Three Views of the Academy: Legal Education and the Legal Profession in Transition

Reviewing James E. Milterno, The American Legal Profession in Crisis: Resistance and Responses to Change (Oxford University Press 2013); Deborah L. Rhode, Lawyers as Leaders (Oxford University Press 2013), and Robin L. West, Teaching Law: Justice, Politics, and the Demands of Professionalism (Cambridge University Press 2013)

Challenges of Representing Adolescent Parents in Child Welfare Proceedings

For the past thirty years, arguments over the proper representation for children have been a focus of continuous academic debate. While the academic debate rages, in the majority of states, attorneys serve in a netherworld of unclear and conflicting standards. One type of representation in particular focuses the terms of the debate: the representation of an adolescent parent in child welfare proceedings. Who are these child-clients? What are their rights to representation? What are the challenges for those representatives? This article will advocate for strongly child-directed and child- centered representation of these teen parents

Out of the Shadows: What Legal Research Instruction Reveals about Incorporating Skills throughout the Curriculum

The article first examines the politics of curricular reform. Before a law school will be able to increase or improve any skills instruction, the targeted skill must be important to enough to affect the curriculum. For example, sometimes law schools send inconsistent messages about the importance of legal research instruction. While external voices such as ABA accreditation standards and surveys of the practicing bar have long-recognized importance of the skills of legal research, evidence of the importance of the skill in the law school curriculum is mixed. If asked, most faculty members will agree that a given skill, such as legal research, is important. However, for that skill to be integrated into the curriculum in a way that will substantially affect graduate competencies, the skill must be important enough in the hierarchy of the faculty and curriculum to justify the costs of curricular change