Legal Education

am sitting at a table along with some of the legal publishers at the AALS Workshop for New Law Teachers and the excitement in seeing candidates whom I’ve met at the SALT-LatCrit junior faculty development workshops, the People of Color programs, and the recent SALT “Breaking In” programs walk into the Mayflower Hotel as new law teachers is fantastic!

This semester marks the end of Professor Margaret Montoya’s law teaching career at UNM School of Law. Professor Montoya will leave the Law School to serve full-time as Senior Advisor to Chancellor Paul Roth at Health Sciences for one more year prior to her retirement. This is my final salute to an inspiration, a valued colleague, a fierce voice, an innovative teacher, a renowned and prolific scholar and a friend. Her remarkable achievements are truly tremendous and she leaves both a legacy and a huge impression in our legal landscape that will take an effort to fill.

This report reviews the results of the April 2011 meeting of the Standards Review Committee (SRC), but omits discussion of the committee discussion of security of position, which is reviewed in a previous report, available here. In each section, reference is made to subcommittee reports; those are subcommittees of the SRC, charged with drafting language and bringing it to the full committee for discussion and ultimate decision. The standards and topics addressed in this report are: * Bar pass rate requirements (Standard 301) * Admissions and student services, including use of the LSAT in admissions (Chapter 5) * Student learning outcomes (part of Chapter 3) * Other issues in Chapter 3: Program of Legal Education, including discussions of attendance policies, distance education, and paid externships * Faculty responsibilities (Standard 404) * Law school administration and organization (Chapter 2) * Facilities (Chapter 7)

The Standards Review Committee (SRC) held an open forum at the beginning of its meeting on April 2-3. Commentators focused on security of position and its relationship to law school governance and academic freedom. Speakers from SALT, CLEA (the Clinical Legal Association), ALWD (the Association of Legal Writing Directors), and the AALS, along with a number of individual faculty members, raised concerns about a subcommittee draft that would eliminate any requirement of tenure or other job security for law faculty from the ABA’s accreditation standards. This memo summarizes the public testimony on tenure and security of position, the SRC’s debate about the proposed changes to the tenure/security of position standard, and the outcome of that debate.

At a time when the complexity of the world might seem impossible to navigate, the rise of Facebook, the marvel of Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest billionaire and Time’s “Man of the Year,” makes absolute sense. It is a global condenser, creating neighborhoods of “friends” across geographic boundaries.

Written by Martha McCluskey Nov. 5, 2010 Why was the message of austerity so appealing to economically insecure voters in this week’s election?    A more intellectual version of this passionate opposition to social spending, regulation, and deficits has become conventional wisdom in legal academia, thanks in part to several decades of lavishly funded law-and-economics programs. The populist enthusiasm for austerity helps bring out a striking tension within the familiar efficiency-maximizing ideal of law-and-economics.   Efficiency is supposed to stand for increasing the size of the economic pie – for aggregate growth or maximization of resources (sometimes termed “welfare”) – as opposed to distribution of the economic pie (equity or fairness).   It teaches that soft-hearted liberals and progressives might want to spread the wealth around, based on our concern for some group of have-nots, but we will end up doing more harm than good to those have-nots if we don’t subject our compassion to a hard-nosed rationality that weighs the benefits of redistribution against the costs to growth.   If we choose policies aimed at equity for the have-nots over aggregate growth, we will end up with fewer resources to distribute, with the result of increasing the problem of have-nots.  So, the truly compassionate and moral – and rational – policy is to maximize overall growth, which should make it easier (and fairer) to spread the wealth around. Yet how does law-and-economics teach us to maximize growth?  Typically, by promoting austerity.

Written by Ezra Rosser I have been thinking a lot recently about how lucky I am (a semester off from teaching helps!) and the way this influences or will influence my writing.  There is nothing new to the idea that professors, particularly law professors, may be biased in part by their privilege.  Jeffrey Harrison has a great blog dedicated entirely to "Class Bias in Higher Education" and Sarah Palin continues to criticize Obama as a law professor standing at a podium and not a commander-in-chief (Prof. Ogletree's interpretation of this insult is worth checking out).  The New York Times' recent article on "The End of Tenure," Sep. 3, 2010 also called attention to professorial privilege. The danger that privilege will cloud professors' policy recommendations was dramatically illustrated by a recent blog entry by a University of Chicago law professor criticizing the Obama plan to discontinue the Bush tax cuts for income about $250K that has gotten some media attention and inspired a great response by Michael O'Hare on his blog, www.samefacts.org: "The whining of the rich," Sep. 18, 2010 (links to the cached version of the entry are provided by O'Hare's entry).

Written by Jeannine Bell In an earlier blog, I complained that we never talk about class in law schools and compared the prevalence of talk about race to talk about class. While it’s true that race is discussed much more than class, I’d liked to focus…

Written by Ezra Rosser Should self-identified "public interest" law students should do law review or, depending on the school and the nature of the program, moot court?  Months ago I promised I would work on a blog entry related to this question for the Equal Justice Works Blog, but I admit still being conflicted about the issue.  What follows are my thoughts, but they are subject to change and on this issue often do change.  As a law student, my first bonding with upper level, 2L & 3L, students happened at a NLG Disorientation retreat.  There I was told two memorable things: (1) your professors sold-out and though they sound progressive, they decided NOT to DO public interest work, and (2) you don't have to and probably shouldn't do law review.  Now, in my current position I am perhaps particularly nervous about and pained by (1) (something I have written about here), but (2) stuck with me while a student.

Written by Jeannine Bell If your law teaching experiences are anything like mine (or that of my students) you have had few discussions of class or socioeconomic (SES) either with colleagues or with your students. While race is frequently discussed in first year and upper-class courses, there are…

Written by:  Deborah Post Let’s talk dystopia.  Would we want to see factory law schools where students are passed along an assembly line to graduation; where the exclusive measure of the quality of education is test performance on regularly administered multiple choice or short answer tests? We have all had those conversations with law students who admit they never did any research or wrote a paper while they were undergraduates.  Last year I had a student from a reputable state university whose major was political science.  The student confessed that the only paper she wrote in four years of college was in an art history class. If accreditation standards are revised to eliminate the requirement of tenure and the peer review of those who are full time faculty with job security, I have no doubt that most universities will quickly adopt a strategy of replacing tenured faculty with part time or contingent faculty.  An AAUP report in 2009 on contingent faculty indicated that 70% of academic labor is now contingent. For resources on the use of contingent faculty in U.S. colleges and Universities see generally http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/issues/contingent/ .  We know the widespread use of contingent faculty in undergraduate schools is an unsound educational practice because we have seen the results.   The overuse of contingent faculty has been identified as one variable affecting the acquisition of knowledge by undergraduate students. Quality suffers when educators are treated as fungible – when one teacher is as good as another -- and when the need to contain costs prompts managers to think about “downsizing” by using part time employees.  This failed strategy has crippled the U.S. economy and compromised higher education.  It is not a model we want to adopt in our professional schools.

Written by Lisa R. Pruitt I've been contemplating a series on "Elitism in Education," but the posting of a new paper by Richard Sander and Jane Yakowitz  prompted me to change the title to "Elitism and Education."  That's because their new study, "The Secret of My Success:  How Status, Prestige and School Performance Shape Legal Careers," suggests that an elite law school education is not as important to a successful legal career as conventional wisdom suggests.  The draft paper is not yet peer reviewed, but here's a summarizing excerpt: "The consistent theme we find throughout this analysis is that performance in law school--as measured by law school grades--is the most important predictor of career success.  It is decisively more important than law school 'eliteness.'  Socioeconomic factors play a critical role in shaping the pool from which law students are drawn, but little or no discernible role in shaping post-graduate careers.  Since the dominant conventional wisdom says that law school prestige is all important, and since students who 'trade up' in school prestige generally take a hit to their school performance, we think prospective students are getting the wrong message."

Written by Kathleen A. Bergin It’s the end of summer, which means that most of us are turning our attention to class prep.  For me there’s plenty left to do, but I’m glad for the opportunity to connect with the good folks at SALT as a guest blogger this month.  Thanks for the invitation! It’s exciting to be part of a community that shares a mission of "enhancing social justice within the curriculum."  This obviously brings to mind the typical "law and . . ." courses that tackle issues of social justice head-on, courses like Race and the Law, Women and the Law, Sexuality and the Law, etc., or the genre’s more "radical offspring," as I once heard someone describe it, Critical Race Theory.  But those of us who teach these classes also know there’s plenty of opportunity to address social justice issues in the core curriculum, where questions about fairness, equality, and subordination, are too often brushed aside. Take the first year Property course, for example.  Most Property Profs cover the circumstances under which courts are able to force the sale of real property.  In July, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), which places conditions on a court’s ability to force a sale when multiple owners share an interest in the land.  These sales typically occur when the owners disagree on how to use the land, and there’s no practicable way to partition the land into functional plots.  The only way to resolve the dispute, conventional jurisprudence says, is to sell the land and distribute the proceeds proportionally to each owner according to their respective share.

Written by Adrien Wing I have been involved in teaching abroad since 1996. This time period included 6 summers in South Africa, 11 summers in France, and now one semester in London. The pictures below show Iowa students from my Arcachon, France 2010 summer program, who studied Law in the Muslim World with me there, then visiting the Pyramids and also the North Cairo, Egypt chief judge and his colleagues. I am firmly convinced that all students should have foreign opportunities whether in high school, university, or law school. Many universities have increased or are actively trying to augment their students going abroad. On the law school level, this could be done by encouraging folks to go after their first year summer, or during intercessions, spring break, entire semesters or a full year. The goal could be that everyone would have the opportunity to undergo some experience with a foreign culture and a foreign legal system. I separate the two because the legal system cannot be understood outside its broader cultural context, so it is important to experience both. Right now, there are no shortage of programs. Currently, more than 100 law schools offer programs, and most are open to all 2L and 3L students at ABA schools.

Written by Katie Porter I teach business law. Or at least **I** think I teach business law. But to my surprise, some people do not think my courses and scholarship fit into “business law.” What are the boundaries of business law, and what is at stake in defining those…

Written by:  Deborah Post Last week we learned that Jim Perdue,  Chairman of Perdue Foods Inc., spoke to Maryland legislators on behalf of the small farmers he claimed would be forced out of business if the environmental law clinic at University of Maryland Law School is allowed to sue Perdue and one of its growers.  I was familiar with Perdue's relationship with small farmers.  Some years ago -- in 1998, to be precise -- I wrote a contracts exam using the pleadings filed in Monk v. Perdue Farms, Inc., 12 F. Supp.2d 508 (D.Md. 1998),  by plaintiff's attorney, Roger L. Gregory, then partner in the firm of Wilder and Gregory, now judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Monk was a case about racial discrimination. Several black farmers alleged that they were not accorded the same treatment under the terms of Perdue's standard form contract as white farmers.  In that respect, the Monk case bore some resemblance to Reid v. Key Bank of Southern Maine, Inc., 821 F.2d 9 (1st Cir. 1987), a case I cover in contracts when I teach students about the implied duty of good faith. Mr. Reid was the only borrower at the bank to have his line of credit cut off, his note accelerated, his collateral seized without the bank officers first calling him in to the bank for a meeting.  Reid is still mentioned in other casebooks in notes about lender liability or the subjective test for good faith, but these notes appear to sidestep the issues of race and motive altogether.  The relationship between motive, malice and racial prejudice is admittedly somewhat ambiguous in Reid because the jury found there was no racial discrimination by the bank.  Nevertheless, Reid is still a case that calls attention on the disparate treatment one black businessman received and the inferences that could be drawn from that fact.

Written by:  Steven Bender Within the last week SALT defended the Maryland law school environmental clinic from legislative attack seeking to condition release of public funds on disclosure of client names and other confidential information. SALT’s efforts are described at https://www.saltlaw.org/contents/view/universityofmaryland. This weekend the New York Times detailed the current legislative and judicial onslaught against law clinics across the country. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/us/04lawschool.html?emc=eta1.

Written by:  Jeff Pokorak The Carnegie report exhorts us to “put the client back into legal education.” I know many have done great work surfacing the biographies of clients and litigants in cases before our students.  From a fuller contextualization of the litigants Jesse Pierson and  Lodowick Post to the sad path of Ernesto Miranda's life, there is a wealth of information available to help us reanimate our classes with the (ghosts) of the case clients. But what I want to address here is the casual way in which we forget to name or humanize in our efforts to diminish or aggrandize.  Not only the common use of the words "defendant" or "victim" in criminal courts....  But recent writings of others made me wonder: Do slaves or former slaves actually have real names?  Do those executed exist outsideof a description of their status?  Follow me after the jump for examples of each....