Teaching Tools for Law School Faculty
A guide to resources on teaching law
Updated 3/2012. Direct feedback on this page to email@example.com.
General Resources On Teaching Law
American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar. Best Practices Report on the Use of Adjunct Faculty (2011). TC Law Library KF272.A44x 2011. Contents: Recuiting and hiring--Adjunct training--Review, feedback and evaluation--Retention, recognition and morale--Adjunct availability to students--Transition to full-time teaching.
Ronald W. Eades, How to Be a Law Professor Guide: From Getting that First Job to Retirement (2008).
TC Law Library KF297.E33x 2008
Contents: Does Everyone Want to Teach in Law School; Finding that First Job; Getting to Tenure; Life After Tenure; Lifetime Research and Writing; Lifetime Teaching; Lifetime Service; Visiting; Looking at Retirement.
Equipping Our Lawyers: Law School Education, Continuing Legal Education, and Legal Practice in the 21st Century (2009).
This conference, sponsored by ALI-ABA Continuing Professional Education and the Association for Continuing Legal Education, brought together CLE professionals, law school deans and faculty members, law practitioners, bar leaders, judges, and other experts on lawyer professional education to study and respond the challenges of educating lawyers to practice in a rapidly changing world.
The Ethics Project in Legal Education, edited by Michael Robertson (2011). TC Law Library: K103.L44 E87 2011. A collection of essays on the role of values in ethics legal education.
Steven Friedland & Gerald F. Hess, Teaching the Law School Curriculum (2004).
TC Law Library KF272 .F75 2004
This book is organized by legal course topic, i.e. Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, etc.
Table of Contents: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0420/2004016555.html
Gerald F. Hess & Steven Friedland, Techniques for Teaching Law (1999).
TC Law Library KF272 .H47 1999
Contents: Teaching and Learning – Theory, Research and Applications, Course and Class Planning, Questioning and Discussion Techniques, Visual Tools, Real-Life Learning Opportunities, Reconstructing the Classroom Through Collaborative Learning, Computers, Simulations and Role-Playing, Writing Exercises, Classroom Assessment: Feedback to Teachers, The Evaluation of Students, Teaching and Learning Environment.
Gerald F. Hess, et.al., Techniques for Teaching Law 2 (2011).TC Law Library KF272.H47 2011
Contents: Learning theory, student perspectives, and teaching principles -- Materials -- Teaching with technology -- Classroom dynamics and learning culture -- Questioning and discussion techniques -- Collaborative, cooperative, group and team learning techniques -- Experiential and service education-relating law school to practice -- Writing across the curriculum -- Professional skills across the legal education curriculum -- Professional values and identity -- Formative assessment-feedback to students during the course -- Summative assessment-evaluating and grading students -- Teacher development and inspiration.
Philip C. Kissam, The Discipline of Law Schools: The Making of Modern Lawyers (2003).
TC Law Library KF272 .K58 2003
Contents: Basic Practices (includes Elite & Non-Elite Law Schools, Professional Expectations, The Core Curriculum, Casebooks, The Case Method, Law School Examinations, The Institutions of Scholarship, The Placement Process), Space and Time, Disciplinary Techniques, Reform, Foreign Relations, Ethics.
Jan Klabbers & M.N.S. Sellers, The Internationalization of Law and Legal Education (2008).
TC Law Library K100.I585x 2008
Partial Contents: Reflections on Globalization and University Life; Building the World Community through Legal Education; Integrating Practical Training and Professional Legal Education; Internationalizing the American Law School Curriculum; Resolving Multicultural Legal Cases (in Light of the Carnegie Foundation's Report); Resolving Multicultural Legal Cases: a Bottom Up Perspective on the Internationalization of Law.
The Law School Librarian s Role as an Educator: Leading Librarians on Adapting to New Technologies, Maximizing Research Skills, and Helping Students Transition from Law School to Law Firm (2008).
TC Law Library Z682.4.L37 L39x 2008
Contents: Teaching a New Dog the Same Old Trick; Meeting the Needs of Tomorrow's Library User Today; The Director and Law School Librarian's Role as Educator; Constant Mission: Changing Methods; Teaching Effective Legal Research; Teaching the Questions, Not the Answer; The Law School Librarian: Filling in the Gaps; Teaching the Next Generation of Lawyers: Teaching Essential Research Skills; Roles and Status of the Academic Library Director; Working with Students and Faculty in the Research Process.
Legal Canons (J.M. Balkin & Sanford Levinson, eds., 2000).
TC Law Library KF272 .L426 2000
Contents: The Canon in the Curriculum (Empire or Residue: Competing Visions of the Contractual Canon, Canons or Property Talk, or, Blackstone’s Anxiety, Vanished from the First Year: Lost Torts and Deep Structures in the Law, Criminal Law, Teaching American Civil Procedure Since 1779, Of Coase and the Canon: Reflections on Law and Economics), The Canon and Groups (Race Relations Law in the Canon of Legal Academia, Recognizing Race in the American Legal Canon, Feminist Canon, Homosexuals, Torts, and Dangerous Things), The Constitutional Canon (The Canon in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Canons and Constitutional Thought).
Legal Education and Professional Development--An Educational Continuum, Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap, Am. Bar Ass'n Section of Legal Educ. & Admissions to the Bar (1992).
TC Law Library KF272 .A4652x 1992
Legal Education for the 21st Century (Donald B. King, ed., 1999)
TC Law Library KF272 .L433 1999
Contents: General Background and Direction (Proposals for Change, New Paradigm), Change (Questions, Implementation), Contemporary Issues and Developments (Diversity, Transition to Practice, Technological Developments and Issues), Teaching, Scholarship and Ethics (Law Teaching, Legal Scholarship, Legal Ethics), Constituent Concerns (Faculty Concerns, Law Student Concerns, Administrative Concerns), Comparative and International Perspectives, Law Schools and Other Organizations (Law School Relationships, Other Organizations), Law from Other Perspectives (Law and the Public, An Interdisciplinary View).
Paul Maharg, Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-First Century (2007). TC Law Library K100.M33x 2007
Contents: Trading Zones; The Empty Quarter: Interdisciplinary Research and Practice; The Road Not Taken: Realists and the Curriculum; By the End of This Module: the Intimate Dimensions of Ethical Education; Codex to Codecs: the Medieval Web Redivivus; Simulations and the Metaverse; Transactional Learning in Action; Relational Objects: Transactions, Professionalism, E-Mergence; Multimedia and the Docuverse of Law: Learning and the Representation of Knowledge
James Maxeiner, Educating Lawyers Now and Then: An Essay Comparing the 2007 and 1914 Carnegie Foundation Reports on Legal Education (2007).
TC Law Library KF279.M39x 2007
Summary: In 1914 the Carnegie Foundation authored its first report on legal education, the "Redlich Report", which emphasized the scientific basis of practice. For whatever reason the Redlich report did not change the face of legal education. Today, legal education is much the same as it was in 1914. In 2007 the Carnegie Foundation issued a new report, "Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Practice of Law," intended to foster appreciation for what legal education does at its best. This essay critically compares the two reports.
Elizabeth Mertz, The Language of Law School: Learning to Think Like a Lawyer (2007).
TC Law Library KF279.M46x 2007
Contents: Introduction--Similarity: Legal Epistemology--Difference: Social Structure in Legal Pedagogy--Conclusion: Reading, Talking, and Thinking Like a Lawyer.
Nelson Miller, Teaching Law: A Framework for Instructional Mastery (2010).
TC Law Library KF279.M55x 2009
Contents: Pedagogy--How Students Learn; Course Objectives--What Students Should Learn; Syllabi-- What to Include and Why; Lectures-- How Students Best Learn from Them; Socratic Method-- Its Most Effective Uses; Differentiating Instruction-- How to Serve More Students; Integrating Instruction--Joining Knowledge to Skills and Ethics; Classroom Displays-- Making Learning Visual; Diversity--Sustaining an Inclusive Environment; Assessment--Creating Student Feedback Loops; Multiple-Choice Questions--How to Make Them Meaningful; Essay Questions-- Writing to Match Course Objectives; Grading--Scoring Rubrics and Grade Ranges; Vision--Experiences and Outcomes.
Madeleine Schachter, The Law Professor’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Teaching Law (2004).
TC Law Library KF272 .S29 2004
Contents: The Decision to Teach (Motivations for Teaching, The Learning Process, The Application Process, Preparation to Assume the Position), Designing the Course (Defining Objectives, Formulating the Course Curriculum, Selection of Case Materials, Course Requirements), Conducting Classes (Logistical Aspects, Collaborative Teaching, Integration of Electronic and Media Tools, Class Sessions), Class Assessment and Evaluation of Faculty, Interacting With Students Relating as a Professor to Students, Accessibility to Students, Special Students Needs).
Michael Hunter Schwartz, Sophie Sparrow & Gerald Hess, Teaching Law by Design: Engaging Students from the Syllabus to the Final Exam (2009).
TC Law Library KF272.S37 2009
Contents: What It Means to Be a Teacher; Student Perspectives on Teaching and Learning; Designing the Course; Designing Each Class Session; Student Motivation, Attitudes and Regulation; Teaching the Class; Assessing Student Learning; Developing as a Teacher.
John O. Sonsteng et al., A Legal Education Renaissance: A Practical Approach for the Twenty-First Century: The History and Status of Legal Education (2008).
TC Law Library KF272.S66x 2008
Contents: Thinking Outside the Box and Richard Fosbury; A Brief History of Legal Education in the United States; Roadblocks to Innovation; Research and Recommendations; Learning Theory, Instruction, Curriculum Design, and Assessment; What Others Are Doing; A Legal Education Renaissance; The Plan.
Sophie Sparrow, Gerald Hess and Michael Hunter Schwartz, Teaching Law by Design for Adjuncts (2010).
TC Law Library K100.S68 2010
Synthesizes the latest research on teaching and learning for adjunct law professors. Includes how to engage and motivate 2nd and 3rd year students.
Roy Stuckey et al., Best Practices for Legal Education (2007).
TC Law Library Reserve KF272 .S85x 2007
Contents: CLEA’s Best Practices Project, Executive Summary and Key Recommendations, Reasons for Developing a Statement of Best Practices, Best Practices for Setting Goals of the Program of Instruction, Best Practices for Organizing the Program of Instruction, Best Practices for Delivering Instruction, Generally, Best Practices for Experiential Courses, Best Practices for Non-Experiential Teaching Methods, Best Practices for Assessing Student Learning, Best Practices for Assessing Institutional Effectiveness, Components of a "Model" Best Practices Curriculum, The Road Ahead.
William S. Sullivan et al., Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007).
TC Law Library KF272 .E38 2007
Summary available at:
Teaching and Learning Professionalism: Report of the Professionalism Committee, Am. Bar Ass'n Section of Legal Educ. & Admissions to the Bar (1996)
TC Law Library KF272 .T43x 1996
David I.C. Thomson, Law School 2.0: Legal Education for a Digital Age (2009).
TC Law Library K100.T48 2009
Contents: The Law Students of Today and Tomorrow; The Perfect Storm; The Millenial Generation; The Practice of Law; The Criticism of Legal Education; The March of Technology; The Promise of Technology; The Future of Legal Education.
Mark V. Tushnet, Legal Scholarship and Education (2008). TC Law Library KF272.T87 2008
Contents: Critical Legal Studies; Legal Scholarship in General; Constitutional Law Scholarship; Pedagogy. (The articles included here were originally published from 1979-2005).
Donald H. Zeigler, How I Teach: Successful Techniques for the Law School Classroom (2008).
TC Law Library Reserve KF272.Z44x 2008
Professsor Ziegler, in his 30th year as a member of a law school faculty, outlines his approach to teaching.
Journals & Databases
The Law Library subscribes to the following legal education journals:
Clinical Law Review; a Journal of Lawyering and Legal Education
TC Law Library Periodicals Per .C55
The Fall 2009 issue of this journal contains articles and speeches celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility (CLEPR); the celebration of the modern clinical legal education movement and conference were part of the 2009 AALS annual meeting.
Journal of Legal Education
TC Law Library Periodicals Per.J749
Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors
TC Law Library K10.O875x
TC Law Library Periodicals Per.L42
Legal Education Review
TC Law Library Periodicals Per.L4615
TC Law Library KF200 .L43
We also provide online access to the following journals. They deal mostly with education law, but will also have some articles on legal education:
Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal
TC Law Library Periodicals Per.B7535
Journal of Law and Education
TC Wilson Periodicals
The following periodicals deal with higher education in general:
Chronicle of Higher Education
TC Magrath Library Current Reading Area
TC Wilson Periodicals
Inside Higher Ed
To find articles on legal education, you can search the following databases:
LegalTrac An index to articles in law reviews, law journals and legal newspapers (1980-Present). Includes U.S., British Commonwealth and E.U. law-related topics.
Index to Legal Periodicals & Books Coverage includes 800+ legal periodicals, law reviews, bar association journals, university publications, yearbooks, institutes, government publications and books, (dates of coverage vary but begin no earlier than 1980 for periodicals and 1993 for books).
Additionally, you can find list of education databases available through the University of Minnesota here: http://www.lib.umn.edu/subjects/rqs/58
Aida M. Alaka, The Grammar Wars Come to Law School, 59 J. Legal Educ. 343 (2010).
Alaka describes the trends in general education which have often resulted in law students lacking basic writing skills and the additional burdens on both legal writing instructors and on upper-level course faculty.
Jill Schachner Chanen, Re-Engineering the J.D.: Schools Across the Country Are Teaching Less About the Law and More About Lawyering, A.B.A.J., July 2007, at 42.
Some law schools are moving away from the Socratic method to more "lawyering-centered" way of teaching law, as recommended by the Carnegie Foundation's Report on legal education ("Educating Lawyers") and the MacCrate Report.
Michael Coper, Law Reform and Legal Education: Uniting Separate Worlds (Leadership in Legal Education Symposium VIII) 39 U. Toledo L. Rev. 233 (2008).
The author, an Australian law school dean, relates legal education there to the American model and suggests that the two separate worlds of law reform and legal education should be brought together in both countries so that education has a conscious and deliberate law reform ethos and focus. In Legal Knowledge, the Responsibility of Lawyers and the Task of Law Schools (p251-260), he further describes the dilemma of both training lawyers for professional practice and educating them in the intellectual discipline of law.
John J. Costonis, The MacCrate Report: Of Loaves, Fishes, and the Future of American Legal Education, 43 J. Legal Educ. 157 (1993).
"The 1992 MacCrate Report ... defines a vision of legal education whose import, I believe, will compete with the several visions that dominated the American law school in the late nineteenth, the mid-twentieth, and now the late twentieth century ... [T]he MacCrate Report hews aggressively to a practitioner-oriented concept of legal education. Its template for determining what and how law schools should teach derives from its description of what lawyers actually do."
"The questions addressed in the MacCrate Report are not novel, this review clarifies, but have plagued university-based legal education from its earliest days ... Likewise exposed are similarities and differences associated with the Report's insistence on viewing legal education through the practitioner's lens. The subsequent sections of the essay describe and critique the Report using the Prologue as a foundation for both tasks."
Andrea A. Curcio et al., Law School and Bar Examination Performance: Developing an Empirical Model to Test Whether Required Writing Exercises or Other Changes in Large-Section Law Class Teaching Methodologies Result in Improved Exam Performance, 57 J. Legal Educ. 195 (2007)
"[W]e examined whether multiple practice essays, combined with peer and self-assessment using annotated model answers, had any effect on first-year law students' ability to break a legal rule into its component parts and perform a complex factual analysis on an essay exam ... On average, students in the writing exercise class performed better on the essay exam questions, but the most statistically significant benefit inured to students who had above-the-median LSAT scores and above-the-median UGPA scores."
Okianer Christian Dark, Transitioning from Law Teaching to Practice and Back Again: Proposals for Developing Lawyers Within the Law School Program, 28 J. Legal Prof. 17 (2003-2004).
This article suggests incorporating ethics instruction across the curriculum, strengthening clinical programs and promoting ADR.
James Eagar, The Right Tool for the Job: The Effective Use of Pedagogical Methods in Legal Education, 32 Gonz. L. Rev. 389 (1996-97).
This article questions traditional legal teaching and encourages law teachers to be aware of a wide range of different pedagogical methods available to them, and to use those methods which best meet the goals of their courses.
Russell Engler, From 10 to 20: A Guide to Utilizing the MacCrate Report over the Next Decade, 23 Pace L. Rev. 519 (2003).
Helps those committed to enhancing skills and values instruction at their law schools to begin the process of assessment and programmatic development by offering specific strategies, opting for lists and brief explanations over grand theory and extensive prose.
The Ethics and Economics of American Legal Education Today, 17 J. Contemp. Legal Issues 1 (2008).
The entire issue explores issues of the economics of legal education and whether the existing model is desirable, including what direction reform is likely to take.
Barbara Glesner Fines, Fundamental Principles and Challenges of Humanizing Legal Education (Humanizing Legal Education Symposium), 47 Washburn L. J. 313 (2008).
This essay suggests three principles that underlie the scholarship of those who seek to humanize legal education: do no harm, teach students not just subjects, and values education.
B. Glesner Fines, The Impact of Expectations on Teaching and Learning, 38 Gonz. L. Rev. 89 (2003).
Explores the research on expectation effects (self-fulfilling prophesy and self-sustaining expectation) in education and offers suggestions for putting the research into practice.
Steven I. Friedland, How We Teach: A Survey of Teaching Techniques in American Law Schools, 20 Seattle U. L. Rev. 1 (1996).
Discusses the results of
a nationwide survey which asked: how do we teach and why? The survey requested information about teaching goals, methods, rationales, new techniques, and any techniques professors wished they had used.
The second part of this article discusses learning theories and how they relate to law school teaching methods. "The survey results show that although many law professors continue to use only the Socratic method, others are exploring alternative methods that may better ensure the effectiveness of the learning process."
Andre Hampton, Legal Obstacles to Bringing the Twenty-First Century into the Law Classroom: Stop Being Creative, You May Already Be in Trouble, 28 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 223 (2003).
This article discusses the copyright implications for teachers wanting to use multimedia content in the law classroom.
Gerald F. Hess, Collaborative Course Design, Not Their Course, But Our Course (Humanizing Legal Education Symposium), 47 Washburn L. J. 367 (2008).
Recent empirical research on legal education reveals that law schools can improve students motivation and performance by giving students significant input into their own education.
Jeffrey D. Jackson, Socrates and Langdell in Legal Writing: Is the Socratic Method a Proper Tool for Legal Writing Courses? 43 Cal. W.L.Rev. 267 (2007). Suggests that the Socratic method is a valuable tool for teaching legal writing.
Mary Kate Kearney & Mary Jane Kearney, Reflections on Good (Law) Teaching, 2001 L. Rev. Mich. St. U. Det. C.L. 835 (2001).
The author applies her mother's reflections on teaching to her own experiences as a law school professor.
Daniel Keating, A Comprehensive Approach to Orientation and Mentoring for New Faculty, 46 J. Legal Educ. 59 (1996).
This dean recounts the his law school's progression from informal to formal orientation and mentoring programs for new faculty.
Lawrence S. Krieger, Human Nature as a New Guiding Philosophy for Legal Education and the Profession (Humanizing Legal Education Symposium) 47 Washburn L. J. 247 (2008).
Krieger proposes simple immediate steps toward harmonizing legal training with the natural needs and tendencies of law students and lawyers.
James B. Levy, The Cobbler Wears No Shoes: A Lesson for Research Instruction, 51 J. Legal Educ. 39 (2001).
This articles explores how law teachers can make legal research more exciting and stresses that enthusiam for the topic (which is often lacking) is of primary importance.
James B. Levy, Escape to Alcatraz: What Self-Guided Museum Tours Can Show Us About Teaching Legal Research, 44 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 387 (2001).
Discusses how pre-recorded, self-guided museum tours, like the Alcatraz Cellhouse Tour, can be adapted to better teach students how to use the law library. He also recommends using "Alcatraz-style" research exercises to engage students in legal research.
Paula Lustbader, Construction Sites, Building Types, and Bridging Gaps: A Cognitive Theory of the Learning Progression of Law Students, 33 Willamette L. Rev. 315 (1997).
This article proposes "a common theoretical foundation like the “Learning Progression”: a cognitive theory that explains the evolutionary learning process of law students. Teachers can use it to design lesson plans that target specific stages that students are working through. Students can use it as a blueprint for learning. In working through the sites, students will have a more solid foundation in constructing an analysis that will not collapse under scrutiny. This Article explains the Learning Progression. The first Part begins with a brief overview of the Learning Progression. The second Part provides a primer on learning, cognitive, and instructional theories."
Deborah Maranville, Infusing Passion and Context into the Traditional Law Curriculum Through Experiential Learning, 51 J. Legal Educ. 51 (2001).
Melissa J. Marlow, It Takes A Village to Solve the Problems in Legal Education: Every Faculty Member's Role in Academic Support, 30 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 489 (2008).
Marlow believes that a community of teachers concept has not been fully realized at law schools, and she proposes academic support solutions to unite law faculty for the common purpose of preparing all students whatever their background or ability for the rigors of law practice.
Lawrence McNamara, Flexible Delivery, Educational Objectives and the (Political) Importance of Teaching, 35 Law Tchr. 198 (2001).
Mara Merlino et al., Science in the Law School Curriculum: A Snapshot of the Legal Education Landscape, 58 Jour. Legal Ed. 190 (2008).
Proposes that "law is best studied with increasingly sophisticated understanding of other disciplines."
Deborah Jones Merritt, Legal Education in the Age of Cognitive Science and Advanced Classroom Technology, 14 B.U.J. Sci. & Tech. L. 39 (2008).
Merritt argues that change is the new constant in legal education. She suggests that law professors keep pace with these changes by understanding the insights cognitive scientists have provided about how the brain works and by employing new technologies to implement these insights in their classes.
Eleanor W. Myers, Teaching Good and Teaching Well: Integrating Values with Theory and Practice, 47 J. Legal Educ. 401 (1997).
Describes Temple Law School's Integrated Transactional Practice course, which merges the teaching of theory and practice and provides a concrete and realistic context for students to experience the moral dimension of practice.
Mary Olszewska, et. al., An Annotated Bibliography on Law Teaching, (October 30, 2009). Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing, Vol. 18; Florida International University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-19. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=149703118. This annotated bibliography was prepared for the panel on Diverse Teaching Methods Designed to Improve the Education of Law Students at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (Aug. 3, 2009). It is offered as a resource to law teachers. It self-consciously and selectively surveys books and more recent articles with an emphasis on teaching qua teaching. It does not include articles specific to particular courses or subjects. Each entry appears only once. The categories and assignments are somewhat subjective but helpful for canvassing a rich literature. The online resources themselves include still more bibliographies.
The Opportunity for Legal Education: A Symposium of the Mercer Law Review, November 9, 2007, 59 Mercer L. Rev. 821 (2008).
The transcript of the symposium includes several speakers (William M. Sullivan, Roy T. Stuckey, Harriet N. Katz, and others) reflecting on legal education and its curriculum, its challenges, and its tensions.
Robert A. Pascal, A Summary Reflection on Legal Education, 69 La. L. Rev. 125 (2008).
This legal scholar whose career spanned most of the 20th century reflects on how the case method, if made the exclusive tool of legal education, will prevent 21st century law students from developing an overall view of what the law is or ought to be.
Radical Proposals to Reform Legal Pedagogy, 43 Harv. C. R.-C. L. L. Rev 595 (2008).
Several legal scholars offer brief critiques of current legal education and proposals for making it more effective, compassionate, and appropriate for the 21st century.
Raymond M. Ripple, Learning Outside the Fire: The Need for Quality Instruction in Law School, 15 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 359 (2001).
Discusses the rise of incivility within the legal profession and how to combat it, its effect on lawyers' reputations, and how civility, ethics and professionalism are intertwined.
Ira P. Robbins, Best Practices on Best Practices: Legal Education and Beyond, 16 Clinical L. Rev. 269 (2009).
This article concludes that using best practices when thinking and writing about legal education is misleading and inappropriate.
Ira P. Robbins, Best Practices : What s the Point? 16 Clinical L. Rev. 321 (2009).
Robbins continues the discussion in this issue of Clinical Law Review on improving legal education by responding to Prof. Stuckey s response to his article cited above.
Karen H. Rothenberg, Recalibrating the Moral Compass: Expanding Thinking Like a Lawyer into Thinking Like a Leader (Leadership in Legal Education Symposium IX), 40 U. Toledo L. Rev. 411 (2009).
Law school is the place where law students begin to explore the conflicts among their varied roles as a representative of clients, as an officer of the legal system, and as a public citizen with responsibility for the quality of justice.
Jack L. Sammons, Traditionalists, Technicians, and Legal Education, 38 Gonz. L. Rev. 237 (2003).
The author describes the situation in legal education as such: "The traditionalists' problems are created by their reliance upon a central virtue that has become too abstracted from the practice. Traditionalist assumptions offer an Aristotelian way of determining what good lawyering could be, but these assumptions provide no coherent methodology for either confirming or producing it. The problems with technician assumptions are exactly the opposite. Their assumptions offer a methodology for confirming and producing good lawyering, but no way for determining what good lawyering might be ... In simplest terms, we could say that one school knows where it is going and why, but not how to get there, while the other knows how to get there, but not where it is going or why.
John O. Sonsteng et al., A Legal Education Renaissance: A Practical Approach for the Twenty-First Century, 34 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 303 (2007).
"For more than a century, law school teaching has relied on an education model that focuses on theory, providing minimal opportunity for students to learn and apply the practical problem-solving skills critical to becoming a competent lawyer in real world settings. Modern learning theory provides direction, and the tools are available for improving the legal education system to prepare students for the practice of law ... This article has two sections. The first section provides an overview of the history and status of legal education. The second section suggests a model for change, and incorporates modern learning theory and teaching tools. It provides answers to criticism as it addresses curriculum, teaching, faculty, and costs."
Robert P. Schuwerk, The Law Professor as Fiduciary: What Duties Do We Owe to Our Students, 45 S. Tex. L. Rev. 753 (2003).
The author writes: My focus here is on the destructive impact of the current dominant legal education pedagogy on vast numbers of law students who pass through our hands, the causes of that devastation, its continuing consequences on our students' abilities to lead productive and fulfilling professional lives after law school, and how that destructive impact might best be eliminated or at least significantly ameliorated." He proposes more collaborative teaching, more mentoring and also de-empasizing grades.
Kennon M. Sheldon & Laurence S. Krieger, Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory, 33 Pers Soc Psychol Bull 883 (2007).
"Longitudinal studies suggest that law school has a corrosive effect on the well-being, values, and motivation of students, ostensibly because of its problematic institutional culture. In a 3-year study of two different law schools, the authors applied self-determination theory’s dynamic process model of thriving to explain such findings. Students at both schools declined in psychological need satisfaction and well-being over the 3 years. However, student reports of greater perceived autonomy support by faculty predicted less radical declines in need satisfaction, which in turn predicted better well-being in the 3rd year and also a higher grade point average, better bar exam results, and more self-determined motivation for the first job after graduation."
Roy Stuckey, Best Practices or Not, It Is Time to Re-Think Legal Education, 16 Clinical L. Rev. 307 (2009).
This response to the Ira Robbins article in the same issue defends the use of the term best practices and uses Professor Robbins critique as a launching point for a broader discussion of the state of legal education and the need for better data on its effectiveness.
Symposium 2009: A Legal Education Prospectus: Law Schools & Emerging Frontiers, 61 Rutgers L. Rev. 867 (2009).
Several articles describe the innovations in legal education: technology, curricular mixes, international needs, externships, faculty-student partnerships, and more.
Karen L. Tokarz, A Manual for Law Schools on Adjunct Faculty, 76 Wash. U. L.Q. 293 (1998).
Topics include: integration of adjunct faculty into the intellectual and social community, providing practical guidance to adjunct faculty about beginning the teaching process, and information to be provided to adjunct faculty.
Arturo L. Torres & Karen E. Harwood, Moving Beyond Langdell: an Annotated Bibliography of Current Methods for Law Teaching, 1994 Gonz. L. Rev. 1 (1994).
This annotated bibliography covers 42 topics and focuses on practical articles from 1985 to 1993.
Arturo Lopez Torres, MacCrate Goes to Law School: an Annotated Bibliogprahy of Methods for Teaching Lawyering Skills in the Classroom, 77 Neb. L. Rev. 132 (1998).
"This bibliography compiles those law review articles that explore the teaching of lawyering skills in the traditional, non-skills oriented law courses [and thereby] provides law professors information on how to incorporate skills training into substantive and other nontraditional, skills-related courses."
Arturo Lopez Torres & Mary Kay Lundwall, Moving Beyond Langdell II: An Annotated Bibliography Of Current Methods For Law Teaching, 35 Gonz. L. Rev. 1 (2000).
Covers law review articles offering practical suggestions on pedagogy from 1993 to 1999.
The Values of Common Law Legal Education (Special Issue), 42 Law Tchr. 263 (2008).
Several articles respond to the publication in 2007 of The Values of Common Law Legal Education, by Roger Burridge and Julian Webb in which they discussed the link between values and liberal legal education in the United Kingdom.
Paul T. Wangerin, Teaching and Learning in Law School: An “Alternative” Bookshelf for Law School Teachers, 1994 Gonz. Law Rev. 49
Janet Weinstein & Linda Morton, Stuck in a Rut: The Role of Creative Thinking in Problem Solving and Legal Education, 9 Clinical L. Rev. 835 (2003).
"This article focuses on the mental process of creative thinking ... Creative thinking is an essential component to problem solving. In training future lawyers, we must do a better job of incorporating and supporting creative thinking in legal education. We conclude the article with a description of some of our efforts toward this objective.
What Can Law Schools Do Better? The Complete Lawyer, Vol 3. #5 (2007).
A collection of essays in this online periodical on the topic of improving legal education.
James P. White, A Look at Legal Education: The Globalization of American Legal Education (A Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators Annual Meeting, July 2006). 82 Ind. L. J. 1285 (2007).
This article reviews the globalization trends in American legal education.
J. Harvie Wilkinson, III., Legal Education and the Ideal of Analytic Excellence, 45 Stan. L. Rev. 1659 (1993).
The author, a federal judge, is concerned that "the traditional ideal of analytic excellence is threatened in the present law school environment" because "[m]odern legal education is in danger of forsaking its classroom roots."
DVD: Critical Choices: Education Decisions for the Next Generation of Lawyers (American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, 2004).
TC Law Library KF264.C75x 2004 & Reserve KF264.C75x 2004
DVD: Judith Younger, Across Curricular Boundaries: Searching for a Confluence Between Marital Agreements & Indian Land Transactions (University of Minnesota Law School Lecture, 2007).
TC Law Library Archives KF309.L38x 2007:2 & RESERVE KF279.Y68x 2007
Videotape: Principles for enhancing legal education (Institute for Law School Teaching, Gonzaga University School of Law 2001). TC Law Library Reserve KF272 .P75x 2001
Videotape: A day in the life of -- law school teaching (Institute for Law School Teaching, Gonzaga University School of Law 1994). TC Law Library Reserve KF272 .D39x 1994
Websites & Blogs
1000 Voices - A National Archive is a collection of video stories created by filmmakers across the country to help to put a human face on policy issues. "Each video story is accompanied by a set of "social dialogue" and
advocacy tools, which help demonstrate to students how personal testimonial stories can be presented and leveraged for policy impact."
ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar
Best Practices for Legal Education
"This site was created with two goals in mind: 1) to create a useful web-based source of information on current reforms in legal education arising from the publication of Roy Stuckey’s Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers; and 2) to create a place where those interested in the future of legal education can freely exchange ideas, concerns, and opinions."
Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI)
CALI is a non-profit consortium of law schools that researches and develops computer-mediated legal instruction and supports institutions and individuals using technology and distance learning in legal education. Also has links to podcasts, Instapoll, Lawdibles, CALI Author, 800 web-based student tutorials for law courses, and other tools for faculty.
Clinical Legal Education Association CLEA serves "as a voice for clinical teachers and to represent their interests inside and outside the academy." Their website contains a directory of members, abstracts from the journal Clinical Law Review and a pdf of Roy Stuckey's Best Practices for Legal Education.
Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers - ETL (Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, Univ. of Denver)
The ETL web site feature's news, information and resources focused on legal education reform and innovation, "... to align legal education with the needs of an evolving profession...". In the "Course Portfolios" section of the web site, law faculty share curricular materials and video from courses in which they have utilized innovative teaching strategies. The "Resources" section contains a variety of teaching strategies materials, survey data and analysis of innovations in legal education at U.S. and Canadian law schools, and strategic plans adopted by law schools to reform legal education and produce more practice-ready attorneys.
Gonzaga University School of Law Institute for Law School Teaching
The institute recognizes the obligations law schools owe both students and society to provide a learning environment that helps students achieve the highest academic standards, and become effective, moral attorneys. The Institute was established in 1991 to help Gonzaga University School of Law and other law schools meet these obligations. The Institute is committed to improving the quality of teaching and learning in legal education.
The Law School Innovation blog, which is part of the Law Professor Blogs Network, focuses on technological innovation in law school education.
Law Professor Blogs is a network of blogs designed to assist law faculty in their scholarship and teaching. Each site focuses on a particular area of law, ranging from administrative to workplace.
Law School Teaching and Learning Resources
Legal Education, ADR and Practical Problem Solving (LEAPS) Project
LEAPS is a project of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's Law Schools Committee. The LEAPS website is designed to help faculty incorporate "practical problem-solving" (PPS) into their instruction. The web site includes: descriptions of teaching techniquess; suggestions on engaging colleagues to encourage PPS instruction; overcoming barriers to incorporation of PPS in doctrinal courses; curriculum models from various schools that incorporate PPS skills in their curricula; lists of consultants who can help on specific courses; discussions; PPS-related teaching materials, and links to other relevant web sites.
Legal Scholarship Blog
"This blog, managed by faculty and staff at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and the Gallagher Law Library of the University of Washington School of Law, features Law-related Call for Papers, Conferences, and Workshops as well as general legal scholarship resources."
The Teaching and Learning Law Resources for Legal Education Resource page, created by Professor Barbara Glessner-Fines at University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.
Transforming Legal Education
"Learning and Teaching Law in the Early Twenty-First Century" This UK site has a blog, a wiki, and other publications which critique the way law is currently taught.
National Legal Research Teach-In
"The National Legal Research Teach-In, sponsored by RIPS-SIS, is an annual campaign to give law librarians the opportunity to share materials and ideas for legal research instruction. Each year the RIPS Teach-In committee solicits contributions from the law library community to create a compilation of materials for use in developing and advertising educational programs and events for our institutions." Materials include syllabi, handouts and guides, games, quizzes, PowerPoint presentations, etc.
Out of the Jungle
“Thoughts on the present and future of legal information, legal research, and legal education.”
Renaissance Report: A Journal of Legal Education in Transition
The Legal Education Renaissance Report is an interactive online Journal of Legal Education in Transition. It is a broad based, up-to-date resource of innovations in curriculum and teaching methods in law schools and K-12, college prep, undergraduate education, online learning, technology, and business training that can be applied to legal education.
The UK Centre for Legal Education
(UKCLE) supports effective practice in learning, teaching and assessment in law. UKCLE is a subject centre of the Higher Education Academy.
Information For New Law Teachers
Brannon P. Denning, Becoming a Law Professor: A Candidate's Guide (2010). TC Law Library KF272.D46 2010. Chapters include: What do law professors do all day?--Now what? Things to do before you teach your first class.
Howard E. Katz & Kevin Francis O'Neill, Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching: A Primer for New (and Not So New) Professors (2009).
TC Law Library KF272.K38 2009
Summary: This book is meant to serve as a resource for new law professors, offering step-by-step, semester-long guidance on building and teaching a law school course.
R.H. Abrams, Sing Muse: Legal Scholarship for New Law Teachers, 37 J. Legal Educ. 1 (1987).
This article explores one possible approach to legal This author's suggested approach to legal scholarship "is premised on two major theses: (1) producing several smaller works that build in scope and difficulty is appropriate and valuable at the outset of a writing career, and (2) the actual creative writing process is not characterized by large leaps of genius and bursts of frantic activity but by a far more methodical routine within the ability and power of all new law teachers."
Lorraine Bannai et al., Sailing Through Designing Memo Assignments, 5 Legal Writing 193 (1999).
Susan J. Becker, Advice for the New Law Professor: A View from the Trenches, 42 J. Legal Educ. 432 (1992).
A newish professor dispenses advice on choosing course material, preparing a syllabus and different aspects of interacting with students.
Chin, Gabriel J. and Denise C. Morgan, Breaking into the Academy: The 2002-2004 Michigan Journal of Race & Law Guide for Aspiring Law Professors, 7 Mich. J. Race & L. 457 (2002)
Contents: Advice for Law Professor Wannabes; Intellectual Integration in the Legal Academy: Fellowships and Fantasies; Graduate Degree Programs; Teaching Legal Methods: Why, How, and What Next?; Writing Scholarship While You Practice Law; Placing the Cart Before the Horse: Publishing Scholarship Before Entering the Legal Academy; A Recruit's Guide to the On-Campus Interview Process and the Job Talk; A Seneca Indian in King Arthur's Law School: Observations Along the Way.
Gerald F. Hess, Learning to Think Like a Teacher: Reflective Journals for Legal Educators, 38 Gonz. L. Rev. 129 (2003).
A law professor reflects on the benefits of reflection.
M.K. Kane, Some Thoughts on Scholarship for Beginning Teachers, 37 J. Legal Educ. 14 (1987).
Prof. Kane states "scholarly endeavors form the core of what law teachers are about ... So I will begin with that question in an effort to explore what scholarship is, and I will conclude with some remarks about what the novice teacher should
consider in deciding the kinds of scholarly endeavors to pursue in the earliest stages of a teaching career.
Eric L. Muller, A New Teacher’s Guide to Choosing a Casebook, 45 J. Legal Educ. 557 (1995).
Provides detailed advice on what to look for when selecting a casebook.
Douglas K. Newell, Ten Survival Suggestions for Rookie Law Teachers, 33 J. Legal Educ. 693 (1983).
1. Enjoy Yourself, 2. Use Whatever Material Is Available (The Milton Berle Theory), 3. Avoid the "Instant Expert Trap", 4. Structure the Class But Avoid The Railroad Track, 5. Personalize the Class Discussion, 6. Create an Atmosphere in Which a Student Will Take Risks, 7.Change the Pace, 8.Look and Listen In and Out of Class, 9.Try Your Own Post-Mortem, 10. Set An Example.
William P. Quigley, Introduction to Clinical Teaching for the New Clinical Law Professor: A View from the First Floor, 28 Akron L. Rev. 463 (1995). Gives a history of clinical legal education, advice on how to supervise students, and discusses the relationships between teacher, students and clinic clients.
Geoffrey Christopher Rapp, Can You Show Me How To...? Reflections of a New Law Professor and Part-time Technology Consultant on the Role of New Law Teachers as Catalysts for Change, 58 J. Legal Educ. 61 (2008).
The author describes the technological experience and abilities of new law faculty and the resulting need for them to communicate their skills to more senior faculty. He views new faculty as a catalyst for necessary change.
Madeleine Schachter, "Designing the Course," in The Law Professor’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Teaching Law (2004).
TC Law Library KF272 .S29 2004
Kent Syverud, Taking Students Seriously: A Guide for New Law Teachers, 43 J. Legal Educ. 247 (1993). The author summarizes this essay this way: “If it makes sense to you, do what I try to do, and what I sometimes actually accomplish on a very good day.”
Donald J. Weidner, A Dean's Letter to New Law Faculty About Scholarship, 44 J. Legal Educ. 440 (1994).
A law dean explains to faculty why they must publish.
Douglas J. Whaley, Teaching Law: Advice for the New Professor, 43 Ohio State L.J. 125 (1982). Topics covered include: getting ready for your first class (choosing your courses, scheduling, setting a goal, learning your subject, selecting a casebook, daily preparation), in the classroom (teaching as an "ego trip", being yourself, the students's egos, classroom tricks), and the exam (preparing it, grading it, and after it).
Course Planning & Teaching
Alternative Strategies & Active Learning
Kelly Lynn Anders, Advocacy to Zealousness: Learning Lawyering Skills from Classic Films
LART KF300 .A754 2012
Each of the 26 chapters focuses on a specific skill. A discussion of the skill and its use for lawyers, a synopsis of the film associated with the skill, film discussion questions, and brief exercises for improvement are included in each chapter.
Hannah R. Arterian, The Hidden Curriculum (Leadership in Legal Education Symposium IX), 40 U. Tol. L. Rev. 279 (2009)
"Whether law schools can deliver appropriate professionalism and values messages through education is debatable, but not much of the debate focuses on students education outside of credited learning, or the hidden curriculum. The author suggests that behavior models for students; curriculum does not."
Margaret Martin Barry et al., Justice Education and the Evaluation Process: Crossing Borders (New Developments in Clinical Legal Education), 28 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 195 (2008).
Argues that the criteria established for student evaluation must be communicated to students as a guide to improving performance and a premise for the integrity of the assessment process and that the issue of justice is especially important in clinical education.
Benjamin J. Barton, A Tale of Two Case Methods, (Symposium: Looking Forward: The Next Sixty Years of Clinical Legal Education), 75 Tenn. L. Rev. 233 (2008).
The author argues that adopting the business school case method would substantially improve law school teaching.
Robin A. Boyle, Employing Active-learning Techniques and Metacognition in Law School: Shifting Energy from Professor to Student, 81 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 1 (2003).
This article describes how some law professors have been experimenting with active learning strategies in their classes and shares various classroom active learning and metacognition techniques.
Robert P. Burns, Teaching the Basic Ethics Class Through Simulation: The Northwestern Program in Advocacy and Professionalism, 58 Law & Contemp. Probs. 37 (1995).
Summarizes the principles underlying Northwestern's ethics program, and describes the classes, teaching methods and program materials.
Anne M. Corbin & Steven B. Dow, Breaking the Cycle: Scientific Discourse in Legal Education, 26 Temp. J. Sci. Tech. & Envtl. L. 191 (2007).
As law interacts more with other disciplines in the social sciences and sciences, it is important that legal education provides new lawyers with the skills and knowledge to function in this new environment of empirical and scientific data.
Peter L. Davis, Why Not a Justice School? On the Role of Justice in Legal Education and the Construction of a Pedagogy of Justice , 30 Hamline L. Rev. 513 (2007).
Proposes schools of justice as alternatives to law schools and describes a different curriculum and pedagogy used by such schools.
Daisy Hurst Floyd, Lost Opportunity: Legal Education and the Development of Professional Identity, 30 Hamline L. Rev. 555 (2007).
Examines legal education as one of the possible causes of dissatisfaction with the administration of justice and considers whether that education should focus more on the development of the lawyer’s professional identity.
Randy D. Garrison and Norman D. Vaughn, Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines
TC Law Library LB2395.7 .G36 2008
"Blend learning" mixes traditional "face to face" techniques with cutting-edge developments in theory and technology. This book, "summarizes the current theory behind blended learning but offers practical guidelines (with examples) on how to transform existing courses into the new framework."
Stephen Gerst and Gerald Hess, Professional Skills and Values in Legal Education: the GPS Model (General Practice Skills), 43 Valparaiso U. L. Rev. 513 (2009).
The authors offer one model of educating law students in professional skills and values. The General Practice Skills course is designed to orient students to the legal profession.
The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice.
TC Law Library K103.S63 G56 2011
Articles survey clinical legal education in all parts of the world.
Julian Hermida, The Need for Teaching Media Literacy at the University Level: The Case of Legal Education, 42 Law Tchr. 173 (2008).
This Canadian law professor believes that law students must be proficient in media literacy and describes the methods he uses in his criminal justice classes to promote that literacy.
Paul Maharg, Clinical Legal Education: Active Learning in Your Law School, 33 Law Tchr. 103 (1999).
Michael Martinez, Legal Education Reform: Adopting a Medical School Model,” 38 J.L. & Educ. 705 (2009).
The author argues that the case-dialogue method—while providing a foundation in legal principles—is inadequate for learning the tangible practical skills needed in a viable legal practice.
Bridget McCormack, Teaching Professionalism, (Symposium: Looking Forward: The Next Sixty Years of Clinical Legal Education), 75 Tenn. L. Rev. 251 (2008).
The author suggests that “everyday professionalism” is most often taught in clinical courses and through the student-faculty interaction in those classes. She believes that participation in such classes should be required.
Mara Merlino et al., Science in the Law School Curriculum: A Snapshot of the Legal Education Landscape, 58 J. Legal Educ. 190 (2008).
The authors describe the importance of an increasingly sophisticated understanding of other disciplines both to the practice of law and to legal education.
John E. Montgomery, Incorporating Emotional Intelligence Concepts into Legal Education: Strengthening the Professionalism of Law Students (Leadership in Legal Education Symposium VIII), 39 U. Toledo L. Rev. 323 (2008).
Argues that in a time when there are a variety of questions about the legitimacy of the legal profession, law schools must make professionalism more explicit and more pervasive in the legal education they provide.
Michael E. Plantinga, Langdell’s Incomplete Method: How the Use of Narrative Ethics Can Effect a More Complete and Practical Legal Education, 11 T.M. Cooley J. Prac. & Clinical L. 127 (2009).
Suggests that Langdell’s method, while appropriate for teaching law, is inadequate for teaching the skills and values required for the practice of law as a profession and instead proposes narrative ethics as the method to teach the latter.
Stephen A. Rosenbaum, The Juris Doctor is IN: Making Room at Law School for Paraprofessional Partners, 75 Tenn. L. R. 315 (2008).
“This article promotes a modest pedagogical retooling: Law schools should offer a degree program for nonlawyer advocates.”
Emily A. Spieler, Making Legal Education More Practical, Nat’l. L. J., Feb. 22, 2010, at 16.
Spieler describes the “perfect storm” currently faced by law schools and suggests several developments that might help law schools and faculty: experientially-based programs, externships, and partnerships with practitioners.
Roy Stuckey et al., "Best Practices for Delivering Instruction, Generally" and "Best Practices for Experiential Courses" in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007).
TC Law Library Reserve KF272 .S85x 2007
Clifford S. Zimmerman, “Thinking Beyond My Own Interpretation:” Reflections on Collaborative and Cooperative Learning Theory in the Law School Curriculum, 31 Ariz. St. L.J. 957 (1999)
"This article will explore why [collaborative and cooperative learning theories] are not more readily adopted in legal education and propose guidelines for their use in law school writing assignments generally, and for first year legal analysis assignments in particular."
Technology in Teaching
Fran Ansley & Cathy Cochran, Going On-Line with Justice Pedagogy: Four Ways of Looking at a Website, 50 Vill. L. Rev. 875 (2005).
Tells the story behind the creation of this website:
This is a web-based portfolio created by a law professor and law librarian to display collaborative student projects. It also lists resources on the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Simon Ball & Helen James, Making Law Teaching Accessible & Inclusive, 2009:3 J. of Information L. & Tech. (2009).
This paper introduces a variety of ways in which technology can be integrated into everyday law teaching practice to enhance accessibility and inclusion for students with different abilities and learning styles. Many of these techniques do not require law teachers to be experts in the use of technology, and some can be integrated into everyday practice with minimal effort.
Paula E. Berg, Using Distance Learning to Enhance Cross-Listed Interdisciplinary Law School Courses, 29 Rutgers Computer & Tech. L.J. 33 (2003).
Ruth Buchanan & Sundhya Pajuha, Using the Web to Facilitate Active Learning: A Trans-Pacific Seminar on Globalization and the Law, 53 J. Legal Educ. 578 (2003)
Paul L. Caron, "Teaching with Technology in the 21st Century Law School Classroom" . Paul Caron, THE FUTURE OF LAW LIBRARIES, Thomson-West, 2006 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=896906
Paul L. Caron and Rafael Gely, "Taking Back the Law School Classroom: Using Technology to Foster Active Student Learning." 54 J. Legal Educ. 551 (2004) Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=527522
Maria Perez Crist, Technology in the LRW Curriculum - High Tech, Low Tech, or No Tech, 5 Legal Writing 93 (1999).
Catherine Easton, An Examination of Clicker Technology Use in Legal Education, 2009:3 J. of Information L. & Tech. (2009).
This article presents the findings from a small-scale trial of interactive technology in teaching law to undergraduate LLB students at a British University.
Fred Galves, Will Video Kill the Radio Star? Visual Learning and the Use of Display Technology in the Law School Classroom (2004) http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1999&context=expresso
Prof. Galves proposes that "more law professors should teach law in a manner that is familiar to the way in which law students increasingly are accustomed to receiving information in society, at home, and at school –- through visual technology." He goes on to detail his own use of technology in the classroom.
Pearl Goldman, Legal Education and Technology: An Annotated Bibliography, 93 Law Libr. J. 423 (2001). This annotated bibliography covers articles on the the impact of computer technology on law schools and legal education from 1970 to 2001.
Pearl Goldman, Legal Education and Technology II: An Annotated Bibliography, 100 Law Libr. J. 415 (2008). "To help legal educators locate materials that inform and enrich their teaching and writing, Professor Goldman offers an updated annotated bibliography of articles, commentaries, conference papers, essays, books, and book chapters that examine the impact of technology on legal education."
Joan MacLeod Heminway, Caught in (or on) the Web: A Review of Course Management Systems for Legal Education, 16 Alb. L.J. Sci. & Tech. 265 (2006).
This article describes the authros experiences with the two primary web-based course management systems for law schools, Twen and LexisNexis Web Courses.
Kenneth J. Hirsh & Wayne Miller, Law School Education in the 21st Century: Adding Information Technology Instruction to the Curriculum, 12 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 873 (2440).
The authors contend that "little has been done to expose future attorneys to the role that information technology will play in their professional lives." They outline a proposed course on technology in the practice of law.
Peter A. Hook, Creating an Online Tutorial and Pathfinder, 94 Law Libr. J. 243 (2002).
This article explains how the disciplines of information architecture and information visualization can contribute to designing successful Web-based tutorials and pathfinders.
Stephen M. Johnson, www.lawschool.edu: Legal Education in the Digital Age, 2000 Wis. L. Rev. 85 (2000).
The author, a CALI board member, examines the potential use of technology to enhance traditional law school teaching, and the benefits of using technology to enhance traditional law school teaching methods. He also examines the costs of using technology and the institutional obstacles that could prevent technology from replacing traditional law school teaching methods, and attempts to predict the manner in which technology ultimately will be incorporated into law school teaching in the twenty-first century.
Gene Koo, New Skills, New Learning: Legal Education and the Promise of New Technology (March 26, 2007). Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2007-4 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=976646
"The original research conducted for this white paper finds that these skills include organizing complex distributed teams, exploiting data and information on the Web, and "meta-lawyering" (establishing systems of practice). The study also finds that traditional methods of training such as apprenticeship have eroded in recent years and that law schools often overlook skills education, leaving a large gap in training of all skills and not just technology-related ones. The paper discusses how thoughtful use of pedagogical technology can address these needs, arguing for integrated and authentic learning experiences rather than "teaching technology" in the abstract."
Lessons From the Web 1998-2003, Patrick Wiseman, ed., http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/lessons/index.htm
William M. Richman, Graphic Forms in Conflict of Laws, 27 U. Tol. L. Rev. 631 (1996).
The author discusses his use of illustrations, charts, graphs, flow charts, and diagrams to teach conflicts.
Madeleine Schachter, "Integration of Electronic and Media Tools" in The Law Professor’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Teaching Law (2004).
TC Law Library KF272 .S29 2004
Jayne Elizabeth Zanglein & Katherine Austin Stalcup, Te(A)chnology: Web-Based Instruction in Legal Skills Courses, 49 J. Legal Educ. 480 (1999).
The authors set out to test their thesis that "Web-based technology can improve student learning and satisfaction in skills-based courses because it allows students to choose among various sensory stimuli according to their own learning styles."
Examinations & Grading
Margaret Martin Barry et al., Justice Education and the Evaluation Process: Crossing Borders (New Developments in Clinical Legal Education), 28 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y 195 (2008).
Argues that the criteria established for student evaluation must be communicated to students as a “guide to improving performance and a premise for the integrity of the assessment process” and that the issue of justice is especially important in clinical education.
Susan M. Case & Beth E. Donahue, Developing High-Quality Multiple-Choice Questions for Assessment in Legal Education, 58 J. Legal Educ. 372 (2008).
Summarizes the merits of multiple-choice questions as compared to essay questions and then focuses on how to construct multiple-choice questions to ensure that they will assess the competencies that are intended.
Robert A. Chapman, Trial as a Law School Exam, 41 Trial Law. Guide 236 (1997).
Linda R. Crane, Grading Law School Examinations: Making a Case for Objective Exams to Cure What Ails "Objectified" Exams, 34 New Eng. L. Rev. 785 (2000). The author argues that "There is a remarkable inconsistency between the method of teaching law school subjects by focusing on judicial opinions, ... and the method of testing law school subjects by using borderline fact laden hypothetical situations" and proposes that more professors use objective law exams.
G.M. Filisko, How Best to Build a Lawyer? Ideas Float About Changing Law School and Bar Exams, but Few Show That They Have Sticking Power, 92-May A.B.A. J. 38 (2006).
This article reviews various proposals for revising -- or possibly even abolishing -- law schools in order to improve legal education.
Steven I. Friedland, A Critical Inquiry into the Traditional Uses of Law School Evaluation, 23 Pace L. Rev. 147 (2002).
Argues that "[l]aw schools and instructors have undervalued assessment as a teaching tool and overvalued evaluation as an accurate, objective measuring device." The author proposes a "dualist approach to the evaluation function, enhancing evaluations as measuring devices and expanding evaluations to serve as pedagogical tools."
Howard Gensler, Law School Examinations and Factual Analysis, 31 Law Tchr. 198 (1997).
Douglas A. Henderson, Uncivil Procedure: Ranking Law Students Among Their Peers, 27 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 399 (1994).
"This Article attempts to discredit the institutional practice of ranking law students among their peers. Part I presents a brief overview of the present system of testing and ranking, its impact on law student careers and the present justifications for these practices. Part II evaluates ranking, and the single end-of-term essay on which it is based, according to psychometric theory, learning theory, and statistical theory. Part III justifies abandoning the system by showing some of the detrimental effects that ranking has on students. Part IV suggests performance assessment as a preferable alternative. Part V concludes that whatever “new” method is chosen, the current practices of law schools cannot continue unaltered."
Dennis A. Honabach, Precision Teaching in Law School. An Essay in Support of Student-Centered Teaching and Assessment, 34 U. Toledo L. Rev. 95 (2002-2003).
The author argues that law schools do not use “precision teaching" - pedagogical techniques that focus on the needs and abilities of individual students; instead, they use "average" instructional strategies to teach to the hypothetical "average" student. He suggests that law schools make "teaching output a priority for law professors and devising a method of assessing education output in a measurable objective fashion" in order to facilitate a more student-centered educational culture.
Lucy Cheser Jacobs & Clinton I. Chase, Developing and Using Tests Effectively (1992).
TC Veterinary Medical Library LB2366.2 .J33 1992
Discusses test (essay and multiple choice) design and administration, as well as alternative forms of evaluation.
Michael S. Jacobs, Law School Examinations and Churchillian Democracy: A Reply to Professors Redlich and Friedland, 41 DePaul L. Rev. 159 (1991). Dismisses the claims by Profs. Redlich and Friedland (below) that objective law schools exams would be preferable (and preferred) to essay examinations.
Michael S. Josephson, Learning and Evaluation in Law School (1984).
TC Law Library KF272 .J67 1984
Discusses test (essay, short answer, multiple choice) design, administration, and scoring.
Daniel Keating, Ten Myths About Law School Grading, 76 Wash. U. L.Q. 171 (1998)
The author identifies the following myths: Law School Grades Are a Good Predictor of Who Will Become a Good Lawyer, Law School Grading Is Not REALLY Anonymous, “My Grades Would Be Higher, If Only I Could Learn ‘Exam Technique”’, Law School Administrators Serve as a Grade “Appeals Court” to Reverse Particularly Unfair Grades of Professors, Students Generally Benefit from a System in Which Employers Are Given as Little Information as Possible About Relative Class Standing, Law School Grades Have Objective, Non-Relative Meaning Myth, Fewer Gradations in a Grading System Are Better Than More Gradations, It Is Mathematically and Equitably Justifiable to Deviate from a Purely Linear Conversion of Raw to Actual Points, Mandatory Medians And Other Such Restrictions on a Grader's Autonomy Are Undesirable and Unfair, Students in Small Classes and Seminars Should Generally Get Higher Grades.
Philip C. Kissam, The Ideology of the Case Method/Final Examination Law School, 70 U. Cin. L. Rev. 137 (2001).
"The ideological forces that sustain the traditional system of legal education require examination in order to establish a fair and open evaluation of the system and of proposals that would change the system. This article analyzes these forces and then concludes its critique by sketching a fanciful but realistic “utopia” of legal education that would decenter the case method/final examination system and install diverse alternative methods throughout the law school curriculum."
Philip C. Kissam, Law School Examinations, 42 Vand. L. Rev. 433 (1989).
"This Essay provides a ‘systemic analysis' and a ‘total critique’ by assessing the structure, contextual relationships, values, and adverse effects of law school examinations."
Grant H. Morris, Preparing Law Students for Disappointing Exam Results: Lessons from Casey at the Bat. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 45, No. 2, May/June 2008. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1018729
This article discusses whether law professors should prepare their students for the disappointing grades that many will receive and suggests that professors do have a duty to confront this problem. The auhtor goes on to "offer a strategy by which professors can acknowledge students' pre-examination anxiety and deal constructively with their impending disappointment."
Norman Redlich & Steve Friedland, Challenging Tradition: Using Objective Questions in Law School Exams, 41 DePaul L. Rev. 143 (1991).
This article criticizes the traditional "issue-spotter" Blue Book law exam and suggests that it should be supplemented with an objective component.
Norman Redlich & Steve Friedland, Reply to Professor Jacobs: Right Answer, Wrong Question, An Essay, 41 DePaul L. Rev. 183 (1991).
The response to Prof. Jacobs' reply to their initial article.
Ruthann Robson, The Zen of Grading, 36 Akron L. Rev. 303 (2003).
The author shares "introspection about my own practice of grading. These observations are divided into five sections, Invisible Practice and Practice, Beginner's Mind, NOW, Sangha, and Desire and Suffering."
Gregory Sergienko, New Modes of Assessment, 38 San Diego L. Rev. 463 (2001).
"The purpose of this Article is to call attention to a variety of alternatives to this traditional format that are more accurate and less burdensome than traditional essay exams. Increasing accuracy makes it possible to determine whether the instruction has been effective, allowing the instructor to address areas of weakness before the course ends and to improve future classes. Decreasing the burden of assessment of student learning allows for faster feedback, which is more effective."
Roy Stuckey et al., "Best Practices for Assessing Student Learning," in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007).
TC Law Library Reserve KF272 .S85x 2007
Adam G. Todd, Exam Writing as Legal Writing: Teaching and Critiquing Law School Examination Discourse, 76 Temp. L. Rev. 69 (2003).
The author argues that legal writing professors should spend more time discussing and teaching exam writing.
Paul T. Wangerin, Alternative Grading in Large Section Law School Classes, 6 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 53 (1993).
Prof. Wangerin attempts to reconcile these two propositions: First, law school teachers despise grading and most will not commit more time to it. Second, most law school classes use the end-of-term essay exam, "which is not consistent with generally accepted theory regarding grading in higher education. This theory indicates that a much better grading system involves frequent testing and frequent feedback." The professor describes other grading systems which provide more frequent feedback, but which do not increase time spent grading.
Course & Teaching Assessments
Ron M. Aizen, Four Ways to Better 1L Assessments, 54 Duke L.J. 765 (2004).
The author, a former English teacher turned law student, argues that law schools should "increase the quantity, quality, and variety of first-year assessments."
Filippa Marullo Anzalone, It All Begins with You: Improving Law School Learning Through Professional Self-Awareness and Critical Reflection, 24 Hamline L. Rev. 324 (2001).
The author suggests that "by knowing more about ourselves and our own learning processes, preferences, and inclinations, we will become better teachers" and calls this article "a self-report of my own reading of the literature of applied learning theory."
Anne Enquist, Critiquing and Evaluating Law Students' Writing: Advice from Thirty-Five Experts, 22 Seattle U. L. Rev. 1119 (1999).
Compiles the advice of 35 legal writing teachers, each with at least 5 years experience, who responded to the author's survey.
Kristin Booth Glen, Thinking out of the Bar Exam Box: a Proposal to 'MacCrate' Entry to the Profession, 23 Pace L. Rev. 343 (2003).
The author, a law school dean, notes the bar exams disparate negative impact on minorities, and proposes craeting a better exam -- "one that tests more validly what bar examiners have always posited as the bar exam's purpose, i.e. minimum competence to practice law unsupervised."
Gerald F. Hess, Listening to Our Students: Obstructing and Enhancing Learning in Law School, 31 U.S.F. L. Rev. 941 (1997).
"The major thesis of the essay is that law teachers can improve their teaching and increase the learning of all students by listening to students' perceptions of the teaching/learning environment in law school." This essays names and discusses "six principles are central to adult teaching and learning: voluntariness, respect, collaboration, context, activity, and evaluation."
Institute for Law School Teaching, Gonzaga University, Assessment, feedback, and evaluation (2001).
TC Law Library KF264 .G64x 2001
James B. Levy, As a Last Resort, Ask the Students: What They Say Makes Someone an Effective Law Teacher, 58 Me. L. Rev. 49 (2006).
Discusses the results of a student survey of two law schools that "asked students to give their opinions about what makes someone an effective, and conversely an ineffective, law school teacher. In particular, the survey focused on asking students to identify the personality traits, personal characteristics, and classroom behaviors that make someone a good teacher. "
Gregory S. Munro, Outcomes Assessment for Law Schools (2000).
TC Law Library KF272 .M86x 2000
Looks at all levels of assessment (institution, faculty, students), with on "How to Do Assessment" and "The Assessment-Centered Course."
Madeleine Schachter, "Class Assessment & Evaluation of Faculty," in The Law Professor’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Teaching Law (2004).
TC Law Library KF272 .S29 2004
Topics include: Evaluation of Students, Methods & Timing of Conveying Feedback, Grading Standards, and Faculty Assessment.
John Henry Schlegel, Walt was right, 51 J. Legal Educ. 599 (2001).
Prof. Schlegel states that "the first-year curriculum persists as it does because any other one would mean that law teachers could no longer engage in normative legal thought and since most students "are paying a fortune for the privilege of taking the bar review course necessary to pass a bar exam after graduation ... these students deserve huge doses of theories about the practices of law, theories that will be useful for them for five or ten years (and not just until the Supreme Court decides the question) in sorting out the work they will be told to do, but that no one in their law firm will take the time to explain to them."
Roy Stuckey et al., "Best Practices for Assessing Institutional Effectiveness," in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007).
TC Law Library Reserve KF272 .S85x 2007
William S. Sullivan et al., "Assessment and How to Make it Work" in Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007).
TC Law Library KF272 .E38 2007
Topics include: Assessing Conceptual Knowledge, Using Assessment as Formative Pedagogy, Using Assessments Appropriate to Developing Expertise, Assessing Lawyering Skills, Assessing Ethical-Social Development, and Toward Institutional Intentionality.
General Support Services
U of M’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers http://www.adt.umn.edu/
A number of Academy faculty, from all four campuses, are willing to serve as resources to University faculty regarding a number of teaching and learning issues. Listed below are topics and the Academy faculty willing to be contacted. Feel free to contact them to discuss ideas or questions. http://www.adt.umn.edu/resources/faculty.html
Links to articles that address a variety of issues related to teaching and learning in postsecondary education.
Center for Faculty Excellence at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill http://cfe.unc.edu/
Provides Carolina faculty holistic support for the full range of professional development issues: instruction, research, and leadership skills.
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.
The Cooperative Learning Center http://www.cooplearn.org/index.html#thecenter
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Assessment Resources at the U of M http://www.academic.umn.edu/provost/teaching/scholarship.html
All About Teaching Campus Instructional Consulting (Indiana University)
Contains resources on the following topics: IU Teaching Handbook (an online primer consisting of three sections: Preparing to Teach, Teaching Methods, and Creating a Positive Environment), Publications on Teaching & Learning, Preparing Graduate Students to Teach, Academic Dishonesty Prevention and Detection & Diversity in Teaching.