FSU College of Law Research Center Blog

Best Practices for Legal Education

Best Practices for Legal Education by Roy Stuckey and Others has been posted to the Web. 

Read the report here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

International Conference on the Future of Legal Education

From February 20-23 at Georgia State University College of Law.   For its point of departure the Conference with examine the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Educating Lawyers report.  See this post for more information on this report.

Click here for more Conference information.

Posted by Jon Lutz

The University of Google

Joe Hodnicki had an interesting post on Law School Innovation on the book The University of Google: Education in the (Post) Information Age.  Here's an excerpt:

Angry, humorous and practical in equal measure, The University of Google is based on real teaching experience and on years of engaged and sometimes exasperated reflection on it. It is far from a luddite critique of the information age. Tara Brabazon celebrates the possibilities of digital platforms in education, but deplores the consequences of placing funding on technology and not teachers. In doing so, she opens a new debate on how to make our educational system both productive and provocative in the (post-) information age.

Read the whole post here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Transforming Legal Education

Transforming Legal Education:  Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-first Century by Paul Maharg.   

Highly recommended -- Joe Hodnicki on Law School Innovation.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Training Law Students for Real-Life Careers

A recent New York Time's article discusses curriculum reform in Law Schools.  Here's a quote from the article:

For years, law students have focused on judicial opinions, explaining why a case was decided in a particular way. But many lawyers today must read laws and regulations that have not been explained by a judge and advise clients on how to comply with them.

So both Harvard Law and Vanderbilt University Law School have modified their traditional first-year requirements, like contracts, civil procedures and torts, to include a class that teaches students how to interpret statutes and regulations.

Stanford Law and other schools are also making it easier for students to take courses in other graduate-level programs at their universities, recognizing that lawyers often need specialized knowledge in areas like business, technology, biology, international relations, engineering and medicine. Many lawyers today practice across international borders and must be familiar with foreign laws and legal systems.

“Globalization means you have to better prepare lawyers to work in a global context,” said Larry Kramer, dean of Stanford Law.

Read the entire article here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Foxes, Hedgehogs, and the Legal Academy

There is an interesting blog post by Lawrence Solum in the Legal Theory Blog titled Foxes, Hedgehogs, and the Legal Academy.  The thread was started by Belle Lettre on whether, for an academic career, it's better to be a fox or a hedgehog. 

Posted by Jon Lutz

College and University Ranking Systems

The Institute for Higher Education Policy has published a report:  College and University Ranking Systems: Global Perspectives and American Challenges.

Supported by Lumina Foundation for Education, this new report by the Institute for Higher Education Policy highlights the ongoing global phenomenon of college and university ranking systems and the urgent need for constructive dialogue about ranking. College and University Ranking Systems: Global Perspectives and American Challenges acknowledges that while college and university rankings are growing in their frequency and popularity, greater understanding about how these ranking systems function is needed to ensure accountability and greater transparency.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Law Schools also Ranked by Blogs Now

In the Wall Street Journal Online there is an interesting article Law Schools also Ranked by Blogs Now by Amir Efrati.  The article discusses alternatives to the U.S. News & World Reports law school rankings.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Law Schools Unlikely to Boycott Magazine Rankings

The New York Times in the recently published article Some Colleges to Drop Out of U.S. News Rankings  reported that dozens of liberal arts schools are no longer participating in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings. 

The commitment, which some college presidents said was made by a large majority of participants, represents the most significant challenge yet to the rankings, adding colleges like Barnard, Sarah Lawrence and Kenyon to a growing rebellion against the magazine, participants said.

However, Law.com in the article Law Schools Unlikely to Boycott Magazine Rankings reports that a law school boycott is unlikely.

Nancy Rogers, president of the American Association of Law Schools, said that her group was not considering a move similar to that of the Annapolis Group.

"While the AALS believes that any composite rankings system is inherently flawed, the AALS supports the efforts of magazines or other entities to provide information to those interested in pursuing legal education," she said in an e-mail message.

Law schools generally fear the consequences of not participating, Levmore said, especially because the publication could go ahead and include much of the information that is available from the American Bar Association, absent input from the individual schools.

Posted by Jon Lutz

MySpace

Be careful what you post to MySpace.com.  Stacy Snyder was denied an education degree and teaching certificate by Millersville University in Pennsylvania due to a picture of her drinking out of a yellow Mr. Goodbar cup, and wearing a pirates hat.  The photo had the caption "drunken pirate."
A federal law suit has been filed: Snyder v. Millersville University et al.  Documents  for this case can be found on Justia.com here.
Good overviews of the case can be found here and here.

Posted by Jon Lutz