The Responsibility of Law Schools: Educating Lawyers as Counselors and Problem Solvers

American legal education is as strong as ever in doctrine and legal analysis; however, it is strikingly weak in teaching other foundational skills and knowledge that lawyers need as counselors, problem solvers and negotiators. Brest proposes a series of advanced courses that integrate the fundamental lawyering skills of counseling, problem solving and negotiation with insights from other disciplines

The Responsibility of Law Schools: Educating Lawyers as Counselors and Problem Solvers

American legal education is as strong as ever in doctrine and legal analysis; however, it is strikingly weak in teaching other foundational skills and knowledge that lawyers need as counselors, problem solvers and negotiators. Brest proposes a series of advanced courses that integrate the fundamental lawyering skills of counseling, problem solving and negotiation with insights from other disciplines

Reflections on Motive Review

In this commentary the author argues that motives should remain legally determinative even if the statute language or its effects are constitutional. The author discusses many areas of the law including crimes, intentional torts, and coerced wills, in which the motivation of the party is determinative. The author concludes that while not novel, Professor Simon\u27s idea of a generic suspicion that racial classifications are unconstitutionally suggests the possibility that other substantive doctrines may also reflect concerns with administrative and legislative motives

Constitutional Citizenship

Our practices for determining issues of public morality are deeply flawed. We rely too heavily on the Supreme Court of the United States to determine them for us. We give too much responsibility to the Court, and too little to other institutions; we evade our own responsibility as citizens in a democratic polity. The problem is not that too many issues are constitutionalized, for many of our most important public moral issues are quite properly treated as constitutional questions. The problem, rather, is that we assume that only the Court is authorized to decide, or is capable of deciding, constitutional questions. These are controversial assertions. In this paper, I shall explain what I mean by them, and at least begin to justify them. I believe that citizen participation in constitutional discourse and decision-making is desirable for several reasons. First, it can bring to bear on the decision-making process relevant perspectives and information that would otherwise be excluded. Second, it can educate the public about constitutional issues. Third, participation in the basic political decision of one\u27s society is an intrinsic good

Plus Ҫa Change

Harry Edwards and I both finished law school in 1965, and his article presents an occasion to consider how much the legal academy has changed during the intervening years. Animating Judge Edwards\u27 complaints about the contemporary legal academy is a nostalgia for happier days. His images are of decline - of a growing disjunction between the academy and practice, of law schools\u27 abandoning their proper missions, of their movement toward pure theory. My own view is quite different. Except for some noteworthy demographic transformations and a healthy broadening of the academic agenda, legal education has changed little during these almost thirty years. I find this regrettable, for reasons I will sketch at the end of this comment

Constitutional Citizenship

Our practices for determining issues of public morality are deeply flawed. We rely too heavily on the Supreme Court of the United States to determine them for us. We give too much responsibility to the Court, and too little to other institutions; we evade our own responsibility as citizens in a democratic polity. The problem is not that too many issues are constitutionalized, for many of our most important public moral issues are quite properly treated as constitutional questions. The problem, rather, is that we assume that only the Court is authorized to decide, or is capable of deciding, constitutional questions. These are controversial assertions. In this paper, I shall explain what I mean by them, and at least begin to justify them. I believe that citizen participation in constitutional discourse and decision-making is desirable for several reasons. First, it can bring to bear on the decision-making process relevant perspectives and information that would otherwise be excluded. Second, it can educate the public about constitutional issues. Third, participation in the basic political decision of one\u27s society is an intrinsic good