The Arts and the Legal Academy


Book Description

In Western culture, law is dominated by textual representation. Lawyers, academics and law students live and work in a textual world where the written word is law and law is interpreted largely within written and printed discourse. Is it possible, however, to understand and learn law differently? Could modes of knowing, feeling, memory and expectation commonly present in the Arts enable a deeper understanding of law's discourse and practice? If so, how might that work for students, lawyers and academics in the classroom, and in continuing professional development? Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners internationally from the fields of legal education, legal theory, theatre, architecture, visual and movement arts, this book is evidence of how the Arts can powerfully revitalize the theory and practice of legal education. Through discussion of theory and practice in the humanities and Arts, linked to practical examples of radical interventions, the chapters reveal how the Arts can transform educational practice and our view of its place in legal practice. Available in enhanced electronic format, the book complements The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life, also published by Ashgate.




How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School


Book Description

Each year, over 40,000 new students enter America's law schools. Each new crop experiences startlingly high rates of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and dissatisfaction. Kathryne M. Young was one of those disgruntled law students. After finishing law school (and a PhD), she set out to learn more about the law school experience and how to improve it for future students. Young conducted one of the most ambitious studies of law students ever undertaken, charting the experiences of over 1000 law students from over 100 different law schools, along with hundreds of alumni, dropouts, law professors, and more. How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School is smart, compelling, and highly readable. Combining her own observations and experiences with the results of her study and the latest sociological research on law schools, Young offers a very different take from previous books about law school survival. Instead of assuming her readers should all aspire to law-review-and-big-firm notions of success, Young teaches students how to approach law school on their own terms: how to tune out the drumbeat of oppressive expectations and conventional wisdom to create a new breed of law school experience altogether. Young provides readers with practical tools for finding focus, happiness, and a sense of purpose while facing the seemingly endless onslaught of problems law school presents daily. This book is an indispensable companion for today's law students, prospective law students, and anyone who cares about making law students' lives better. Bursting with warmth, realism, and a touch of firebrand wit, How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School equips law students with much-needed wisdom for thriving during those three crucial years.




Legal Education at the Crossroads


Book Description

For several years legal professions across the world have, to varying degrees, been undergoing dramatic changes as a result of a range of forces such as globalization, diversification and changes in regulation. In many jurisdictions the extent of these transformations have led to a process of professional fragmentation and generated uncertainty at institutional, organisational and individual levels about the nature and future of legal professionalism. As a result legal education is in flux in many of jurisdictions including the United States, the UK and Australia, with further effects in other Common Law and some Civil law countries. The situation in the UK exemplifies the sense of uncertainty and crisis, with a growing number of pathways into law; an increasing surplus of law graduates to graduate entry positions and most recently proposals for reform of legal education and training by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). This collection addresses both current and historical approaches showing that some problems which appear to be modern are endemic, that there are still some important prospects for change and that policy issues may be more important than the interests of lawyers and educators. This makes this volume a source of interest to lawyers, law students, academic and policy makers as well as the discerning public. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession.




Where the Law is


Book Description

This newly updated law school textbook and course reference is designed specifically for advanced legal research classes and for upper-level students who want to achieve a better understanding of how to use the sources of legal information that they learned about in their introductory courses. It provides in-depth guidance through the research process, advice on format selection, and detail about the tools and techniques needed to function as skilled legal researchers. Up-to-date discussion of all media is fully integrated throughout, focusing on the types of information the researcher needs, rather than on descriptions of particular information products.




Legal Education in the Global Context


Book Description

This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing legal education in the era of globalization. It identifies the knowledge and skills that law students will require in order to prepare for the practice of tomorrow, and explores pedagogical shifts legal education needs to make inside and outside of the classroom. With contributions from leading experts on legal education from various jurisdictions across the globe, the work combines theoretical depth with practical insights. Seeking to understand the changing landscape of legal education in the era of globalization, the contributions find that law schools can, and must, adopt educational strategies that at least present students with different understandings of what studying and practicing law is meant to be about. They find that law schools need to offer their students choices, a vision of practice that is not driven entirely by the demands of the marketplace or the needs of major international law firms. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book makes a significant contribution to the impact of globalization on legal education, and how students and law schools need to adapt for the future. It will be of great interest to academics and students of comparative legal studies and legal education, as well as policy-makers and practitioners.




American Legal Education Abroad


Book Description

A critical history of the Americanization of legal education in fourteen countries The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the export of American power—both hard and soft—throughout the world. What role did US cultural and economic imperialism play in legal education? American Legal Education Abroad offers an unprecedented and surprising picture of the history of legal education in fourteen countries beyond the United States. Each study in this book represents a critical history of the Americanization of legal education, reexamining prevailing narratives of exportation, transplantation, and imperialism. Collectively, these studies challenge the conventional wisdom that American ideas and practices have dominated globally. Editors Susan Bartie and David Sandomierski and their contributors suggest that to understand legal education and to respond thoughtfully to the mounting present-day challenges, it is essential to look beyond a particular region and consider not only the ideas behind legal education but also the broader historical, political, and cultural factors that have shaped them. American Legal Education Abroad begins with an important foundational history by leading Harvard Law School historian Bruce Kimball, who explains the factors that created a transportable American legal model, and the book concludes with reflections from two prominent American law professors, Susan Carle and Bob Gordon, whose observations on recent disruptions within US law schools suggest that their influence within the global order of legal education may soon fall into further decline. This book should be considered an invaluable resource for anyone in the field of law.




Legal Education in a Changing World


Book Description




Advanced Legal Writing


Book Description

With a practical focus on persuasive writing strategies, Advanced Legal Writing: Theory and Strategies in Persuasive Writing explores three classical techniques: logos, pathos, and ethos, and provides students with a thorough introduction to the elements of rhetorical style. Unlike many other advanced legal writing texts, which tend to focus on a document-specific approach, this unique coursebook focuses on classical writing strategies that students can apply to a wide range of settings. The depth and scope of this text make it appropriate for upper-level legal writing courses. The Third Edition has been expanded to include the use of movies and other popular culture media in chapters dealing with literary references. There have also been substantial revisions to the chapter on policy. Features: Comprehensive coverage of the technical aspects of rhetorical style: metaphor, literary allusion, and figures of speech. Emphasizes theory as well as practice, building on three basic strategies of persuasive legal writing: Logos: Logic and rational argument. o Pathos: Value-based argument. Ethos: Establishing credibility. Highlights interdisciplinary contributions to persuasive writing from diverse fields, including cognitive psychology, classical rhetoric, and morality theory. Presents effective strategies that extend beyond the trial or appellate brief to a broad range of documents and settings. Covers new developments in cognitive psychology, pathos, persuasion, and the role of metaphor in persuasive legal writing. Depth and scope appropriate for upper-level legal writing classes. Thoroughly updated, the revised Third Edition offers: Substantial revisions to the chapter on policy. Expanded chapters on literary references now include other media, e.g., movies and other pop culture platforms.




The History of Legal Education in the United States


Book Description

An invaluable and fascinating resource, this carefully edited anthology presents recent writings by leading legal historians, many commissioned for this book, along with a wealth of related primary sources by John Adams, James Barr Ames, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher C. Langdell, Karl N. Llewellyn, Roscoe Pound, Tapping Reeve, Theodore Roosevelt, Joseph Story, John Henry Wigmore and other distinguished contributors to American law. It is divided into nine sections: Teaching Books and Methods in the Lecture Hall, Examinations and Evaluations, Skills Courses, Students, Faculty, Scholarship, Deans and Administration, Accreditation and Association, and Technology and the Future. Contributors to this volume include Morris Cohen, Daniel R. Coquillette, Michael Hoeflich, John H. Langbein, William P. LaPiana and Fred R. Shapiro. Steve Sheppard is the William Enfield Professor of Law, University of Arkansas School of Law.




The Law Magazine


Book Description