An Investigation of Legal Reasoning in Decisions to Raise the Competency to Stand Trial Motion.

Competency to stand trial evaluations lack an operational criterion for evaluation by mental health professionals. This dissertation investigated the legal reasoning behind the decision to raise the competency motion, to highlight variables which might contribute to such a definition. In the first study, 224 defendants in the Baton Rouge Public Defender\u27s Office were described by the legal investigators using endorsements on the Pre Trial Behavior Checklist, a list of descriptors adapted from competency research conducted by Roesch and Golding (1980). A discriminant analysis using all the PTBC subscales predicted the raising of the motion at a rate greater than chance. However, when only the three internally consistent subscales were used, the prediction did not exceed chance levels. A factor analysis of items was unsuccessful at producing internally consistent factors for further analysis. The second study used a modified version of the PTBC in which items were rated on a 1 to 5 Likert scale. In this study defendants were rated by attorneys in the Public Defender\u27s Office at the time of the raising of the motion (n = 47), with a control group of defendants for whom the motion was not raised (n = 96). A discriminant analysis was successful in predicting the raising of the motion at a rate greater than chance. A discriminant analysis using only those subscales which had internal consistency greater than 0.75 was also successful at predicting group membership. PTBC subscales were also predictive of certainty of attorney perception of competency, regardless of whether the motion had been raised. Factor analyses of the subscales and of the items indicate that the PTBC is not measuring one underlying psychopathology factor. In addition, the factor analysis of the items revealed factors very similar to the logically derived scales used in the discriminant analyses of the second study. There were no differences between groups for race or sex, but older defendants and those who had committed more violent crimes were more often in the group for which the motion was raised. The methodological and statistical limitations of the study are discussed and directions for future research are suggested

Experience the Future: Papers from the Second National Symposium on Experiential Education in Law: Alliance for Experiential Learning in Law

On June 13-15, 2014 the Second National Symposium on Experiential Educa­tion in Law took place in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Alliance for Experi­ential Learning in Law and Elon University School of Law hosted the symposium, with the support of Northeastern University School of Law. Presenters included professors and practitioners across multiple disciplines, in­cluding business, medicine, and architecture, and they shared their insights about the value of experiential education in their fields. Working from the Alliance for Experiential Learning in Law also presented their findings and distributed a set of working papers, which eventually culminated into this report. The report covers research in six areas of experiential warning, including defining a vision and mission for the experiential education movement, track­ing the developing rhetoric of experiential education, studying cost and sus­tainability measures for experiential legal education, integrating experiential warning into the law school curriculum, establishing creative initiatives at law schools, and integrating with the profession

Multiplatform Analysis of 12 Cancer Types Reveals Molecular Classification within and across Tissues of Origin

Recent genomic analyses of pathologically-defined tumor types identify “within-a-tissue” disease subtypes. However, the extent to which genomic signatures are shared across tissues is still unclear. We performed an integrative analysis using five genome-wide platforms and one proteomic platform on 3,527 specimens from 12 cancer types, revealing a unified classification into 11 major subtypes. Five subtypes were nearly identical to their tissue-of-origin counterparts, but several distinct cancer types were found to converge into common subtypes. Lung squamous, head & neck, and a subset of bladder cancers coalesced into one subtype typified by TP53 alterations, TP63 amplifications, and high expression of immune and proliferation pathway genes. Of note, bladder cancers split into three pan-cancer subtypes. The multi-platform classification, while correlated with tissue-of-origin, provides independent information for predicting clinical outcomes. All datasets are available for data-mining from a unified resource to support further biological discoveries and insights into novel therapeutic strategies

Concurrent Session 1E. Creating an Effective Marriage of Access to Justice and Social Justice Pedagogy Through Divorce Representation: A Case Study and Discussion

Presenters will discuss the incorporation of experiential learning into the first year curriculum in a way that serves social justice goals, specifically in the representation of low-income individuals in uncontested divorces. The panel will discuss the appropriateness of involving first year law students in representation of clients and the pedagogical goals of doing so. Attendees will receive a copy of First Year Practice Rule Proposal and Sample Course Proposal

The New York State Bar Exam by the Issue

This book tells you how to use it to pass the New York bar exam. It presents every issue tested on the exam essays for the past 10 years in a concise chart, identifies the frequency with which these issues have been tested, and provides a rule of law for every identified issue. The paragraphs of law track the released NY essays and show how to tailor a paragraph of law to respond to the issue in the question. This book is unique in its detailed attention to the New York essays, providing a comprehensive resource for that portion of the exam by offering a step-by-step approach for reading, outlining, and writing essays, plus a side-by-side comparison between the New York Board of Law Examiners\u27 Content Outline and the Table of Issues to show exactly which issues have been tested – and how often they have been tested

The New York State Bar Exam by the Issue

This book tells you how to use it to pass the New York bar exam. It presents every issue tested on the exam essays for the past 10 years in a concise chart, identifies the frequency with which these issues have been tested, and provides a rule of law for every identified issue. The paragraphs of law track the released NY essays and show how to tailor a paragraph of law to respond to the issue in the question. This book is unique in its detailed attention to the New York essays, providing a comprehensive resource for that portion of the exam by offering a step-by-step approach for reading, outlining, and writing essays, plus a side-by-side comparison between the New York Board of Law Examiners\u27 Content Outline and the Table of Issues to show exactly which issues have been tested – and how often they have been tested