Assignments with Intrinsic Lessons on Professionalism (Or, Teaching Students to Act Like Adults Without Sounding Like a Parent)

There is little question that law schools ought to teach their students professionalism – indeed, they are required to do so to maintain accreditation. And there is little question that the required legal writing and research course is one of the places it ought to be taught. But teaching students to adopt the norms of professional behavior — both in law school and after graduation — is a challenge to law faculties, and particularly to the experiential learning faculty who frequently are on the front lines of teaching professionalism. While there are many ways to teach students what professional and unprofessional behavior looks like, it is often comparatively difficult to persuade students to exhibit professional behavior as a matter of course. This article describes an effective method to help students learn about and internalize professional behavior: embedding professionalism topics in substantive assignments. While legal research and writing courses in particular provide many opportunities to use substantive assignments to also teach professionalism, the approach I describe would work in any class — doctrinal or experiential — that incorporates simulated exercises as part of the substantive work. And since all members of a law faculty share the responsibility of inculcating professionalism norms in students, it makes sense to incorporate professionalism topics in both doctrinal and experiential courses. The first section of this article provides an overview of this teaching method and describes the inspiration for it. The second section reviews current methods of teaching professionalism topics and explains why those methods, while helpful in exposing students to professionalism norms, may be insufficient on their own to get students to internalize those norms. The third section describes in detail the approach I advocate, and discusses its benefits. The fourth section provides specific assignment ideas for faculty interested in adopting this approach, and the fifth section discusses two caveats

How I Finally Overcame My Apprehension About Peer Review

I’ll admit it: I was afraid to try peer review in my Legal Practice class. I’ve been teaching legal analysis, writing, and research for 17 years. I know all of the benefits of peer review. I’ve read plenty of scholarship about why and how to do it well. I have space in my syllabus to incorporate it into my teaching. But I’ve been reluctant. I worried that students would be averse to sharing their work with a classmate. I worried that the exercise would embarrass students who felt self-conscious about their writing. And I worried that the truly excellent writers would find the exercise a waste of time. But I finally decided to try it anyway. And guess what? It was successful. I’m sharing my experiences to encourage those of you who may be similarly reluctant to try it too

Judge Kozinski Objects

Sitting judges don’t get to practice law. So although they often opine on the dos and don’ts of effective advocacy, we rarely get to see them put their advice into practice. But a few years ago, a class-action lawsuit provided the rare opportunity to witness a federal judge acting as an advocate before another federal judge—if not in the role of attorney, then certainly in as close to that role as we are likely to see. Given the chance to employ his own advice about effective advocacy, would the judge—Alex Kozinski—practice what he preaches? Would his years of experience on the other side of the bench inform his written advocacy, or would he succumb to the same temptations that frequently undermine the advocacy of practicing lawyers? It turns out that Judge Kozinski’s written advocacy did flout some persuasive-writing conventions, but it was persuasive, anyway. I wanted to figure out why. And I wanted to figure out whether his advocacy suggests lessons for practicing attorneys who might be tempted to adopt his approach

Dethroning Langdell

I come not to bury the case method. I come merely to dethrone it. While the case method’s monopolistic hold on the law school classroom has loosened somewhat in recent years, it is still the dominant approach to pedagogy in many law school classrooms—and especially in the first-year law student experience. That is also true of the case method’s traditional pedagogical partners, the Socratic method and the cold call: their dominance has declined somewhat, even while they still have remarkable staying power. This Essay identifies one fault with our continued acquiescence to these pedagogical mainstays of law school classrooms: it gives law students inaccurate information about what lawyers actually do and whether they are likely to be successful in law practice. Part I describes the problem in detail. Part II explains the source of that problem—Langdell’s 140-year-old “innovation”—that introduced the Socratic method, the case method, and cold calling to law school classrooms. And Part III suggests alternative pedagogical techniques that should compete for classroom time and syllabus space

Race Belongs in Week One of LRW

I talk to my 1Ls about race and the law in their first week of law school. In doing so, I have discovered that discussing race helps me introduce foundational concepts about legal writing and law school that we will return to throughout the year. That is partly because race is relevant to nearly every topic law school touches on. But it is also because race is present in—and often conspicuous in its absence from—court opinions in ways that provide rich fodder for discussing how to approach law school. That topic interests all students—even those who might be skeptical about addressing race as a core part of law school pedagogy. And for students of color, discussing race early helps build an environment that—I hope—enables them to feel that they can bring their whole selves to the classroom. This essay describes how I overcame my initial resistance to discussing race, how I go about starting a conversation about race in the very first week of class, and why doing so has made my class better

When Should We Teach Our Students to Pay Attention to the Costs of Legal Research?

It is axiomatic in legal research pedagogy that law schools should teach students how to conduct cost-effective legal research. To do that, we need to teach students to consider the amount of time and money their research requires, how paid legal research platforms like Westlaw and Lexis charge for their services, and how to research in an efficient and cost-sensitive way. But we shouldn’t do those things. Or at least, we shouldn’t do them at first. Instead, we should tell students not to worry about the costs of legal research during their first year of law school—with the possible exception of preparing them for summer employment at the end of the year. And even then, our instruction should be limited. Why wouldn’t we want to teach students to be aware of the high costs of Lexis and Westlaw? Why wouldn’t we want students to think about how much time they ought to spend tracking down and fully exploring every possible legal wrinkle their client’s facts might implicate? We do—eventually. There is little question that, as future attorneys, students need to know how to conduct cost-effective research. But we undermine their ability to learn how to conduct research at all if we ask them to think about costs—in money and in time—too early. Students undoubtedly need to learn to conduct cost effective legal research at some point. The challenge is to determine that point and then instruct them accordingly. And that is a significant challenge since students may not be ready to focus on the costs of legal research for most or all of their first year

How I Finally Overcame My Apprehension About Peer Review

I’ll admit it: I was afraid to try peer review in my Legal Practice class. I’ve been teaching legal analysis, writing, and research for 17 years. I know all of the benefits of peer review. I’ve read plenty of scholarship about why and how to do it well. I have space in my syllabus to incorporate it into my teaching. But I’ve been reluctant. I worried that students would be averse to sharing their work with a classmate. I worried that the exercise would embarrass students who felt self-conscious about their writing. And I worried that the truly excellent writers would find the exercise a waste of time. But I finally decided to try it anyway. And guess what? It was successful. I’m sharing my experiences to encourage those of you who may be similarly reluctant to try it too

Judge Kozinski Objects

Sitting judges don’t get to practice law. So although they often opine on the dos and don’ts of effective advocacy, we rarely get to see them put their advice into practice. But a few years ago, a class-action lawsuit provided the rare opportunity to witness a federal judge acting as an advocate before another federal judge—if not in the role of attorney, then certainly in as close to that role as we are likely to see. Given the chance to employ his own advice about effective advocacy, would the judge—Alex Kozinski—practice what he preaches? Would his years of experience on the other side of the bench inform his written advocacy, or would he succumb to the same temptations that frequently undermine the advocacy of practicing lawyers? It turns out that Judge Kozinski’s written advocacy did flout some persuasive-writing conventions, but it was persuasive, anyway. I wanted to figure out why. And I wanted to figure out whether his advocacy suggests lessons for practicing attorneys who might be tempted to adopt his approach

Dethroning Langdell

I come not to bury the case method. I come merely to dethrone it. While the case method’s monopolistic hold on the law school classroom has loosened somewhat in recent years, it is still the dominant approach to pedagogy in many law school classrooms—and especially in the first-year law student experience. That is also true of the case method’s traditional pedagogical partners, the Socratic method and the cold call: their dominance has declined somewhat, even while they still have remarkable staying power. This Essay identifies one fault with our continued acquiescence to these pedagogical mainstays of law school classrooms: it gives law students inaccurate information about what lawyers actually do and whether they are likely to be successful in law practice. Part I describes the problem in detail. Part II explains the source of that problem—Langdell’s 140-year-old “innovation”—that introduced the Socratic method, the case method, and cold calling to law school classrooms. And Part III suggests alternative pedagogical techniques that should compete for classroom time and syllabus space