Remarks by Dean Lewis M. Collens at the Lawrence F. Doppelt Memorial Program IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law - August 30, 1979 (original) (raw)
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Iowa Law Review, 1997
While the methods of instructing American law students have changed over the course of two-hundred years, the primary purpose of American law schools has stayed the same: providing the necessary education for enabling students to effectively practice law. Additionally, legal education should achieve three goals: to provide students a way to learn, organize, and apply the law. Forms of legal education take various forms, each having advocates and opponents. Casebooks—often accompanied by the Socratic method—provide an effective way for students to learn the law through historical rules and decisions, while treatises add organization to a body of law’s relationships among applications. A critique of the casebook method is that the student is presented with a presumably correct adjudication of a legal issue from the start. In response to this critique, problem books were developed to give students the opportunity to practice their developing legal skills by confronting hypothetical legal problems. From these three methods, a host of new variations have developed, which include but are not limited to: canned briefs; commercial outlines; and supplements like the Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (“CALI”) system. These variations present new opportunities for students to seek help outside of the classroom, though they are sometimes in conflict with a professor’s pedagogical design. In-class variations also exist, as many professors have begun to embrace new teaching methods such as team activities and client counseling based role-playing. Even though lecture halls have changed much, educational goals have not. Instructional education and training may still be achieved, despite the methods employed, if professors are active in guiding students in the right direction by synthesizing the three goals of legal education.
Law and History Review, 2010
There is an interesting section on the transition to the job-the heavy learning curve, the problems of getting an office running, and the remarkable variety of cases federal judges confront. The chapter on the nature of the job holds few surprises. Most judges like the job with its broad range of subjects and conflicts, although there are complaints about the isolation. It is, though, disturbing to see such distinguished judges and ex-judges as Abner Mikva, Robert Bork, and James Buckley agreeing, at least on their notable Court of Appeals (D.C. Cir.), that after the conference on a case, the judge will go back and likely never speak again in person with his colleagues about it. When coupled with the "revelation" in another chapter that the law clerks are chiefly responsible for opinions (183), one cannot help wondering what creative, thoughtful, and analytical work federal judges are actually doing. A chapter partially named "Getting Along with Others" encompasses Alfred Goodwin's (9th Cir.) discussion of political trials. There is an interesting, though troubling, discussion of past tensions on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and two pages allotted to Andrew Hauk's (C.D. Cal.) oral history demonstrating his "outrageous rudeness." Finally, Joyce Hens Green sums up what makes a good judge: "A judge has to have courage and express the way it is in her opinions, whether oral or written, not just to ride with the waves of the time, economically, politically, emotionally" (212). Both specialists and nonspecialists will learn from Domnarski's book. Nonspecialists will receive a painless introduction to the lives of federal judges and the conditions under which they work. The scholar will pick up a variety of interesting tidbits with a reminder of what a valuable resource for research on the courts oral histories can be.
Dean W. Edward Sell–Our Dedicated Law Review Advisor and Unwavering Support
University of Pittsburgh Law Review, 2004
Towards the end of my second year of law school, as I began to learn the ropes of my new position as Editor-in-Chief, I had several opportunities to sit down and talk with Dean Sell about the upcoming year. Although I never was a student of his in the classroom, I looked forward to working with the Law Review's most senior faculty advisor. We discussed all sorts of ideas, large and small, for how to improve the Law Review. I looked on as he learned how to use a digital camera. I got to hear a few of his legendary stories. I began to get a feel for how we would work together. It felt particularly good when he leaned over and whispered to me, "I have a feeling we're going to get along very well." Like many second-year law students, I began work as a summer associate shortly after final exams, and did not have the opportunity to see Dean Sell during the summer months. While I frequently found myself at the law school in the evenings, Dean Sell had long since left the building. A week before classes were to begin, I came in to the school to get things ready for the coming year, eagerly looking forward to meeting up with Dean Sell to continue our interrupted conversations from the spring. Shortly after I arrived that Monday morning, however, word arrived that Dean Sell had passed away over the weekend.
Alan Watson: Some Reflections on a Great Legal Scholar and Teacher, and a Wonderful Friend
Georgia Journal of International Comparative Law, 2014
I first met Alan Watson in the spring of 1980. I was at the time a student in the joint law and philosophy program at the University of Virginia. One of my philosophy professors was the late David C. Yalden-Thomson, a Hume scholar of the first rank. Although Alan had taught as a visiting professor at Virginia and other American law schools, the occasion of his being in Charlottesville when I met him was a social visit with Yalden-Thomson, whom we all referred to affectionately as "YT," and with whom Alan was a very close friend. I was eager to meet Alan, who had just moved to the United States to assume a position at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. It is not an exaggeration to say that by age forty-seven, when I met Alan, he had already achieved the status of being one of the top legal scholars anywhere in the world. He had been on the faculty of Oxford University and then, at age thirty-two, was appointed to the Douglas Chair of Civil Law at Glasgow University before assuming the Chair of Civil Law at the University of Edinburgh. He had amassed a body of scholarship that was unparalleled in its quantity, quality, and breadth. He had established an outstanding reputation in Roman law and jurisprudence, and it was clear that he was in the process of doing paradigm shifting work in comparative law, starting with his 1974 book, Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law. So it was with great excitement that my partner, Anna Charlton, and I accepted an invitation from YT to join him, his partner Barbara-a lovely person who passed away in 2012-Alan, and several other law professors and students, for dinner at YT's one weekend.
Casebooks, Commentaries, and Curmudgeons: An Introductory History of Law in the Lecture Hall
1997
* Associate Professor, Thomas M. Cooley Law School. This Article is an abbreviated version of a chapter appearing in Michael Closen et al., The History of Legal Education (1997). I thank my students Steven Seeger, Evans Thomas, and Amy Headrick, as well as Kristin Keck, who distributed and collated the suiVeys, and the long-suffering miracle-workers of Thomas Cooley's library, particularly Sharon Bradley and Ardena Walsh, whose diplomacy was necessary to secure many of my sources ..
The Dangers of the Ivory Tower: The Obligation of Law Professors to Engange in the Practice of Law
2004
After twenty years of teaching at Western New England College School of Law, I found myself frequently haunted by the maxim: "Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach."! I had left the practice of law after a mere four years. Since that time, I have become increasingly bothered by the fact that I was spending my career preparing students for a world that was more and more removed from my daily existence and memory. Although I stayed in touch with many practicing attorneys, including former colleagues, classmates, students, and lawyers in my community, I personally had not engaged in the practice of law in any meaningful way since 1982 when I joined the faculty of Western New England. I was bothered by the fact that I knew law practice had to have changed in twenty years, but I was only • Professor of Law, Western New England College School of Law. I would like to thank the lawyers at Cantor Colburn LLP in Bloomfield, Connecticut, for so generously and graciously allowing me to visit the firm during the Spring of 2003. In particular, I would like to thank Pamela S. Chestek and George A. Pelletier, Jr., who were remarkably willing to give me their time and attention so that I could learn about their practice experiences. In addition, I would like to thank Dean Arthur R. Gaudio and the administration of Western New England College School of Law for granting me a sabbatical leave so that I could take advantage of the opportunity to visit Cantor Colburn. I also want to thank
The Dangers of the Ivory Tower: The Obligation of Law Professors to Engage in the Practice of Law
2004
After twenty years of teaching at Western New England College School of Law, I found myself frequently haunted by the maxim: "Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach."! I had left the practice of law after a mere four years. Since that time, I have become increasingly bothered by the fact that I was spending my career preparing students for a world that was more and more removed from my daily existence and memory. Although I stayed in touch with many practicing attorneys, including former colleagues, classmates, students, and lawyers in my community, I personally had not engaged in the practice of law in any meaningful way since 1982 when I joined the faculty of Western New England. I was bothered by the fact that I knew law practice had to have changed in twenty years, but I was only • Professor of Law, Western New England College School of Law. I would like to thank the lawyers at Cantor Colburn LLP in Bloomfield, Connecticut, for so generously and graciously allowing me to visit the firm during the Spring of 2003. In particular, I would like to thank Pamela S. Chestek and George A. Pelletier, Jr., who were remarkably willing to give me their time and attention so that I could learn about their practice experiences. In addition, I would like to thank Dean Arthur R. Gaudio and the administration of Western New England College School of Law for granting me a sabbatical leave so that I could take advantage of the opportunity to visit Cantor Colburn. I also want to thank