Tired of Talking: A Call for Clear Strategies for Legal Education Reform: Moving Beyond the Discussion of Good Ideas to the Real Transformation of Law Schools

Legal education reform efforts have persisted for over one hundred years, supported by substantive expertise, empirical data, cutting-edge curricula, and effective pedagogy. But today, the normative face of legal education remains essentially unchanged. If the substance behind legal education reform is valid, then what is the problem? This article examines the stasis of legal education through the lens of historical reform efforts, political science, and contemporary organizational change theory. The author argues that legal education reform efforts are marginalized and have limited normative impact because reformers underestimate the strategic demands of systemic change. As a result, reformers have yet to build a coherent, collective strategy for the transformation of legal education. The author contends that reformers must shift from an exclusive focus on the substance of legal education reform to adopt a new focus on strategy. Finally, the author offers some starting points on how to begin a new strategic discussion on the transformation of legal education

Punishing Homelessness

Homelessness is punishing to those who experience it, not just from the inherent and protracted trauma of living exposed on the street, but also due to widespread and pervasive laws that punish people for being homeless. People experiencing homelessness, particularly chronic homelessness, often lack reasonable alternatives to living in public. Yet cities throughout the country are increasingly enacting and enforcing laws that punish the conduct of necessary, life-sustaining activities in public, even when many people have no other option. These laws are frequently challenged in court and often struck down as unconstitutional. But legally sound, cost-effective, and non-punitive alternatives to ending chronic homelessness exist. This article exposes some of the problems with criminalization laws, not only for people experiencing homelessness, but also for the broader community. It discusses how current approaches often make chronic homelessness worse and explains why non-punitive alternatives, especially Housing First and permanent supportive housing, are the most cost-effective means of addressing chronic homelessness. Ultimately, this article urges cities and their constituents to stop punishing homelessness and instead to start solving it

The Influence of Exile

Belonging is a fundamental human need, but human instincts are Janus-faced and equally strong is the drive to exclude. This exclusive impulse, which this Article calls the influence of exile, reaches beyond interpersonal dynamics when empowered groups use laws and policies to restrict marginalized groups\u27 access to public space. Jim Crow, Anti-Okie, and Sundown Town laws are among many notorious examples. But the influence of exile perseveres today: it has found a new incarnation in the stigmatization and spatial regulation of visible poverty, as laws that criminalize and eject visibly poor people from public space proliferate across the nation. These laws reify popular attitudes toward visible poverty, harming not only the visibly poor but also society as a whole. This Article seeks to expose and explain how the influence of exile operates; in doing so, it argues against the use of the criminal justice system as a response to visible poverty. In its place, this Article argues for more effective and efficient responses that take as their starting point an individual right to exist in public space, which for many visibly poor people is tantamount to a right to exist at all

Can Law Schools Prepare Students to be Practice Ready?

The transcription of 2013 Chapman Law Review Symposium: “The Future of Law, Business, and Legal Education: How to Prepare Students to Meet Corporate Needs”. Professor Rankin, along with James E. Moliterno, R. Michael Cassidy, and Susan B. Myers, answer the first panel question, Can law schools prepare to students to be practice ready? Professor Rankin discusses the importance of innovations in legal education, and explains how she is actually changing the first year to focus on real-client and real-world experiences. She explains the innovations taking place at Seattle University in her first year lawyering skills classes, where her first-year students tackle “real life” legal issues

Low-dose TNF augments fracture healing in normal and osteoporotic bone by up-regulating the innate immune response

The mechanism by which trauma initiates healing remains unclear. Precise understanding of these events may define interventions for accelerating healing that could be translated to the clinical arena. We previously reported that addition of low-dose recombinant human TNF (rhTNF) at the fracture site augmented fracture repair in a murine tibial fracture model. Here, we show that local rhTNF treatment is only effective when administered within 24h of injury, when neutrophils are the major inflammatory cell infiltrate. Systemic administration of anti-TNF impaired fracture healing. Addition of rhTNF enhanced neutrophil recruitment and promoted recruitment of monocytes through CCL2 production. Conversely, depletion of neutrophils or inhibition of the chemokine receptor CCR2 resulted in significantly impaired fracture healing. Fragility, or osteoporotic, fractures represent a major medical problem as they are associated with permanent disability and premature death. Using a murine model of fragility fractures, we found that local rhTNF treatment improved fracture healing during the early phase of repair. If translated clinically, this promotion of fracture healing would reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with delayed patient mobilization

Structural characterisation of neutrophil glycans by ultra sensitive mass spectrometric glycomics methodology

Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells in humans and play a vital role in several aspects of the immune response. Numerous reports have implicated neutrophil glycosylation as an important factor in mediating these interactions. We report here the application of high sensitivity glycomics methodologies, including matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI-TOF) and MALDI-TOF/TOF analyses, to the structural analysis of N- and O-linked carbohydrates released from two samples of neutrophils, prepared by two separate and geographically remote laboratories. The data produced demonstrates that the cells display a diverse range of sialylated and fucosylated complex glycans, with a high level of similarity between the two preparations

Kinetics of Eotaxin Generation and Its Relationship to Eosinophil Accumulation in Allergic Airways Disease: Analysis in a Guinea Pig Model In Vivo

Challenge of the airways of sensitized guinea pigs with aerosolized ovalbumin resulted in an early phase of microvascular protein leakage and a delayed phase of eosinophil accumulation in the airway lumen, as measured using bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Immunoreactive eotaxin levels rose in airway tissue and BAL fluid to a peak at 6 h falling to low levels by 12 h. Eosinophil numbers in the tissue correlated with eotaxin levels until 6 h but eosinophils persisted until the last measurement time point at 24 h. In contrast, few eosinophils appeared in BAL over the first 12 h, major trafficking through the airway epithelium occurring at 12–24 h when eotaxin levels were low. Constitutive eotaxin was present in BAL fluid. Both constitutive and allergen-induced eosinophil chemoattractant activity in BAL fluid was neutralized by an antibody to eotaxin. Allergen-induced eotaxin appeared to be mainly in airway epithelium and macrophages, as detected by immunostaining. Allergen challenge of the lung resulted in a rapid release of bone marrow eosinophils into the blood. An antibody to IL-5 suppressed bone marrow eosinophil release and lung eosinophilia, without affecting lung eotaxin levels. Thus, IL-5 and eotaxin appear to cooperate in mediating a rapid transfer of eosinophils from the bone marrow to the lung in response to allergen challenge