Nov

1

Hope and Optimism

Posted by: Rebecca K. Blemberg | November 1, 2009 | 1 Comment

Every year, about this time, the stress level here at the law school starts to rise.  First-year students seem particularly susceptible.  I hear the word “outline” a lot in the halls.  Students talk about how much they studied over the weekend instead of how much fun they had.  Everyone gets a little bit more serious.
Serious [...]

Oct

10

Legal Ethics Course Name

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | October 10, 2009 | 4 Comments

The October 2009 edition of the National Jurist magazine includes a statement from Jack Crittenden, the publication’s editor-in-chief, calling for law schools to begin teaching morality.  Citing the embarrassing role played by lawyers in the financial meltdown of 2008, Crittenden writes that “our law schools should be discussing the concepts of fairness and compassion in [...]

Sep

24

Article Compares Research Results Using Westlaw and Lexis

Posted by: Jessica E. Slavin | September 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment

This morning the Law Librarian Blog reports on a study that makes concrete the different research results achieved through the Westlaw and Lexis research systems.  The author of the paper, Susan Nevelow Mart, a reference librarian at UC-Hastings, provides this abstract on SSRN:

Sep

24

Should Wisconsin Stop Subsidizing Law School Tuition?

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | September 24, 2009 | 3 Comments

In a comment on an earlier post, Daniel Suhr suggested that in this time of economic downturn the state of Wisconsin should consider eliminating the tuition subsidy that it provides for students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. As he points out, virtually of all the graduates of the law school begin their careers [...]

Sep

21

A Misleading Chart

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | September 21, 2009 | 3 Comments

   
A September 14 article in the Wisconsin Law Journal (noted elsewhere on this website) included the chart to the left.  Although the story was innocuous enough, reporting that applications to law school in Wisconsin went up last year in spite of the economic downturn, the accompanying chart gives the impression that applications to the University [...]

Sep

11

What Does It Mean To Share a Common Law School Alma Mater?

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | September 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy has led me to ponder what it means to share a common law school alma mater with someone that you don’t otherwise know.  I find that I usually feel an instant sense of kinship to people when I find that they went to the same law school as [...]

Sep

10

Legal Writing Monograph Series

Posted by: Melissa L. Greipp | September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Last year, the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) Board of Directors created a Monograph series.  The Monograph’s first electronic volume is now available on the LWI website.  The focus of this first volume is “The Art of Critiquing Written Work.”  Our own Professor Alison Julien worked on this project.  Professor Jane Kent Gionfriddo stated in a post [...]

Sep

10

You’re a What?

Posted by: Theresa Fallon | September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Did you say you’re an American Bar Association (ABA) Law Student Division (LSD) Liaison?  What exactly is that?  First of all, I have to admit that as of February 1 of this year I had only the vaguest idea what the ABA even was.  I had no idea the ABA had a Law Student [...]

Sep

8

Constitution Day Symposium on Judicial Elections

Posted by: Jessica E. Slavin | September 8, 2009 | 4 Comments

On Saturday, I ran a 5K in Stevens Point, in support of Justiceworks, Ltd., a nonprofit organization “dedicated to the advancement of programs and practices that secure right relationships between offenders, victims, and their communities” in Portage County.  My father lives and works in that community and asked me and my sisters to participate in [...]

Sep

7

Law School and the Hero’s Journey

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | September 7, 2009 | 1 Comment

Most law school professors are conflicted about their own experiences as law students.  We remember law school as an exceedingly unpleasant place, filled with crushing amounts of work and a hostile professoriate.  It is not surprising that law school is often depicted as a de-humanizing experience in the media, whether in books like Scott Turow’s One L [...]

Sep

4

Thinking Like a Lawyer

Posted by: Lisa Mazzie | September 4, 2009 | 3 Comments

At the start of each academic year, I cannot help but to think of Professor Kingsfield, the notorious contracts professor in The Paper Chase. The various classroom scenes where Professor Kingsfield grills student after student on classic contracts cases like Hawkins v. McGee have for years served as a sort of example of the “typical” [...]

Aug

27

The Importance of Student Organizations

Posted by: Andrew Hitt | August 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Student organizations enrich a law student’s experience.  Whether it is bringing in practitioners to discuss the practice of law or bringing in scholars to debate important legal issues, student organizations—and the events they sponsor—help law students think about the law.  To be successful and to produce successful lawyers, a law school should encourage students to [...]

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