise in the interview.

In 2018, we designed, screen-wrote, produced and released The Legal Interviewing and Language Access Film Project (LILA), two instructional videos and a teaching guide featuring a law student clinic pair representing two different immigrant clients, in two different introductory meetings, one of which is conducted with interpretation.

Our goal was to better teach interviewing in our own experiential courses, but we also hoped to share this resource with our colleagues. Since the videos were launched, law school clinics and experiential learning programs across the country have adopted the use of the videos. At the time of writing, more than 100 educators at nearly 75 law schools have requested use of the teacher’s guide for these videos. This includes more than 30 immigration clinics, but also educators teaching in a variety of other clinics, purely doctrinal courses, as well as courses focused on client counseling and interviewing skills.

The videos raise a multitude of issues within interviewing including client-centered lawyering, collaboration, interpretation, and addressing bias. Our films enliven and deepen the learning environment by utilizing modeling, as well as stimulating classroom discussion, reflection and role play. 

In Interviewing Victor: The Initial Meeting, two law students Lisa and Max interview a teenage asylum-seeker in removal proceedings, Victor, raising a number of issues relating to initial client interviewing, including: Road mapping and organization of the interview; Building rapport; Confidentiality; Role description, including representation at later stages, and explaining the arc of case; Verbal and nonverbal cues; Tone; Answering client questions or ethical issues that are difficult and unexpected; Recording the interview and seeking permission; Taking notes; Form of questions; Word choice; Approaches to sensitive topics and response to client’s distress; Client-centered lawyering; and Working with a co-interviewer.

In Josefina: Using an Interpreter, two law students Lisa and Max working with interpreters to interview a monolingual Spanish-speaking client seeking a U visa as a victim of a crime in the United States. This video raises questions regarding: Using third person; Pacing of speech; Summarization and  expansion of interpretation; Challenges when one student speaks the client’s language but partner does not; Confidentiality; Use of interested parties, such as family members; Approaches to changing interpreters; and Use of common language words where the interpreter doesn’t know the intended meaning.

For faculty who hope to adopt the videos in a course, pro bono orientation or other training, please email either Laila Hlass lhlass@tulane.edu or Lindsay Harris Lindsay.harris@udc.edu for the teacher’s guide, indicating in which course(s) you are considering using the films.

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Teaching What You Don’t Know—Wonderful Book with a NSFW Title

Posted on August 21, 2019 by jennifersbard

Teaching What You Don’t Know by Dr. Therese Huston is the most helpful teaching book I’ve ever come across.  It combines theory, practical advice, and reassurance in short and helpful chapters.  It has something for everyone who teaches law school at any level.  While the title might be off-putting to those being taught (maybe keep it home), as she explains it, “Teaching what you don’t know is an increasingly common reality for a majority of academics.”  To paraphrase, the only people who don’t teach what they don’t know are adjuncts hired for single classes and very senior research professors who buy out their teaching time.  The rest of us, very much including law professors who she acknowledges throughout, are essentially teaching survey courses in which it would be impossible to claim expertise for every point and chapter.

All that said, this book is truly a life-saver for the times when we truly, really are teaching what we don’t know either because we have taken on someone else’s class in an emergency or more naturally, when starting out when we are asked to teach a class for the first time. “Knowing” an area of law and “knowing how” to teach it are two very different things.  It’s also helpful when you are new at an institution and the students don’t know you.

In a few very short chapters, Dr. Huston provides practical advice for every challenge—very much including how to prepare and how to present yourself and your state of expertise in the class.  The section on “Establishing Credibility” is a must for anyone teaching something or somewhere new.  It can also help navigate the very choppy waters of teaching evaluations—which as we are all now aware reflect first impressions and often dovetail societal biases.

It’s worth some quotes— “Your knowledge of the field may be the primary way that you earn credibility from your colleagues, but you have a different relationship with students and you establish credibility, respect, and trust in different ways.  Research shows that instructors tend to lose credibility with their students when they:

  • “Show up late for class
  • Lack familiarity with the text
  • Cannot explain difficult concepts
  • Rarely ask if students understand their explanations
  • Does not make any attempt to answer students’ questions
  • Fail to follow course policies”

And even more helpful “there are several things you can do to create the kind of credibility that matters to students”

  • Show up on time for class, preferably early, so you have a chance to connect with students and find out if they have any questions
  • Periodically ask students if they understand the material

That first suggestion is gold.  I urge it on everyone.  It can work like magic.  And make your class more welcoming and inclusive. Research suggests that students care that you care—and the simple act of arriving early (even if the classroom isn’t available, you can mingle) allows you to interact informally with students who might never rush the podium after class or certainly not make the pilgrimage to office hours.

It’s also great for those who want to adopt new teaching methods.  There are a lot of teaching books—all with value.  But sometimes reading about 150 techniques for active learning is overwhelming.  Dr. Huston’s advice is highly curated, clearly explained, and very doable. I’ve given this book away several times since discovering it in the education section of a London bookstore and can’t count how many times I’ve read it and recommended it to others.  I don’t know why it isn’t better known.  Despite its title and its value to beginners and those who find themselves teaching something truly new, what the book really provides is sound, research based advice of value to everyone interested in teaching excellence-—even when teaching things you really know quite well. 

Jennifer S. Bard,J.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.,Visiting Professor at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law

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The role of law school internships and supervisors

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Mary A. Lynch

Today’s ABA Journal contains an op ed by a law student complaining that “law school  biases”  infringe on his right to free speech. Part of his critique involved a change in clinical policies after he wore a #BuildTheWall T-shirt to his internship.

“It had been expressed that we could wear T-shirts, and that has been the norm for my one year at this internship. I took extra precaution by bringing a light jacket to cover it up if a client came to meet with me unannounced.”

Others are better prepared than I to debate the issue generally of whether his claims demonstrate bias in higher education or bias on the part of the student. Others can ponder whether as educators, we are more apt to be triggered by exclusive versus inclusive messages since we value designing welcoming learning environments  and growth mindset .  However, I am not interested in this school’s particular behaviour or this student’s startling apparent nonchalance about how his clothing affected his colleagues, peers and the workplace.  Rather, I am more interested in developing a better understanding of the difference between an academic discussion about self-expression, and the responsibilities and possible repression of some self-expression that most lawyers and law students undergo when donning their professional role as legal interns do.

In my 30 years in clinical education, I have witnessed multiple instances of clinical faculty navigating the tricky balance in communicating professional norms, protecting clients and academic programs, and  respecting a student’s rights. Here are just a few issues we have addressed:

helping students without wealth obtain professional clothing

multicultural insensitivity to clients by both majority and minority students

student difficulty interacting with racist, homophobic and/or sexist, clients, judges, witnesses or opposing attorneys

Unlaundered clothes, smelly students

tight clothes (in men and women)

Clacking heels, scuffed shoes, or wearing clogs all day, every day, one’s whole life

Hair over eyes

dirty fingernails

evolving norms around piercing, black women’s hair, women wearing pants, more casual clothing, hair with color not found in nature

evolving norms around cell phones in local courts, e-mail

learning to use an ancient device called a telephone, to actually initiate a call or listen to voicemail

navigating support for transgender students in unwelcoming situations

drooping pants, belly showing, off the shoulder outfits, cleavage

loud talking, gum chewing,

informality in general which can appear as rudeness to supervisors

“distracting” jewelry

women students raising their voices in a question at the end of a sentence

…and I am sure you teachers can add many more. Feel free.

As a law professor steeped in clinical legal pedagogy and theory, I start the conversation with a few  questions:

  • what is the student’s “educational goal” for her academic/professional journey or experience
  • what is the student’s “lawyer goal” in the context of this internship, case or professional experience
  • what are the client’s/workplace’s needs and goals
  • what are the needs and goals of the community that supports you having this experience — the support staff, the court officers, your sister and fellow students, the local legal community (in this area I first must acknowledge my priorities and how current student behavior may close off opportunities for future students)

Then I discuss with the student how the student’s desired self-expression fits within those questions and priorities, and the possible disconnect from her goals and the programs.

This is my approach.  What do you do?

 

 

Filed under: academic freedom, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices and Clinics, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Catalysts For Change, Diversity & Social Justice, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Teaching Methodology | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Call for Talks – Igniting Law Teaching 2015

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Michele Pistone

LAW PROFESSORS: Are you doing innovative things in the classroom? I would love to showcase your ideas at Igniting Law Teaching, a TEDx-styled conference on law school innovations.

The Call for Talks for Igniting Law Teaching 2015 is out, http://legaledweb.com/ilt-2015-call-for-talks. We’ll be reviewing proposals on a rolling basis, until January 15th.

The conference is March 19-20, 2015 (stay tuned for registration information) in Washington DC at American University Washington College of Law.

Last year’s conference brought together more than 40 law school academics in a TEDx-styled conference to share ideas on law school innovations. LegalED’s Teaching Pedagogy video collection includes many of the talks from last year’s conference (others are being produced and will be available soon).

The topics we addressed last year are: Flipping A Law School Course, Using the Classroom for Active Learning, Simulations, Feedback and Assessment, The Craft of Law Teaching, Applying Learning Theory to Legal Education, Beyond Traditional Law Subjects, and Teaching for the 21st Century.

We would love to hear more on these topics and also expand the horizons a bit. We designed the conference to create a forum for professors like you who are experimenting with cutting edge technologies and techniques in law teaching with the goal of spreading your ideas to the broader community. We see the conference as a way to showcase you as a leader in teaching innovation and to inspire innovation by others as well.

The Igniting Law Teaching conference is unlike other gatherings of law professors. Here, talks will be styled as TEDx Talks, with each speaker on stage alone, giving a well scripted and performed talk about an aspect of law school pedagogy. In the end, we will create a collection of short videos on law school-related pedagogy that will inspire innovation and experimentation by law professors around the country, and the world, to bring more active learning and practical skills training into the law school curriculum. The videos will be available for viewing by the larger academic community on LegalED, a website developed by a community of law professors interested in using online technologies to facilitate more active, problem-based learning in the classroom, in addition to more assessment and feedback.

This is a great opportunity to showcase your innovations to the legal academy. Consider joining us for Igniting Law Teaching 2015!

Cross-posted on the LegalTech Blog

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NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION VIGOROUSLY OPPOSES PROPOSAL TO BRING UBE TO NY THIS JULY

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Mary A. Lynch

Less than a month ago, the New York State Courts circulated a proposal to change the New York State (NYS) Bar Exam by adopting the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) along with a second, separately graded “New York Law Exam” segment consisting of 50 multiple-choice questions, tested for one hour on the second day of the exam.   The proposal would make the changes effective for all current graduating law students who face the bar exam in July 2015.    This past weekend, the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates unanimously opposed the proposed immediate changes,  sending a  message to the NYS Board of Law Examiners and to the New York Court of Appeals – do not bring the Uniform Bar Exam and a yet to be formulated or studied New York Exam to NYS in  July 2015.  Even more significantly, the House directed the State Bar President, based on an amendment from the floor,  to do everything possible to prevent immediate implementation of a new bar exam in New York.  

So, how did NYS get to the point where the Courts and the Bar are in such conflict over proposed changes to the bar exam?

For several years,  the NYS Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Committee (LEAB)  (on which I have formerly served as an active member) has been studying how to improve the bar exam to make it fairer for all groups of test takers and more relevant to what graduates need to know, value and do in the early years of practice. See NYSBA Legal Education September2013Journal particularly page 31.  The Committee, through its chairs, has reached out to the NYS Board of Law Examiners and the Chief Justice about these matters without success.  The UBE was not one of the reform measures which LEAB proposed for further study or pilot projects.

Suddenly, and without notice to the NYSBA LEAB Committee,  co-chaired by  well-respected practitioner Eileen Millett and equally well-respected Touro Law Center Dean Patricia Salkin , the courts circulated and posted the following:

1) UNIFORM BAR EXAMINATION (UBE)
 POSTED OCTOBER 7, 2014

The New York State Board of Law Examiners has recommended to the New York Court of Appeals that the current bar examination be replaced with the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE). The Court of Appeals is considering adopting the UBE for the administration of the July 2015 bar exam. On October 6, 2014, the Court of Appeals issued a Request for Public Comment on the proposal. Submissions will be accepted until November 7, 2014. A copy of the Request for Public Comment is available by clicking this link:   New York Court of Appeals Request for Comment  http://www.nybarexam.org

The proposal and request for comment document asserts that  “The UBE is prepared by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) and passage of the test would produce a portable score that can be used to gain admission in other states that accept the UBE, provided the applicant satisfies any other jurisdiction-specific admission requirements. As the UBE is accepted by more states,the portable score will facilitate lawyer mobility across state lines, resulting in expanded employment opportunities for lawyers throughout the nation and facilitating multi-state law practices.”

Given the surprise announcement from the Court on October 6, 2014 of a 30-day comment period (open until this Friday, Nov. 7th) , the LEAB and its co-chairs  had only a matter of weeks to research, discuss and prepare a report for the State Bar Association about the implications of the proposed changes. The LEAB report 10-29-2014 (2) argues that it is simply too soon to discuss the merits of the Uniform Bar Exam and its potential impact on test takers in New York because of the surprise nature of the announcement along with absence of any study or report discussing a need, a cost-benefit analysis, or a discussion of whether there could be disparate impacts on minority test-takers.  LEAB is concerned about potential increase in costs for test-takers, impact on barriers to entry to the profession in New York, and impact on the New York job market.  LEAB  discussions emphasized that the practicing bar has been pressuring law schools to meet the demands of a changing market place including, among other things, producing more “practice ready” lawyers that would presumably include a richer knowledge of New York Law.  Impacts on foreign lawyers and other important issues for consideration were also raised.

On this past weekend, co-chairs Millett and Salkin presented their findings to the NYSBA House of Delegates.  The presentation to the State Bar can be viewed here (Click on the Nov. 1 House of Delegates Meeting and then click on the Report of the Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar)  Co-Chair Millett challenged the notion that the proposed reforms as outlined would actually result in  portability. Co-chair Salkin pointed out that the notion of “uniformity” seems misleading given that in NY many uniform rules are not used and that  current law school  courses focus on statutes different than those used by the UBE .   Significantly, three past presidents of the NYSBA testified against the proposed immediate changes including Steve Younger who emphasized the issues raised by New York’s special connection with international lawyers from around the globe admitted to practice  in New York State.  Many expressed concern for current students facing the July Bar, including Albany Law School Professor Michael Hutter who asked  “Why the Rush to Judgment?” Dean Patricia Salkin and Betty Lugo (President-elect of the Puerto Rican Bar Association founded in 1957) expressed particular concern that minority bar associations were not consulted, and that questions on the proposed brand new “New York Law Exam” component have never been tested on previous exams, a “best practice” for all standardized tests that are given as points of entry to higher education and the professions.

Why does this matter?

The contents, pass rates and disparate impacts of the bar exam matter tremendously .  This is our profession’s gatekeeping device.  It announces  what we value and what we do not value. It will be a make or break change for many law students starting in July who have prepared their course of study under different sets of expectations. For many schools and many students, bar exam subjects and testing methods determine their course curriculum rather than what they need to meet student learning outcomes or preparing for practice. This proposed change deserves further scrutiny and evaluation.  New Yorkers also deserve that the Court evaluate  the success of licensure practices which include clinical evaluation while in professional school as opposed to sole reliance on standardized testing.

See attached SALT Letter-NY Bar opposing the proposed changes.

My  Reaction to the Proposed Changes:

POTENTIAL ADVANTAGES:

  • Should proposed changes result in a decrease in the number of doctrinal subjects tested on the NY Bar exam that will be an advantageous change both for making the bar exam more relevant and for allowing law schools and students to craft better curricular choices to prepare them for the jobs and careers of today and tomorrow.  (see earlier BLOG post on this issue here.)

POTENTIAL DISADVANTAGES:

  • The process for adopting the proposed change is too hasty and is unfair to current third year students and to second year students who have already planned three semesters around the exam.
  • The proposed changes have not been studied appropriately. For example, no one knows if the new format, particularly the 50 question NYS multiple choice format,  will exacerbate the already disparate impact on graduates of color and/or if it will create a separate barrier for admission to those who will make great lawyers but not particularly good standardized test-takers given the speededness/speediness factor – 50 multiple choice in one hour will make or break you on the NY part!
  •  The proposed format fails to address the critical need for bar licensure to include evaluation of actual, supervised, and  limited practice of law while in law school or immediately thereafter.  As a gateway to a client-centered, civic profession, evaluation of the limited supervised practice of law could and should replace – at least some part – of the current standardized testing.

NEW YORK LAWYERS, LAW STUDENTS  AND LAW PROFESSORS ACT NOW!  Comments due by this Friday November 7th.

Address comments to:

UniformBarExam@nycourts.gov

Filed under: Best Practices, Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices and Clinics, Catalysts For Change, Diversity & Social Justice | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Task Force Speaks!

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Lauren McCormick

By: Margaret Martin Barry

I suspect that like many others in legal education, I turned to the final word from the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education with interest and hope.  After all, it has become the poster child for the growing crisis in higher education.  We recognize that there is high personal and public value in an educated populous.  That accounts for our investment in elementary and secondary education. However, unlike many of our Western counterparts, we limit our investment in higher education to loans, program-based grants and ever diminishing contributions to state schools.  What the report describes as the tension between the public and private value of legal education is not so much a tension between these two values as a lack of collective will to invest in our future through education.

This does not mean that higher education, including law schools, is off the hook with regard to  addressing costs.  There is evidence that law schools have gone to task in doing just this. However, it is unrealistic to look back to a day when law schools were less expensive and conclude failure if the earlier benchmark is illusive.  Higher education costs more today.  Similar to others in higher education, law students need and expect access to technology, high quality education that expands and refines their thinking and effectively prepares them for the work they hope to do, academic support, career support, and support for extracurricular activities that nourish their academic and professional development.  To produce this costs money.

Central to the production costs is having faculties that are dedicated to meeting educational needs, needs that are part of the public and private bundle of values the Task Force references.  While one may question the historic inflexibility of law school faculties in the face of critique of their educational priorities, I know I have, the inflexibility has been essentially born of a fundamental disagreement with regard to what constitutes high quality in legal education and priorities in maintaining that quality.

As the Task Force points out, the decibel level of criticism coupled with uncertainty about the market for legal services has induced a “climate receptive to change”.  Many law schools have engaged in cost cutting measures and curricular redesign.  Support for teaching is no longer limited to the broader support for scholarship, and the trajectory towards reduced teaching loads to support increased production of scholarship is halting, or at least being reconsidered.

Law schools and their faculties are also less certain that their task is sufficiently achieved if legal education is limited to the exercise of covering a body of doctrine and learning to think and write in a certain way.  Other skills that are part of the value a legal education should provide are making their way into the core goals for providing a quality legal education.  Slowly, the old dichotomy between what the 2007 Carnegie Report described as “knowledge” and the other competencies that a legal education suggests, which Carnegie referred to as “skills and values” is breaking down.  Yet the Task Force identifies dichotomy without recognizing its limited value or acknowledging its growing irrelevance:

“…[I]t is commonly stated that the basic purpose of law schools is to train lawyers, but there is no consensus about what this means.  It matters greatly whether, for example, one takes a view of lawyers as deliverers of technical services requiring a certain skill or expertise, or as persons who are broad-based problem solvers and societal leaders.”

Can one seriously deny that lawyers deliver technical services requiring not a certain skill but a range of them?   Are problem-solving and leadership skills somehow relegated to another strata that can be disaggregated from the professional role?  The Task Force goes on to correctly point out that a law school’s “views about purpose may not be reflected well in the curriculum”.  However, this is not because of such a narrow view of what lawyers do but a limited, though evolving, view about the extent of law school’s role in preparing them to do it.

To move law schools along the path of change, the Task Force speaks much about heterogeneity.  I certainly value diversity, but when it comes to what law schools should offer, there are considerations not specifically addressed by the Task Force that should be expressly understood before we get too far down the path.  Society, including the law student, has an interest in knowing that a graduate of a law school has a working foundation in the work that lawyers do.  We can discuss whether this expectation is realistic, whether indeed clinical legal education is the answer or post law apprenticeships are inevitable or legal education should train specialists instead of generalists, but legal education has for some time promised more than we produce.  Now that the cover provided by the law firms and agencies that provided post graduate training is eroding, the reality of the limitations of traditional legal education is more apparent.  Expansion of clinical offerings and outreach to the bar are manifestations of this recognition.

Connected to its assessment of the financial burden of law school, the Task Force speaks of the need for more limited training that would allow for greater service to those who cannot afford the debt laden lawyer.  It referenced the Limited License Legal Technician provisions that Washington State has been rolling out.  Limited licensing may well be inevitable for a variety of reasons, though without specific funding for the services they would provide, it may not do much more than what lawyers offering unbundled services and pro bono legal services are currently seeking to do for those unable to otherwise afford legal service.

The Task Force proposes several new entities within the ABA to address cost, debt burden and assessment and improvement of legal education.  It does not discuss where these entities should fit in relation to the existing Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.   However, it does goes on to list a number of Accreditation Standards and Interpretations of Standards that the Council of that section should “eliminate or substantially moderate”.   I believe it is fair to say that several have been under significant reevaluation for the past several years.  What I found of concern from a Task Force that took a year to produce its report is the fact that it listed the Standards and Interpretations without connecting their existence or elimination to goals for the quality of legal education, or even directly to cost reduction.

For example, while one might argue that the current detail in interpretations 402-1 and 402-2 are byzantine and not directly related to ratios in a given classroom, is it enough to say that a law school must have “a sufficient number of full-time faculty to fulfill the requirements of the Standards and meet the goals of its educational program”, which is what would be left if the interpretations are eliminated (something that is currently proposed by the Sections Standards Review Committee, by the way)?  Once we identify full-time faculty as a basis for developing a student faculty ratio, what do we do about administrators and those full-time teachers that a law school might not identify as faculty?  What benchmark do we have for enforcing this indicator of quality?  If we are responding to concerns about costs, should classes of 300 students be acceptable because it is cheaper and arguably meets educational goals that can be identified?

Similarly, if we throw out Standard 405, and 206(c) and 603, what are we saying about leadership in law schools?  Why, at the core, does higher education value security of position?  It has long been understood that such security attracts those who value legal education and want to dedicate themselves to the teaching, scholarship and service that is expected to maintain and improve law schools that have, for all the flaws identified and assessment in progress, managed to provide significant educational value.  The idea that tenure is dragging law schools down ignores not only the dedication of many law professors, but their ability to speak to the educational mission they serve instead of being ignored or dismissed by administrators who may be more focused on a bottom line than balancing the equally significant institutional purpose.

The report also spends time discussing generally the need for greater ability to innovate, suggesting that the ABA Standards inhibit heterogeneity.   While I agree that the variance process should be made more transparent and that successful innovations should lead to appropriate regulatory modifications, it is worth reminding ourselves that not that many schools have innovated within what is currently consistent with and arguably encouraged by the existing Standards, much less sought variances to go beyond them.  It may well be that far more than underscoring differences, we first need to be more certain than we are about what constitutes a sound legal education, at any institution.   The end result may not be as homogenous as the Task Force fears, but it should provide greater assurance of reliable preparation for the profession.

All this said, I am grateful to the Task Force for undertaking this project.  I know it reflects a lot of work over and above busy schedules.  Given the membership and some of the input entertained – indeed, given the waves of criticism that legal education is facing coupled with uncertainty about legal service market, I dared to hope for something more than additional committees, cursory comments on accreditation standards that have already been the source of significant discussion, and a call for law schools to reduce costs and other steps the vast majority are already undertaking.  Maybe the message is that there is nothing new to add, we will continue to mull it all over, propelled relentlessly by evolving markets and minimal public commitment to the value of higher education.

Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Law School Hybrid

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Lauren McCormick
December 18, 2013
By: Carl Straumsheim

William Mitchell College of Law has received approval from the American Bar Association to launch a part-time J.D. program that blends face-to-face instruction with online courses. Although the hybrid program marks the first of its kind, experts are split on whether it marks an experiment or a turning point for how legal education is delivered in the U.S.

The four-year part-time program, meant for students whose location or work commitments prevent them for pursuing a legal education full-time, will mix recorded lectures and quizzes with video conferences and online discussion forums when it launches in January 2015. Students will also be required to complete externships and attend weeklong on-campus simulations at the end of each semester to practice their legal skills. Mitchell’s Board of Trustees approved the program Tuesday night.

“Our message is that this is not an online J.D. degree,” said Eric S. Janus, president and dean of the college. “This is a J.D. degree that has very substantial and rigorous face-to-face components that I think are going to be designed in a unique way to help people become more prepared to practice law.”

Online education and accreditation from the American Bar Association rarely mix. Although fully online law programs exist without ABA approval, institutions that seek accreditation need to tailor their programs to a set of standards that have been in effect since 2002. The program itself needs to consist of at least 83 credits — Mitchell’s hybrid program clears that hurdle exactly — but no more than 12 can be granted from pure distance education. Of the remaining credits, one-third of the coursework can also be completed remotely. As an added twist, programs can offer only four credits of distance learning per semester.

Barry Currier, managing director of the ABA’s legal education section, said the four-credits-per-semester rule may have discouraged law schools from experimenting with hybrid programs. He also pointed out that few law schools seem to be aware of or interested in developing programs that take advantage of those regulations.

“Maybe they think their students won’t like it?” said Currier, previously dean of the online Concord Law School of Kaplan University, which after clashing with the ABA decided not to seek its approval. “Maybe they think employers won’t be interested in students that went to a school that was one-third blended?”

For many law schools, the requirements regulating distance education have been been viewed as “insurmountable,” said Simon Canick, associate dean of information resources at Mitchell. “I think a lot of law schools also use the existing ABA standards as a reason to not push the envelope,” he added.

To receive approval for its hybrid program, Mitchell submitted a variance request that exempts the program from the requirements — under certain conditions. The college must enroll no more than 96 students per year, assess the program on an annual basis and report its findings to the ABA. The college also had to waive its right to confidentiality to help other law schools learn from its experiences.

“I see this as a first step for the ABA to be welcoming of innovation,” Janus said.

Variance requests represent another untapped opportunity for law schools to experiment with new forms of legal education, Currier said. “The ABA has not gone around and said ‘Oh please, please, please submit a variance request,’ ” he said. “It is not the case that there are dozens of requests for variances about distance learning that have been turned down. Maybe the perception is they would have been turned down.”

If the experiments prove successful, however, they could guide the ABA to revise its own standards, Currier said.

The approval of the hybrid J.D. program can also be seen as the ABA responding to those who have called for law school reform — a group that includes President Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School. The ABA last year launched a Task Force on the Future of Legal Education, which concluded the organization’s own policies was stymieing innovation.

“The current procedures under which schools can seek to vary from ABA Standards in order to pursue experiments are narrow and confidential,” the task force reported in September.

Mitchell submitted its variance request in July, and Canick said the college benefited from the timing of the task force’s report.

“I think the ABA faces some significant pressure externally to innovate and allow innovation,” Canick said. “Here comes this proposal that’s really good. I think they were eager to show they were going to embrace innovation.”

Mitchell, an independent law school located on one block in the residential Summit Hill neighborhood of St. Paul, Minn., may not seem like a hotbed of legal education reform. Like many law schools, the college has seen its enrollment shrink over the past few years. About 240 students enrolled this fall, down from about 260 the year before and about 300 two years ago.

“We’re doing fine, comparatively speaking,” Janus said. “I do think that part of the message is that law schools have to add value, and the programs they offer need to be meaningful and accessible to the people who want to study law. This is not a response to declining enrollment.”

The online option instead represents a third track and a nod to the college’s history, Janus said. Mitchell was founded in 1900 as St. Paul College of Law, a night school catering to the same type of students who would consider an online education. The college added a full-time option in the ’70s.

Aside from the mode of delivery, the three tracks are fairly similar. Applicants for the hybrid program won’t see more lenient admissions requirements or tuition savings, for example. “We understand that the blended learning is not for everybody, but it will meet — we think — the needs of a group of people,” Janus said.

The law school has for years offered about a dozen blended and online courses, and plans for a fully hybrid J.D. program have been in the works since 2009. Currier said the the decision to approve the request was a result of the strength of Mitchell’s application, not external pressure.

“What the council saw was that this was a school that has a long history of part-time legal education and a long history of serving students who are a little more nontraditional in terms of age and working experience than many law schools,” Currier said. “I think it’s safe to say something like this has never been approved before.”

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/18/american-bar-association-approves-experimental-hybrid-jd-program#ixzz2nryuK8wt
Inside Higher Ed

Filed under: Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

The Ideal Law School Graduate? A ‘People Person’ Who Can Do Research

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Lauren McCormick

By: Jacob Gershman

You can be a sharp writer and a nimble researcher who is skilled at analyzing cases.

But for law school graduates entering the workforce, it’s the softer skills, like work ethic, collegiality and a sense of individual responsibility, that really impress legal employers, according to a new study.

University of Dayton School of Law researchers conducted focus with legal employers to find out what they expect from new law school graduates.

Dayton law professor Susan Wawrose said researchers had thought that the attorneys would focus mostly on the need for basic practical skills, like writing, analysis and research. But comments on soft skills — defined as “personal qualities, habits, attitudes and social graces that make someone a good employee” — tended to dominate the responses.

“The most surprising outcome of our research was the primary importance employers placed on the ‘intra- and interpersonal (socio-emotional)’—soft skills—needed for workplace success,” writes Ms. Wawrose, who authored a report on the study appearing in the Ohio Northern University Law Review.

The researchers interviewed 19 attorneys in the Dayton area who are “actual or potential employers” of graduates from the law school. Most were employed at law firms of varying size. Several others worked as in-house counsel, as an assistant federal public defender, or for legal aid.

The focus group participants said ideal job applicants have a strong work ethic, can work independently without excessive “hand holding,” and would bring a positive attitude to the workplace.

One attorney griped about new hires who “come in . . . [with] this expectation that we’ll sit down and kind of spoon feed them.” Others agreed that some attorneys fresh out of school think “they have a law school degree so they’re entitled to rise up and become partner.”

Other comments suggested that law schools put more of an emphasis on teaching research:

Employers, particularly those with more years in practice, rely on new attorneys to be research experts. The employers in our focus groups have high expectations when it comes to new hires’ research skills, i.e., “[t]hey should be able to adequately and effectively find everything that’s up to the minute.”

Being a research expert also means knowing how to scour books, not just websites, the paper said. “Statutes, treatises and encyclopedias, and desk books are the sources employers still use in paper form. For this reason, new attorneys may want to be familiar with these paper sources,” writes Ms. Wawrose.

The employers also observed that while some new hires are good at cranking out a “full-blown research memo,” the same ones stumble on shorter assignments:

The purpose and audience of the assignment are the key. “[T]hey need to be very cognizant of who their audience is.” Is the document for a client? And, which client? Is it the one who is “very busy” and “want[s] to know, ‘boom,’ ‘what’s the answer[?]’” Or, is it the client who is “all into the details” and will feel “nervous if you don’t give them all the specifics.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/11/25/the-ideal-law-school-graduate-a-people-person-who-can-do-research/

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