Goldstein on James Wilson at the University of Pennsylvania

Ari Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania Law School, has published James Wilson at the University of Pennsylvania. Here is the abstract.

James Wilson was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, one of the principal architects of the United States Constitution, and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. But he is often remembered instead as the founder of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. This Essay interrogates that claim, arguing that Wilson’s relationship with the school is more interesting and complex than the title of ‘law school founder’ suggests. The University of Pennsylvania was one of the institutional foundations of Wilson’s life, serving as his employer and launchpad when he first arrived in Philadelphia and as a platform for his professional ambitions later in his career. In exchange, Wilson served as the school’s trustee and attorney, helping to save it from ruin when the Pennsylvania State Assembly abrogated its charter in the wake of national independence. When Wilson was appointed the school’s first professor of law, the appointment was the capstone, not the beginning, of a twenty-five-year relationship between a man and a school each essential to the American Founding.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Katz, Rozema, and Sanga on Women in U. S. Law Schools, 1948-2021 @elizabethdkatz @kyle_rozema @WashULaw @sarathsanga @NorthwesternLaw

Elizabeth D. Katz and Kyle Rozema, both of Washington University, St. Louis, School of Law, and Sarath Sanga, Northwestern University School of Law, have published Women in U.S. Law Schools, 1948-2021. Here is the abstract.

We study the progress of women’s representation and achievement in law schools. To do this, we assemble a new dataset on the number of women and men students, faculty, and deans at all ABA-approved U.S. law schools from 1948 to the present. These data enable us to study many unexplored features of women’s progress in law schools for the first time, including the process by which women initially gained access to each law school, the variance in women’s experiences across law schools, the relationship between women’s representation and student achievement, and the extent to which women occupy lower status faculty and deanship positions. We contextualize our findings by situating them within the vast qualitative literature on women’s experiences in law schools and the legal profession.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Reichmann on Anti-Chinese Racism at Berkeley: The Case For Renaming Boalt Hall

Charles Reichmann, UC Berkeley School of Law, has published Anti-Chinese Racism at Berkeley: The Case for Renaming Boalt Hall. Here is the abstract.

Those familiar with UC Berkeley School of Law know its traditional name and the name of its primary classroom building - Boalt Hall. Yet few know much about the man who gave the law school its name. A close look at John Boalt’s legacy, however, calls out for a reexamination of the law school’s continued association with Boalt, given the contrast between UC Berkeley’s stated values and Boalt’s influential views that the Chinese were an unassimilable race that ought to be excluded from the United States. Boalt's racial theories were identical to John C. Calhoun's, whose name Yale University recently removed from a residential college on the grounds that Calhoun's principles and legacy are at odds with Yale's mission and values. Through his widely-circulated and virulently racist 1877 address "The Chinese Question" and his proposal for a plebiscite on further immigration, Boalt was instrumental in catalyzing support for the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Yoon on Academic Tenure

Albert Yoon, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, has published Academic Tenure at 13 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 428 (2016). Here is the abstract.

In academia, a subset of faculty has tenure, which allows its beneficiaries to retain their professorships without mandatory retirement and with only limited grounds for revocation. Proponents of tenure argue it protects intellectual freedom and encourages investment in human capital. Detractors contend it discourages effort and distorts the academic labor market. This article develops a framework for examining academic tenure in the context of U.S. law schools. We construct a unique data set of tenured U.S. law professors who began their careers between 1993 through 2002, and follow their employment and scholarship for the first 10 years of their career. Across all journal publications, tenured faculty publish more frequently, are cited with roughly the same frequency, and place in comparable caliber of journal. These productivity gains, however, largely disappear when excluding solicited publications. These results suggest that legal academics continue to produce after tenure, but channel more of their efforts toward less competitive outlets.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

University of Birmingham School of Law Offers Doctoral Scholarships Beginning September 2016

Via Karen McAuliffe, Professor of Law, University of Birmingham @dr_KMcA

Birmingham Law School - Doctoral Scholarships

Birmingham Law School would like to invite applications for two Doctoral Scholarships beginning in September 2016.

The scholarships are open to candidates interested in pursuing postgraduate research in any of the disciplines and fields covered by Birmingham Law School. Applicants should be able to demonstrate a track record of excellence in their field and be able to meet the normal entry requirements for the University of Birmingham’s PhD programmes.  No teaching experience is necessary, but teaching experience may be available to the award holder.

Applications are also open to current students.

Value of Award

These two awards cover tuition fees for three years full-time. They also include £11,000 support per year towards living expenses for full-time applicants. Adjusted pro-rata for part-time applicants. 

Eligibility Criteria

These awards are open to Home and EU students for campus-based doctoral research in Birmingham Law School. Part-time applicants may also be considered.

How to Apply

In order to apply, you must first have completed an application to study. In order to do so, please select a course from our Coursefinder listings, and select 'How to Apply' under

Course Details. 

Once you have done so, please complete the funding application form below, and return the completed form to calpg-research@contacts.bham.ac.uk by 4pm on Thursday 30 June 2016.

Your application must also be supported by two references. It is your responsibility as the applicant to forward the reference form below to both nominated referees, and advise them that references must be returned to calpg-research@contacts.bham.ac.uk by the application deadline, of 4pm on Thursday 30 June 2016.

Law Scholarships  - Doctoral Application Form 2016-2017 (PDF downloadable from site-Ed.)

Law Scholarships - Doctoral Reference Form 2016-2017 (PDF downloadable from site--Ed.)

Contact

College of Arts and Law
calpg-research@contacts.bham.ac.uk 

Adams on Crossing Borders and Searching for Purpose in North American Legal Education, 1930-1950

Eric M. Adams, University of Alberta Faculty of Law, is publishing The Dean Who Went to Law School: Crossing Borders and Searching for Purpose in North American Legal Education, 1930-1950 in the Alberta Law Review. Here is the abstract.

This article is about the making of modern legal education in North America. It does so with a case study of the lives of two law schools, the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law and the University of Minnesota Law School, and their respective deans, Wilbur Bowker and Everett Fraser, in the decades surrounding the Second World War. The article follows Bowker’s unorthodox route to Alberta’s deanship via his graduate training under the experimental “Minnesota Plan” – Fraser’s long forgotten effort to place public service at the centre of American legal education. In detailing an overlooked moment of transition and soul searching in North American legal education, this article underlines the personalities, ideologies, circumstances, and practices that combined to forge the still dominant model of university-based legal education across the continent. Highlighting the movement of people and ideas, this study corrects a tendency to understand the history of law schools as the story of single institutions and isolated visionaries. It also reveals the dynamic ways in which law schools absorbed and refracted the period’s ideological and political concerns into teaching practices and institutional arrangements. In bold experiment and innate conservatism, personal ambition and institutional constraints, and, above all else, faith in the power of law and lawyers, the postwar law school was born.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Training Law Students and Lawyers In Cultural Sensitivity

Raquel E. Aldana, University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, has published Intercultural Legal Sensibility as Transformation. Here is the abstract.

In recent years the transformation of legal practice through globalization and shifting demographics in the United States have made the inherent cross-cultural nature of lawyering more apparent. As a result, law schools are being more intentional about the teaching of intercultural legal sensibility as part of the law school curriculum. This increased interest by U.S. law schools to train lawyers in intercultural legal sensibility calls for careful engagement by legal educators to define what intercultural legal sensibility should mean, to develop methodologies in response to the desired outcomes, and to measure their effectiveness. This article offers a reflection on what it might mean to infuse the teaching of intercultural legal sensibility with the necessary lessons to avoid perpetuating cultural dominance and global power imbalances through law. This process necessarily requires transformation on the part of all who engage globally and cross-culturally. This article explains why there may be a need for transformation and defines the type of transformation that law schools might encourage in future lawyers as part of legal education. The article also provides lessons on the methodology this type of transformational learning requires. The focus is principally on summer abroad programs as well as service learning opportunities that include student immersion in rich cross-cultural exchanges. Finally the article identifies ways to measure the effectiveness of law school programs aiming to teach intercultural legal sensibility by drawing lessons from what other disciplines have done in similar programs for at least half a century.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Legal Research and Doctrinal Analysis In a Legal Studies Program

Vincent Kazmierski, Carleton University Department of Law, has published How Much 'Law' in Legal Studies? Approaches to Teaching Legal Research and Doctrinal Analysis in a Legal Studies Program at 29 Canadian Journal of Law and Society/Revue Canadienne Droit et Société (2013). Here is the abstract.

This article addresses the teaching of legal research methods and doctrinal analysis within a legal studies program. I argue that learning about legal research and doctrinal analysis is an important element of legal education outside professional law schools. I start by considering the ongoing debate concerning the role of legal education both inside and outside professional law schools. I then describe the way in which the research methods courses offered by the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University attempt to reconcile the tension between “law” and legal studies. In particular, I focus on how the second-year research methods course introduces students to “traditional” legal research and doctrinal analysis within a legal studies context by deploying a number of pedagogical strategies. In so doing, the course provides students with an important foundation that allows them to embrace the multiple roles of legal education outside professional law schools.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

The Role of Law Schools In Creating Social Change

Jonathan Rapping, Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, has published Grooming Tomorrow's Change Agents: The Role of Law Schools in Helping to Create a Just Society. Here is the abstract.

Numerous authorities have lamented the fact that America’s criminal justice system is broken. To address this crisis, experts have proposed a range of policy proscriptions. But these proposals overlook a fundamental driver of this state of injustice. The criminal justice system as it now exists is defined by a value system inconsistent with justice. And many professionals responsible for administering criminal justice – politicians, judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel – have been shaped by this corrupted value system. As a result, those responsible for justice in America frequently promote unjust outcomes. If we are ever to realize meaningful reform, we must groom a generation of professionals who embrace those ideals fundamental to American justice, and work together to infuse the criminal justice system with these values. Because so many of these professionals are lawyers, our nation’s law schools must play an indispensable role in this effort. Critics have identified some significant shortcomings in legal education. Many have pointed to the failure of law schools to teach skills and values essential to the practice of law. Some have urged law schools to inspire graduates to find careers that promote the public interest. But largely overlooked is the need to equip lawyers with strategies to promote justice in broken systems. If law schools are going to fulfil their obligation to help us realize our most noble ideals, they must develop curricula designed to not only teach lawyers values and motivate them towards social justice careers; but to also arm them with tools to resist systems hostile to the principles that define us as a nation. This article discusses this challenge and examines two efforts to equip young lawyers with tools and strategies to become the change agents necessary to drive reform; one through an innovative law school curricula and the other through the training and mentoring of lawyers post law school in the crucial arena of indigent defense.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Issues In Measuring Law School Diversity

Jack Manhire, Texas A&M University School of Law, is publishing Beyond the U.S. News Index: A Better Measure of Law School Diversity in volume 101 of the Iowa Law Review Online. Here is the abstract.

The U.S. News & World Report publishes a diversity index along with its annual ranking of U.S. law schools. Race and ethnicity are the only factors the magazine uses to measure law school diversity. But is this a meaningful measure of student difference? Are race and ethnicity all that count or are there other differences that contribute to a richer educational experience for students and better outcomes for law schools? In a 2011 Iowa Law Review article, Kevin Johnson argues that law school diversity is not limited to only race and ethnicity. He further argues that law school diversity, defined broadly, is critical to the success of legal education; both for the students and the institutions that serve them. Yet, the epistemological question remains: how do law schools know how diverse their student bodies are? If law student diversity is more than just racial diversity, the current U.S. News index is incomplete and fails to provide a meaningful law school diversity measure. This essay proposes an improved diversity index that captures more of the differences that matter to the success of both law students and law schools. The essay begins by very briefly recapping some of Dean Johnson’s compelling arguments for why law school diversity (in its broader conception) is critical, and why measuring it is so important. It then examines the types of differences shown to produce better outcomes in heterogeneous groups, and explains the methodology behind the proposed cognitive diversity index.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Legal Realism As the Basis For a Law School Curriculum

Robert Rubinson, University of Baltimore School of Law, has published The Holmes School of Law: A Proposal to Reform Legal Education Through Realism at 35 Boston College Journal of Law & Social Justice 33 (2015).

This article proposes the formation of a new law school, the Holmes School of Law. The curriculum of the Holmes School would draw upon legal realism, particularly as articulated by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The proposed curriculum would focus on educating students about “law in fact” — how law is actually experienced. It rejects the idea that legal education should be about reading cases written by judges who not only bring their own biases and cultural understandings to their role, but who also ignore law as experienced, which, in the end, is what law is. This disconnect is especially troubling because virtually all legal education ignores law as experienced by low-income people. The article concludes with responses to anticipated objections to the proposal.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

The Return To the Bramble Bush

Anders Walker, Saint Louis University School of Law, has published  Bramble Bush Revisited: Karl Llewellyn, the Great Depression, and the First Law School Crisis, 1929-1939. Here is the abstract.

This article recovers the plight of legal education during the Great Depression, showing how debates over practical training, theoretical research and the appropriate length of law school all emerged in the 1930s. Using Bramble Bush author Karl Llewellyn as a guide, it strives to make three points. One, Depression-era critics of law school called for increased attention to practical skills, like today, but also a more inter-disciplinary curriculum – something current reformers discount. Two, the push for theoretical, policy-oriented courses in the 1930s set the stage for claims that law graduates deserved more than a Bachelor of Laws degree, bolstering the move away from a two year LL.B. and towards a mandatory three year Juris Doctor, or J.D. The rise of the J.D. following World War II, this article concludes, heightened the role of inter-disciplinary work in the first three years, even as it substantially diminished the role of advanced, graduate-level research, a point worth recalling as law school reformers, the ABA and, even the President of the United States lobby for shorter, more-practice oriented programs. While such proposals may be prudent, they may also warrant a return to plural law degrees.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link. 

The Very Model of a Modern Law Professor?

Carlo A. Pedrioli, Barry University School of Law, has published Professor Kingsfield in Conflict: Rhetorical Constructions of the U.S. Law Professor Persona(e) at 38 Ohio N. U. L. Rev. 701 (2012). Here is the abstract.

At least since the 1960s, a “‘two cultures’ phenomenon” has become quite apparent within the legal field in the United States. On one hand, some lawyers, usually those within the university, have been more academically oriented, and, on the other hand, other lawyers, usually those in legal practice or sitting on the bench, have been more pragmatically oriented. Problems arise when these two groups begin to talk differently from each other. In a way, the field of law has developed into at least two different legal professions, and, not surprisingly, scholars and practitioners have experienced tension because of this situation. The problem comes to a head when, through rhetoric, lawyers envision their ideal role(s) for the law professor. Calling upon rhetorical theory, this article traces the contours of the conflict over the construction of the role(s), or persona(e), of the U.S. law professor from 1960 to the present. The article draws an initial line at 1960 because, by the 1960s, law schools in the United States had matured to the point at which they clearly were thinking of themselves as graduate programs within the university system. After a discussion of persona theory and persona analysis, this article addresses the two major personae that have emerged in the conflict, the law professor as scholar and the law professor as practitioner. As appropriate, each subsection of the article that considers a persona also addresses the type of rhetoric that lawyers have employed in developing their preferred persona. In this study, the term lawyers refers to both practicing lawyers and academic lawyers. A concluding section synthesizes some of the communication problems that have emerged in this ongoing conflict, usually due to a heavy reliance on traditional Aristotelian rhetoric, or persuasion, as a rhetorical strategy. Although descriptive in nature, the current article sets the stage for a subsequent article, normative in nature, that will open the door to an alternative approach to this ongoing conflict.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.