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July 2008 - Posts
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What surely will pass as one of the summer's richer ironies is the scene that unfolded in a Los Angeles courtroom where a respected federal judge presided over an obscenity trial, all the while keeping a substantial stash of porn on his personal Web site. Without question, Judge Alex Kozinski is a bright light on the federal bench. Just because a person looks at pornography for fun does not mean that that person, even a federal judge, cannot perform his job duties in a professional and competent manner.
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Law schools have a unique potential in helping members of the armed forces: forming clinics to provide them with legal assistance. Only one initiative has emerged so far to fulfill that potential: the Clinic for Legal Assistance to Servicemembers at George Mason University School of Law. This clinic has received many inquiries from law schools (and others) about launching a similar program. There are a number of key elements underlying a successful program that interested law schools should keep in mind.
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As almost all, if not all, law school deans now take for granted, the U.S. News & World Report law school ranking methodology is susceptible to manipulation and remarkably poor as a measure of a school's quality of education and contribution to the healthy development of the law. Gary Simson, dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, proposes that law school faculties and administrations everywhere finally say "enough" and stop participating in a ranking system that has done substantial harm and little, if any, good to legal education in the United States.
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Legal education has been in the news lately. In this weeks' opinion section, the deans of two leading law school discuss curriculum changes to make legal education more relevant to how law is practiced. But what works for top law school may not be ideal for so-called lower tiers. The skills a new lawyer needs for a mega firm are significantly different from those bound for smaller firms, solo work, public interest or the public sector.
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A principal problem identified by the Carnegie Foundation is that law schools do not focus enough on what it means to be a lawyer. While schools are very effective in teaching abstract concepts, particularly in the first year, once students have learned how to think like lawyers, they are not trained in the skills or culture so necessary to be lawyers. To meet this challenge, schools are urged to experiment with substantive specializations in the second and third years and to increase clinical offerings that give students real world experience.
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Northwestern University School of Law recently undertook a comprehensive analysis of what capabilities today's law students will need to excel in their careers. The school, with the assistance of a consulting firm, gathered extensive research on legal education and legal profession trends; received input from faculty, alumni and students; and talked to the lawyers affecting the trends. The outcome is a major new plan to screen for and develop the core competencies that are at the heart of our analysis.
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