Law School Innovation

Official law school resources or unofficial law student help: is there an app for that?

I know that there are a fair number of interesting "apps" for a fair number of legal resources.  (Many of these apps can be located via The Law Pod, which "specializes in legal reference software for smartphones and web devices.")  In addition, via the terrific blog iPhone J.D., I have seen reviews of various traditional law-school commercial services turned into apps (such as BARBRI and Law in a Flash).

But I have yet to see any law school develop its own official app for its students (and prospective students), nor have I seen any truly creative apps developed by entrepunrial lawyers or law students for the law student marketplace.  Just as all law schools (and many law students) now have intricate (and sophisticated?) websites on which law school resources and promotional materials often reside, I suspect it may be only a matter of time before apps become a more common part of law school life. 

I wonder if any law school is thinking about trying to raise its profile through the development of an app for its students or as a distinctive means to promote its faculty and programs.  Gosh knows that the development of a clever law-school app seems like it would be a much better use of promotional resources than producing and distributing all the hard-copy law porn I find in my faculty mailbox (which gets quickly relocated to my faculty trash can, often within a matter of seconds).

Posted by DAB

Great Prawfs discussion of "Revamping the 1L Curriculum"

Over at PrawfsBlawg,  Lyrissa Lidsky has this interesting post on 1L curriculum reform that gets started this way:

How do law schools justify their curricula in a world where tuition keeps rising and employment rates for grads keep falling?

In response to this question, and at the nudging of our curriculum committee, several of my colleagues today began discussing what should be done to revamp the 1L curriculum. It was amazing to hear how much consensus there is about what skills too many students lack after the 1L year. They can't (or don't) read cases closely enough; they can't (or don't) read statutes closely enough; their writing skills are underdeveloped; their analytical skills are weak; they lack initiative and self-reliance.

There was far less consensus on how to solve the problem. Proposals included having a separate class to teach legal reasoning skills, adding skills components to traditional 1L classes, making sure 1L students have a small section experience, beefing up legal research and writing requirements, requiring 1L profs to use essay exams, banning laptops in class, and adding components to 1L classes designed to boost "emotional intelligence" or professionalism.

The post prompted a host of really terrific comments, including a complaint and a retort from a current law student and a current lawyer (which are only quoted in part below and merit a full read):

Student Complaint: I am not a professor so I (maybe) cannot offer the best method for revamping the 1L (or even subsequent) curriculum. I do know, however, that the current method is not working. Law school is too much of a game, too much of hide the ball, and too much of "you gotta do what I say because I control the gate".

I have raised my concerns and thoughts to many professors and suprisingly they all agree for the most part. I have to wonder, if they all agree with what a lowly law student thinks, why isnt someone doing something about it? I feel that I have been under-prepared by law school and am just biding my time until the bar exam.

Lawyer Retort: I have to disagree with Mr. Billy who is frustrated by the law school hide-the-ball approach. And no, I am not a professor -- I'm a practicing lawyer.

I often here about how law school "hides the ball." This is often portrayed negatively. The people who who feel this way don't get why the American legal education system is so much better than most others.

Here's the simple truth: The practice of law is all about finding a hidden ball. All the time.

There is no such thing as a case on point. There is no such thing as a simple argument. Each time you are thrown into a new case or legal matter you come in with no context, no grounding, and you have to learn to swim over again.

Protests and dialogue

Today at St. Thomas, we are having a great forum on presidential powers featuring a number of great speakers which include not only St. Thomas's Michael Paulsen and Robert Delahunty, but Akhil Amar from Yale Law and John Yoo from Berkeley.

Because Profs. Yoo and Delahunty worked in the Bush administration and wrote some of the controversial memos on presidential power, there are protesters doing their thing outside my window. Their point, as far as I can gather, is that the two professors were wrong and even criminal in their actions within the Bush administration, and should not be allowed to speak.

I agree with their right to protest. I do not agree with their point, though.

One of the reasons we have an academy is to allow divergent views to be heard. If people disagree about important issues, we debate them in classrooms and stages, rather than in the streets. It's an amazing and wonderful process, a way of getting to truth. Within this process, it is most important that we hear from those we disagree with the most, and that the most sensitive issues be raised.

There is something just sad about such protesters who clearly want to silence someone. I went out to talk to some of the protesters last month, actually. One of their frustrations is that they are not allowed on the stage with people like Yoo and Delahunty.

Of course they aren't allowed on that stage! I'm not on that stage, either, because I am not an expert on presidential powers. In fact, for those who oppose Yoo and Delahunty, there WILL be someone on that stage who is a wonderful expert and ideological opposite to Profs. Yoo and Delahunty-- Akhil Amar.

I'm kind of an iconoclast, and I understand the urge to shout. However, the love of ideas leads me favor my urge to listen and discern. Shouting at an exchange like this one comes off not as a protest at one side's ideas, but at the process itself (which, in fact is what will literally be protested and yelled at). I love this process, and I hate to see it debased by those who prefer to hear neither Yoo nor Amar, nor, in time, me and those with whom I disagree.

There are things to rage at. Civil discussion is not one of them.

-- Mark Osler