Scandals regarding the accurate reporting of employment statistics and student LSAT scores have rocked a number of law schools, and a handful of disgruntled former law students have gone so far as to file suit against their own institutions on the grounds of false advertising. And for the past several months a series of unflattering articles discussing the problems confronting American legal education have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other prominent periodicals.

An article in the December 26, 2011, National Law Journal entitled “The Year the Chickens Came Home to Roost” sums up what was by any account a bad year for legal education.  

Its list of top ten stories of the year for legal education includes:

1. the misreporting of data to the U.S. News and World Report by Villanova and the University of Illinois

2. student lawsuits against the Thomas Jefferson Law School , New York Law School, and Thomas Cooley

3. pending U.S. Senate hearings on the adequacy of the ABA’s oversight of legal education during the past decade

4. a ten-percent decline in the number of LSAT takers and in applications to law school

5. new ABA-dictated rules that require more rigorous and more detailed employment data reporting on the part of law schools

6. the elimination of the four-tier approach to law school rankings by US News

7. deans resigning under pressure at the University of Baltimore, the University of Texas, and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth

8. the New York Times’ series of unflattering articles on legal education

9. the ABA proposal to eliminate from law school accreditation standards the traditional requirements that law schools recognize tenure for their faculties and make use of the LSAT in the admissions process

10. the introduction of “therapy dogs” for the purpose of reducing student stress at Yale, Arizona, Richmond, and other law schools.

Apparently the antitrust lawsuit filed on December 22 by the law school at Lincoln Memorial University after it was denied ABA provisional accreditation came too late to make the list.

[Editor's Note: This month, faculty members are posting on their exam taking tips. This is the fourth post in the series.]

As law students know, tomorrow begins exam week.  We have endeavored to present some exam taking tips from some of the faculty who will be administering those exams.  (Those tips can be found here, here, and here.) I’d like to add one more to the list.  Relax.

It may seem odd to say “relax,” but I think ”relax” is an important exam taking tip that is often overlooked.  For weeks now, students have been outlining, reviewing their outlines and texts, meeting with study groups to go over concepts, and drawing graphs and flow charts on the whiteboards in Eckstein Hall’s study rooms.  All of that work is the process of studying and all of that work will continue in your head long after you have closed your text or left your study group.  (If, in the last couple of weeks, you have dreamt about outlining or about the course material you know your brain is processing all of this material.)

Now, on the eve of exams, allow yourself permission to take the night off.  Plan a dinner with friends (try not to talk about exams), watch a funny movie, get in a good workout.  And above all, get a good night’s sleep.  Your mind is processing and absorbing the material you’ve been feeding it; there isn’t anything new you will learn tonight if you push yourself to study until the wee hours of the morning.  You can spend time tomorrow morning making one or two more runs through your outline before you head to your exam.

Best of luck to all students.

A true discussion on the merits of these articles could easily lead to hours of debate. In fact, given the current job market, employment statistics, and the cost of a legal education, it might be easy to agree with these authors. But I think there are benefits to legal education that can’t be measured in dollars and cents, and for me these articles are discouraging and devalue a hard earned legal education.

Thus, as alumni blogger of the month, and an employed professional, I want to use my first blog post to remind myself and others of the many ways my education at MULS prepared me for work in the professional world. So, below is my personal list for your consideration, feel free to add to it in the comment section.

1. Legal Writing and Research. Much to my dismay, while at MULS I was forced to take two semesters of legal writing, and one advanced legal research course. I wanted to learn legal theory and have exciting debates. I did not want to spend my time studying legal writing and honing my research skills. These courses were the bane of my law school existence. However, after five years in the professional world, I can honestly say I would not have had some of the successes I’ve had without these skills. I write daily. Emails to clients, technical memos, presentations, the list goes on. Clear, concise legal writing is essential to my job, and my ability to write well has been a instrumental part of my career successes thus far.

2. Critical Thinking and Reading. I know this one seems obvious. One could argue that it’s impossible to do well on the LSAT and get into law school unless you already possess these skills. But, spending three years surrounded by people who also excel at these skills forces you to really practice them. By the time you graduate, these skills will be sharp, and these skills are extremely valuable for any client service professional. I read daily. My job requires me to critically read statutes, treaties, and secondary documents and to interpret them and apply them to my clients’ situations. My clients depend on this ability, and it is an essential part of legal education.

3. Legal Theory. Legal theory should not be underrated. Legal theory gives you the basics. A strong foundation of legal theory means that when I’m given a research task, I have a general idea of what I’m looking for, I know where to start looking, and I know the correct terminology to make my research efficient. Legal theory is important and should not be scoffed at as impractical.

4. Opportunity. This last point might seem vague and general, but in an effort at brevity I wanted to find one word that summed up all of the benefits of a legal education. For me, that word is opportunity. The opportunity to learn from, and really get to know, some of the best minds in the legal professtion (thank you professors!). The opportunity to network and meet interesting and accomplished people through various activities and events. The opportunity to form life long friendships.The opportunity to improve myself, and the world around me, through volunteer opportunities. The opportunity to work in a job I love, that challenges me every day. The opportunity to travel the world. My legal education opened up a world of opportunities, many of which would have remained closed without it.

Yes, law school is expensive. Yes, I will still be paying off my law school loans when my daughter goes to college. If I was asked today, I would advise any would-be law students to be sure they passionately desire a legal education before undertaking the expense. But for me, law school was a fantastic three years, full of wonderful memories that I look back upon with pride. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it, and I am proud of what I have accomplished because of it.

Law school essay exams are a completely different kind of essay exam than what students might be used to.  Here, Professor Mitten shares his essentials for taking law school essay exams.

1.         Carefully read question at least twice and sort out what happened.  It may be helpful to draw a chronological diagram of the parties’ conduct.

2.         Determine the question(s) that you are being asked to consider.  For example, it may be broad (e.g., discuss the parties’ respective claims) or very specific (e.g., consider A’s claims against B).  Some professors (like me) will give you credit only for answering the question asked.

3.         Identify each plaintiff’s claims and address each claim separately.  For example, in torts, tell the professor who (plaintiff) is suing whom (defendant) for what (tort)?

4.         Identify the applicable rule of law that governs and list all elements (i.e., what must plaintiff prove to prevail?)

5.         Carefully analyze plaintiff’s legal theory, which requires: i) considering all elements of the applicable rule; ii) using the given facts; and iii) arguing both sides’ respective positions.

6.         Based on your analysis, determine the likely resolution of plaintiff’s claim by an impartial third party such as the judge or jury.

7.         Identify and analyze defendant’s affirmative defenses while following the steps in #3-6.

8.         Know what you want to say before writing.  The best answer is not necessarily the longest one.  Rambling B.S. and verbosity will negatively affect your grade.

9.         Spotting and fully analyzing the issues raised by the facts are far more important than having “the right answer” (since there may not be one).  Organize your thoughts carefully, express them briefly, and then move on.  When writing, keep in mind that your answer needs to be clear, concise, and complete. Your answer should reflect the product of following #3-7.

10.       Exercise proper time management when taking an exam.  You may assume that the recommended time for each essay question corresponds to its relative point value, so allocate your time accordingly.

[Editor's Note: This month, faculty members are posting on their exam taking tips. This is the second post in the series.]

Law students dread the exam process. This feeling is no surprise given the fact that in many courses examination grades become final grades. Unfortunately, agreement on a simple technique that maximizes effective learning does not exist. But there is some agreement on pitfalls that every student should avoid during times of study and review. One pitfall is failing to process and understand course material. It is so easy to simply turn the pages of a textbook or stare at a course outline that appears on a computer screen and then conclude: “I understand this topic. It’s clear as can be and I don’t need to review it again.” Such confidence may, in fact, be a signal that the material has only been memorized and that there is little, if any, understanding of how it is used in specific contexts. The results can be devastating.  Simply memorizing principles and doctrines
makes it difficult, if not impossible, to identify and analyze legal issues presented in examination questions.  Under these circumstances, final grades may be very disappointing. It is important, therefore, that students always include time during the study process to ask: “Do I really understand how the principles and doctrines work or am I simply staring at words and watching time pass?”

[Editor's Note: This month, faculty members will post on their exam taking tips. This is the first post in the series.]

If my first year of law school was any indication, first year law students are looking ahead to final exams during the coming weeks with some trepidation.  Undoubtedly one of the main sources of that trepidation is the fear of the unknown – specifically, what is the final exam going to look like and are students adequately prepared to take that exam?

What I have learned as a law professor is that one of the best ways to reduce that fear is to try to manage it, to the extent possible. In the case of final exams, that means, as an initial matter, studying all the legal principles and concepts learned throughout the semester to understand what their elements are, and how, when and why they apply.

However, a student must not only know the “law,” but also be able to analyze facts in light of that law.  That, perhaps, is the greater source of uncertainty, for there is no telling in advance what the hypothetical fact pattern on the exam will look like.  I believe one of the best ways to reduce that kind of uncertainty is to practice the skill of legal analysis by taking practice exams.  That does not mean passively reading over practice exam questions and answers.  Rather, it means taking a practice exam (or several of them) in a timed environment, possibly with one or two colleagues taking the exam at the same time in the same room.  Only by simulating the exam-taking experience can a student identify areas for improvement, and then  work on improving in those areas.

If a professor has made any of her old exams available, as I have, those are some of the best indicia of what that professor’s exam will look like (assuming she has not changed her testing method or format), and thus are one of the best exam-practicing tools.  If not, then a student can either take exams from other professors who use the same testing method or even try to write her own exam questions (which can actually be a quite effective study technique).  In short, to master the skills involved in taking an exam, much like playing soccer or arguing a moot, a student needs to practice the skills over and over again.

The “location quotient” looks at the place in which the job is performed and not the jurisdiction in which the job holder is domiciled.  Hence, a lawyer who lived in Maryland, but practiced in the District of Columbia would be counted as a D.C. lawyer.

With a current “location quotient” of 0.65, Wisconsin is tied with Alabama for 40^th place among the 51 states and the District of Columbia.  The only states in which lawyers are less “common” are North Dakota (0.40); South Dakota (0.43); Iowa (0.47); Indiana (0.54); Nebraska (0.58); Tennessee (0.59); North Carolina (0.59); Wyoming (0.59); and Mississippi (0.61).

The per capita number of lawyers in Wisconsin is significantly lower than that for its neighboring states of Michigan (0.77) and Minnesota (0.88), and it pales in comparison to Illinois (1.18).

Lawyers are, not surprisingly, most common in the District of Columbia which has a location quotient of 10.05.  Next on the list are New York (1.77); Delaware (1.49); Florida (1.32); Massachusetts (1.21); New Jersey (1.20); and Illinois (1.18).

As I pointed out a number of years ago in an article published in the Wisconsin Law Review entitled “The Wisconsin Lawyer in the Gilded Age,” there is nothing new about this phenomenon.  Wisconsin had fewer lawyers, per capita than most American states in the 19^th century and the pattern has persisted into the 21^st century.  One might be tempted to think that the diploma privilege had something to do with it, but the number of lawyers per capita is lower in Iowa than it is in Wisconsin, even though Iowa did away with the diploma privilege in 1884. (Iowa had followed Wisconsin’s lead and had adopted the diploma privilege for the state university law school in 1873.)

The full set of data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics can be found by clicking here.

Does that sentence make any sense to you? If so, find Butterick’s book: you will love it.

If not, run out and get Butterick’s book: you need it.

After running a website on typography for lawyers, www.typographyforlawyers.com, Matthew Butterick last year published a book on the subject. The book seems designed to do for typography what Bryan Garner’s work has done on matters of style and usage—to convince more lawyers that this “small stuff” matters in their writing, in their approach to the practice.

Indeed, Butterick’s belief that “typography” should become part of the vocabulary and professional awareness of lawyers forms the “core principles” of his book:

1. Good typography is part of good lawyering.
2. Typography in legal documents should be held to the same standards as any professionally published material. Why? Because legal documents are professionally published material. (Corollary: much of what lawyers consider “proper” legal typography is an accumulation of bad habits and urban legends. These myths will be set aside in favor of professional typographic habits.)
3. Any lawyer can master the essentials of good typography.

To some extent, typography already is and always has been of concern to lawyers. Lawyers have always had to consider not only the words they write but the other communicative features of their documents. Legal writing professors have written articles on the subject, see, e.g., Ruth Anne Robbins, Painting with Print: Incorporating concepts of typographic and layout design into legal writing documents, 2 JALWD 108 (2004), http://works.bepress.com/ruth_anne_robbins/2/, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ Practitioner’s Handbook, http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/rules/handbook.pdf, which devotes an entire section to “Requirements and Suggestions for Typography in Briefs and Other Papers.”  And many lawyers have spent at least some time debating which font looks best for a printed brief, whether (when permitted to choose) one should select single- or double-spacing, and whether to leave one or two spaces at the end of every sentence.

Still, some not-insignificant proportion of lawyers has little patience for this kind of information, perhaps because the substance and style of most legal writing is so important, and already so challenging, in itself, to master.

To be honest, I myself did not warm to Butterick’s book right away. And although it has grown on me, I still cannot say I enjoy poring over, for instance, the “font samples” pages that make up one chapter of the book, offering the same text printed out in various similar-but-subtly-different fonts. Some of the fussier, more historical, and technical information in the book may be mostly of interest to specialists in typography.

But the same could be said about usage handbooks, like Bryan Garners’ books Modern American Usage and The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style, and yet I still think that every lawyer should have a usage handbook on hand. In the same way, I think Typography for Lawyers does earn a place in law office libraries. The 28 “key rules” Butterick proposes are, in the end, fairly simple, and, if they were widely adopted, would certainly improve the readability of legal documents. While reading Butterick’s book, I thought of my experience reading hundreds of briefs during my year as a clerk at the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The briefs submitted by the state attorney general, unlike most other briefs, were formatted with single-spacing, double-sided pages, with wide margins. In addition to being so much lighter to carry around, the formatting of the pages (shorter line-lengths, more white space) made for more pleasant reading. In a long, hard day of reading, those typography choices did lighten the burden in a noticeable way.

So, I encourage you to review Butterick’s typography book, or at least his website. If you don’t know the difference between a serif and sans-serif font; if you don’t know the difference between mono-spaced and proportional fonts; if you don’t know why italicizing is probably better than underlining; and if you are still leaving two spaces after your sentences, inject some fresh energy into your practice (well, at least into your documents) by reading his advice and trying some of his suggestions in your own work. Take a quick look at his re-design of a caption page (http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?page_id=1437), a resume (http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/?page_id=1655), or another legal document, and I think you will have to admit that this stuff does make a difference. Even if you wish it didn’t.

Though I am a convert on Butterick’s “rules” and his idea that lawyers should care (and know) about typography, I am not a whole-hearted fan of the book Typography for Lawyers. I think the reason Garner’s advice on style and usage in writing has become so authoritative is in large part because of his soft-sell approach on those matters. Garner persuades the reader that his judgment is worthy to be followed, rather than just assuming the position of The Authority on usage. As David Foster Wallace wrote, “A distinctive feature of ADMAU is that its author is willing to acknowledge that a usage dictionary is not a bible or even a textbook but rather just the record of one smart person’s attempts to work out answers to certain very difficult questions.”(http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html)

Butterick’s approach is more like a traditional grammarian approach, presenting himself as The Authority for the Rules because “the rules here reflect the customs of professional typographers and the majority views of authorities on typography, filtered through my experience as a professional typographer and as a lawyer.” An example would be his response to one of the objections he has heard to the “one-space rule” for spacing after sentences. The two-space rule proponent says, “I think two spaces look better so that’s what I’m going to use.” Typography at 43. Butterick’s response? “I’m telling you the rule. If you want to put personal taste ahead of the rule, I can’t stop you. But personal taste does not neutralize the rule. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t like how the subjective tense sounds, so I’m never going to use it.’” (p. 43)

I find that exchange unhelpful. For one thing, refusing to change from one to two spaces, when most lawyers currently use two, is not really like refusing to use the subjective tense, which is part of the grammar of the English language. Instead, it’s more like the debate about whether to use the Oxford comma (see http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/06/30/137525211/going-going-and-gone-no-the-oxford-comma-is-safe-for-now). That’s a question of usage, and one about which reasonable minds differ.

More importantly, even if the consensus on the one-space/two-space debate is clearer than the Oxford comma consensus, his failure to provide the reasons that the professional consensus has developed leaves the reader feeling scolded, more than persuaded. Especially when he says,

Similar objections [to the one-space/two-space objections] could be made against any rule in this book. This is the only time I will indulge them at length. These objections only serve to impede learning and preserve bad habits. If you’re afflicted by the urge to protest, suppress it. That way, you can approach the rest of these rules with an open mind. (p.44)

What I do not like is the underlying vision of the lawyer as uncurious and unqualified to enter the debate about professional typography that Butterick seems to have in mind. It’s such a contrast to the bright, persuadable lawyer audience that Garner seems to presume in his books.

Still, in any event, I did use one space after all the sentences in this post.

The first key to preparing for exams is to not become overwhelmed. When reading your class syllabi for the first time, it is natural to be intimidated by the substantial volume of work that lies ahead. At first glance even the hardest working student would be thinking, “he will never be able to keep up.” Avoiding that trap is vital to succeeding in law school. In my experience, the best way to approach your studies is the same way a Marine climbs a mountain. When a Marine looks at a mountain, he does not see an impassable, towering crag of rock and ice. He sees a ridge. Specifically he sees the nearest ridge he can reach and he begins by climbing towards that ridge. By scaling the mountain one ridge at a time a Marine does not get dismayed, and more importantly he stays focused. In law school it is important to break your workload up into manageable ridges and climb them one at a time.

My second piece of advice is to reward yourself. When you successfully climb those ridges, treat yourself to a little prize and a victory dance (If your are in Eckstein Hall, though, keep it discreet. Maybe just stand up and put on the championship belt). After every hour of studying reward yourself with a 10-minute break. Take a walk, socialize, maybe check ESPN.com for the latest scores (let’s go Pack). Allow yourself to clear your head, and not only will you be a more effective studier when you sit back down, you will not dread your work as much because you know you have another break coming.

My third piece of advice is to maintain a healthy balance between school and the rest of your life. It is tempting to think you can get a leg up on your classmates by not “wasting your time” on frivolous pursuits outside of law school, but that is a guaranteed path to burnout. Study hard, but schedule time during each day to do something that you enjoy. For example, I make a point to work out for an hour every day. This gives me time to get away from work and clear my head. When I return to the books, I am refreshed and ready to go. Whatever it is that recharges you (going for a run, hitting underclassmen, watching episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, etc.), make a point to include it in your daily schedule.

My fourth recommendation is to be wary of the Nirvana Fallacy or in other words do not waste time. The Nirvana Fallacy is an error in logic whereby a person rejects a realistic choice because it is not a perfect choice. For example, someone falling victim to the Nirvana Fallacy might decide against studying for a half hour in the noisy cafeteria because he or she does their best studying in complete silence. These people unnecessarily deprive themselves of a good studying opportunity because it is not perfect. I want to make special note of this because perfectionists are particularly susceptible to the Nirvana Fallacy, and, well, this is law school so I know there are more than a few of us out there. To paraphrase Voltaire, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I would like to leave you with one final thought. Law school exams are more than just a test of knowledge; they are a mechanism for shaping a mindset in students. Similar to diamonds, lawyers need to be tough. They need to be able to perform under pressure and withstand the heated moments that define what it is to be an attorney. A diamond starts out as ordinary carbon molecule, but through extreme heat, pressure, and time that carbon is formed into a multifaceted, virtually indestructible diamond. Likewise, we start out as ordinary men and women, but through the extreme heat and pressure of law school we will become great attorneys. Exams force us to learn how to prepare, they teach us how to think on our feet, and they leave us mentally tougher. Sure, law school exams are scary, but in overcoming them we will emerge as strong as diamonds.

Professor Sparrow began by noting that the term assessment has multiple meanings. Among other definitions, assessment can be a deep approach to learning and the process of feedback, or it can be the instrument or evidence of teaching.

Regardless of how assessment is defined (and Professor Sparrow recommends not getting too bogged down in the specific vocabulary), the key to assessment is to make it sustainable and to embed assessment in what is already happening in the class.

The assessment cycle consists of the following steps: 1) articulate the student learning goals and objectives, 2) gather information about how well students are learning (outcomes), 3) give feedback and interpret information through means like rubrics, and 4) use information to improve student learning.

Professor Sparrow showed a diagram of an inverted triangle reflecting how students retain material they learned 24 hours earlier. The highest rate of retention occurs when a student speaks and does something with the material (90%), followed by speaking (70%), hearing and seeing (50%), seeing (30%), hearing (20%), and reading (10%).

At the end of her presentation, Professor Sparrow offered some useful techniques for in-class assessment. The first is the minute paper, where a student writes for a minute on a concept a professor wants to assess. By collecting these minute papers, a professor can quickly discern whether students are grasping a concept. Another technique is to ask students to do an assignment outside of class, and then to have students swap assignments in class to evaluate their assignments. This technique works best when a professor provides a scoring sheet or other rubric to follow, and it can be helpful to offer sample answers. Finally, intermittent short answer or multiple choice quizzes provide fast feedback to both professors and students.

Perhaps here is where the stress starts to kick in.

Not all stress is bad; stress often gives us the kick in the pants we need to get things done, and we can return to “normal.” But for law students, the stress can seem to be ongoing, weighing them down for weeks or maybe months.  Is there any way for law students to avoid this stress?

Yes and no.  While law students, like anyone else, cannot avoid stress altogether, they can learn to avoid letting it become the focus of their lives.

There are several sources of stress in law school, some of which are obvious and unavoidable – like a heavy workload and high debt – but others, says Professor Lawrence S. Krieger in his booklet Hidden Sources of Law School Stress:  Avoiding the Mistakes that Create Unhappy and Unprofessional Lawyers, “are so deeply embedded in the typical law school culture that you aren’t likely to be aware of them.”

Professor Krieger lists seven law school stressors:

Law school’s heavy workload.  This is an obvious and unavoidable stressor.  Legal education demands a lot of from students, but students need to make sure they keep their priorities straight.    Rest, eating well, and social time with family and friends need to be near the top of the list.  No matter how much you have to read or brief or write, if you’re tired and fueled only by caffeine or junk food, you’re not going to get it all done, or at least not done well.

False values.  As I’ve said before, the culture of law school sometimes has the tendency to set a student’s priorities, even if that’s not what the student really wanted when she decided to go to law school.  A student who came to law school to serve others in a public interest capacity suddenly decides to work in private practice at the area’s biggest law firm.  Is her choice really her own? Professor Krieger elaborates on false values by pointing out the most common fallacy among law students:  “[T]hat the road to happiness runs through the top of the class.”  That is, those who end up at the top of their class end up on law review, get their pick of plum private practice jobs at large law firms, draw six figure salaries immediately out of law school. But does this mean they are happier?

Undeniably, it is true that the better one’s grades, the more options that student has; however, those options may not automatically equal happiness and success for those students.

Professor Krieger points out that nearly two decades of research has shown that chasing after extrinsic results and rewards (high salaries, affluence, fame, and power) often leads to an unfulfilling life.

On the other hand, chasing and meeting intrinsic goals (achieving personal growth, helping others or having satisfying personal relationships) tends to make people happier.

To combat this stressor, Professor Krieger recommends shifting goals and focus.  If you decide that your goals are simply to do your best and to better your community in some small way, these are goals that are within your control and that you’re likely to achieve.

In contrast, if you need to be at the top of the class, out-perform other very intelligent students, get a certain job, etc., you will be stressed because these outwardly-focused goals are not readily within your personal control.  Such outcomes are unpredictable, and will depend on what other people do and think as least as much as on your own actions.

Remember, too, that what you do with your life is your decision.  Try to separate out  what you believe your family or friends expect of you from what you expect of you.

“Thinking Like a Lawyer.”  If there’s one thing we all agree that law school teaches students, it’s to “think like a lawyer.”  What that actually means, though, may surprise you.  The process of learning to “think like a lawyer” often means students come unmoored from their long-held values.  They may find that “It depends” is the best and truest answer they can give, whereas before law school they would have answered unequivocally, “That is not acceptable.”  “Thinking like a lawyer” is very definitely a professional skill, but it need not become a personal skill.  For more on “thinking like a lawyer,” and ways to minimize this stressor, see here.

Fear of Failure (and the Illusion of Control).  No one likes to fail, least of all students who have for at least sixteen years experienced nothing but the highest level of success in school.  Students closer to graduation may think less of failing in law school and more of failing in practice.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Everyone.  The best we can do is to learn from those mistakes.  As quoted on a sign in a colleague’s office:  “Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.”

Related to failing is the illusion of control.  Most of us think we can control more than we really can (and thus avoid “bad” outcomes).  What we must learn, however, is that we cannot control what other students do; we cannot control the law; we cannot control the facts as they come to us; and we cannot control what the other parties do.  We will be less stressed if we realize sooner rather than later that our ability to control the outcome is limited.

Partying and other Distractions.  Everyone needs to unwind.  However, Professor Krieger cautions against “leav[ing] your common sense behind.”  Excessive drinking, partying, video gaming, overeating, overspending, or oversleeping (to name a few) will only add to your stress, not relieve it.  As Professor Krieger notes, such behaviors often mask other more significant concerns (like depression or, perhaps, alcoholism).  If you are using your “need to unwind from law school” as the justification for any of these behaviors, you may want to seek professional help.

Law School Debt. This is the other obvious and unavoidable stressor, but as Professor Krieger emphasizes, “be clear that debt should not drive your career choice.”  Take out only as much money as you will need to pay for school and avoid using borrowed money to pay for extravagances.  When you do have to pay back your debt, you may be able to use a graduated repayment plan, where your initial payments are lower, increasing over time.  Or you may qualify for a loan repayment assistance program, offered by many schools whose graduates go into public service jobs.  For an example, see here.

Lying.  Professor Krieger’s last stressor may be somewhat surprising.  Unfortunately, the sad truth is that there are lawyers who do lie. (How do you think all those lawyer jokes got started?)  Maybe they (or you) call it “shading” or “stretching” the facts of your billable time or of your case or even of your life, there’s a point where you know it’s neither.  As a former student of mine said, she needs to pass “The Mom Test.”  That is, she decided that she had to be able to ‘fess up to her mother anything she’s done at work.

Professor Krieger notes that lying will literally make you sick, both physically and emotionally, and can be a cause of significant stress.  Maybe “The Mom Test” works for you; maybe it doesn’t.  But find something that does work so you can avoid this stressor.

I would add one more stressor to this list:  Finding a Job.  This is probably the third obvious and, these days, unavoidable stressor.  Since 2008, particularly, it has become more and more difficult for even the highest ranking students to find a job.  I cannot promise you that upon graduation you will find the legal job of your dreams.  But you will find a job.  Very few people ever land in “the” job right off the bat anyway, so work hard and do your best at whatever it is you must do and plan how to get where you want to go.

I cannot say that as a law student I was immune from stress or even from depression.  At one point or another, I felt the weight of most of the stressors I list above, sometimes several of them simultaneously.  Even as a law professor, some of these same stressors re-emerge.  Simply being aware of them goes a long way in avoiding – or minimizing – them.  Sometimes I remember the simple saying:  This, too, shall pass.  And, eventually, it does.

For more on being a “healthy, happy lawyer,” see Judge Patrick J. Schlitz’s article.     

Cross posted at Ms. JD.

[Editor's Note: This month, we asked a few veteran faculty members to share their reflections on what has changed the most in legal education since they became law professors.  This is the sixth and final entry in the series.]

Legal education is no longer lean. When I was hired as Marquette Law School’s third administrator in 1975, the Law School had about a dozen full-time faculty members and three professional law librarians. These days, the Law School has a dozen administrators, forty or so full-time faculty, and more than a dozen professional librarians. The Law School facility is more than three times larger than when I started at the Law School. That enrollment is up some, from about 450 full-time students to about 600 full-time students and another 150 part-time students, accounts for only a fraction of the growth.

The principal change I’ve seen in my 35+ years at the Law School (I was an adolescent when first employed by Marquette) is this amazing growth in the resources and cost of legal education. Students are paying unprecedented amounts for a law school education and receiving access to unprecedented resources in return.

Some of the most important new resources and costs are those mentioned by my colleagues in this blog series.  

Gordon Hylton points to the number of Ph.D.’s on law faculties, including at Marquette, and the curricular growth it allows. Matt Mitten and Patricia Bradford cite the development of technologies that are in everyday use by law teachers and students. Julian Kossow mentions the proliferation of extra-curricular activities, including speakers series with free lunches. All of this enriches the educational opportunities available to law students, and costs money.

There is reason to believe that the growth of resources and costs has reached a plateau. The growth has been largely market driven. Students and legal employers have gravitated toward resource-rich programs and been willing to pay ever-increasing amounts to attend those programs or hire their graduates. But the current law school admissions and employment markets are soft, with applications nationally showing a notable decline and many law graduates finding it difficult to land jobs as lawyers. It seems that the response of many law schools to these soft markets is to interrupt the upward spiral of resources and costs. Market-driven growth may be followed by market-driven stasis or even contraction. Whether a return to a more robust economy will restart the upward spiral will be interesting to see. It is at least possible, though, that the resources/cost equation for law schools has reached a point of equilibrium that will persist for some time.

As I finish my twenty-second year as a law professor, I marvel at how technological advances and the proliferation of specialty courses have changed (and, in most instances, improved) legal education since I began my academic career in 1990.  Yet I am mindful that the essential components of a high-quality legal education remain unchanged (e.g., an interactive and engaging academic environment that stimulates critical thinking, reasoned legal analysis, creative problem solving, an understanding of legal doctrine and policy, and the development of effective verbal and written communication skills).

There were no laptops in the classroom when I begin teaching twenty-two years ago, and handwritten exam answers were the norm. Now it’s rare to see any student without his or her PC during class.  

Most students in my classes choose to use Securexam to type their answers to essay questions — to my delight because it’s usually much easier to read (and decipher) typed words rather than handwritten ones!  It’s also much easier and more efficient for today’s students to use a computer to take, organize, and centralize their case briefs and class notes rather than compiling and trying to make sense of handwritten notes scattered throughout multiple pages of paper (which was my experience as law student).  The development of course outlines, which I strongly believe is an essential and largely individualized part of the law school learning process, is greatly facilitated by a computer’s word processing capabilities. However, new technology enhances the quality of legal education only if is it used appropriately. For example, a laptop provides a readily available source of distraction that may inhibit a student’s learning (as well as that of neighboring classmates) by shifting his or her focus away from the topic of class discussion to unrelated internet sites or email correspondence.  Although I was occasionally bored as a law student, there was no alternative (other than daydreaming) to paying close attention to the classroom discussion in my courses.

The “smart classrooms” in Eckstein Hall provide a means of using PowerPoint, videos,  graphics, and other forms of technology to enhance classroom learning.  These technological advances certainly offer significant benefits and the potential for a more interesting, multi-media educational environment.  However, I use PowerPoint sparingly in the classroom because of my concern that its regular usage will create a passive learning environment. Studies show that an interactive and engaging classroom environment best promotes students’ learning and understanding.  Although I frequently use PowerPoint while making presentations at legal and medical conferences because it provides an effective means of transmitting a substantial amount of information to a large group in a short period of time, I haven’t found an effective way to regularly use it in the classroom without limiting the dynamics and spontaneity of classroom discussion, or inhibiting interactive learning through Socratic dialogue.  As long as my handwriting is legible (which requires some effort on my part because good penmanship is a difficult art to master), the classroom’s white boards provide an effective means of defining and synthesizing legal concepts as well as developing a legal framework for analyzing and solving problems — which usually is the product of a collective effort involving students rather than my solo performance.

Specialized legal databases such as Westlaw and Lexis (which were in their infancy when I attended law school in the early 1980s), on-line general and specialized legal updates (e.g., U.S. Law Week, BNA, etc.), and the Internet have exponentially increased the amount of readily available sources of law and legal commentary as well as the speed in which it can be accessed.  Given our dynamic twenty-first-century legal regime consisting of local, state, national, transnational, and international sources of law established by courts, legislative bodies, administrative agencies, and private arbitration systems, the electronic compilation and accessing of legal materials is an enormously beneficial change.  As the co-author of a widely used sports law textbook, I very much appreciate having rapid computer access to new cases, statutes, secondary authorities, and legal documents, which can be easily and quickly incorporated into teaching materials, particularly electronic supplements.  On the other hand, undue reliance on computerized legal research may provide a false sense of security that one has found the “right answer” to a legal problem, or at least all of the relevant law.  Of course, on-line research doesn’t always unearth everything that may be relevant or applicable; it’s optimally a part of (not a substitute for) the traditional legal research method of checking multiple sources for legal authority, including treatises.  In addition, the sheer volume of legal materials now available on-line (which continues to significantly increase over time) and easy access thereto threatens to cause us to lose sight of the forest for the trees.  Now, it is more important than ever to sift through and focus on what’s really important (e.g., the current state of the law in a particular area, developing legal trends, and changed laws reflecting changing conditions and policy shifts) rather than trying to consume everything simply because it exists and is accessible.

Technology has had a significant positive impact on the production of legal scholarship, which is an integral part of legal education.  As a beginning law professor in 1990, I used two legal pads (one for the text, and another for the footnotes) to draft my first law review article by hand (the same process used to author my student law review note in 1982). Needless to say, it was a very burdensome task to reorganize the text of these articles  and their accompanying footnotes (which gave my administrative assistant nightmares!). Word processing and remote on-line access to legal databases now make the process of producing legal scholarship relatively easy compared to the way it used to be.

Advances in computer technology have given rise to blogging, a popular and efficient means of engaging in legal discourse and exchanging ideas among a diverse group of geographically dispersed people, including law students, which has become a form of on-line learning outside of the law school classroom. However, it is important to always be mindful of the source of the information (anyone can say anything they want regardless of their knowledge base!) and that too many blog posts are the product of a quick knee-jerk, personal reaction rather than careful, reasoned consideration.  In other words, it is essential to separate the wheat from the chaff and to always remember that thoughtful consideration of others’ views, incisive legal analysis, thoroughness, and creative problem solving — the characteristics of a high quality legal education as well as good lawyering — require considerable time regardless of the method of technology used to express one’s views.

The first four posts in the series are here (Kossow), here (Bradford), here (Edwards), and here (Idleman).

Since 1995, when I first joined Marquette’s law faculty, one of the most obvious changes I have witnessed has been an increase in the interdisciplinary nature of legal scholarship and, not uncoincidentally I believe, the number of interdisciplinary (“law and”) courses that law schools, including Marquette, offer their students.  Certainly these trends were on the rise before 1995, but their present pervasiveness across law school faculties and curricula seems to me to mark a cumulatively significant change.

This development likely has multiple causes.  The influx into law faculties of those holding doctoral degrees in other fields, noted recently by Professor Hylton, is certainly one, although the ready susceptibility of law or legal topics to analysis by these other disciplines suggests that other factors are at work.  One haunting explanation, of course, is that law is perhaps not a genuinely autonomous discipline after all, but rather little more than the procedure-laden application of independent fields of knowledge to the prevention and resolution of conflict.

Whatever its causes, this development likely has also generated multiple consequences, some of which might be seen as benefits, others as costs. 

On the one hand, lawyers sensitive to interdisciplinary perspectives are more apt to view their role and the legal system with greater sophistication.  At the very least, they may possess a greater arsenal of skills and resources for use in their professional work. 

On the other hand, lawyers with greater interdisciplinary exposure may be more easily disillusioned by the ways in which the methodologies of extralegal disciplines are sometimes manipulated or mishandled by lawyers and judges.  They may even lose some degree of confidence in the alleged coherence of legal doctrine or the promised integrity of the legal system and its processes. 

It is quite possible that for most lawyers and future lawyers, the increased interdisciplinary nature of legal scholarship and education either has gone unnoticed or is deemed of no special significance.  For those of us who teach law as a career, however, it is difficult to avoid seeing that such a change has in fact occurred and perhaps even more difficult to avoid asking why — and with such rapidity and ease — this change has taken place.

The first three posts in the series are here (Kossow), here (Bradford), and here (Edwards).

In the early 1970’s, the American Bar Association and the American Association of Law Schools were prodding law schools to diversify their faculties and their student bodies. Indeed, many schools did not provide equal opportunities to diverse groups in either admissions or in employment. The consequences of such discrimination were harmful to legal education and to the profession. The demands of the ABA and AALS created a sense of urgency and law schools quickly responded. Initially, the response focused on the need to provide access to women and to racial minorities. This focus was not surprising given the strength of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s and the momentum of the women’s movement in the early 1970’s.

Prior to 1970, Marquette University Law School adhered to the traditional pattern of the academic community. Diversity, in any meaningful sense, simply did not exist in the student body or on the faculty. But the administration and the faculty were not indifferent to the urgent need for change. I was offered a teaching position at the Law School in the fall of 1974 and was the first woman appointed to a full-time tenure-track faculty position.  

By 1980, Janine Geske and Christine Wiseman had also joined the faculty, followed within a few years by Patricia Bradford and Phoebe Williams. Significant efforts were also made to increase the number of women and minority students. A new and very different picture of the Law School population began to emerge. In the early 1980’s, the administration and faculty recognized that diversity should not be limited to gender and minority groups. Indeed, the concept of diversity incorporates many different groups in society. The faculty concluded that the School’s obligation required the adoption and implementation of a broad and comprehensive vision that included groups that were only marginally represented, if at all, a few years earlier.

By 1985, the Law School had created the foundation for significant changes in admissions and employment that continue to enrich the educational experience and to provide hope that justice will prevail in the broader community. Voices that were once silent are now heard, prompting the development of new course offerings, expanding the areas of faculty research, and providing new directions in public policy. I am thankful for the Law School’s commitment to diversity. I can testify that the commitment is stronger today than it was three decades ago and that, without any question, we are all beneficiaries of this meaningful progress in legal education.

So what happened to most of the Native-American law school graduates in the 1990’s? Did they fail the bar examination? Did they decide not to practice law? Did they leave the country? Or, were they not really Native Americans after all?

The answer appears to be the latter. A large number of law students in the 1990’s, who were not actually Native American, reported themselves as Indians or Eskimos on their law school applications and in the materials they filed with the Law School Admission Council (LSAC).

Was this simply a case of students willing to lie about their identity in hopes of receiving special treatment by law school admissions committees, or is there another explanation?

Part of the problem is that many Americans think of Native American as an ethnic category, rather than a citizenship status. Furthermore, it is apparently understood to be an ethnic classification that still follows the “one drop rule,” so that any person with a Native-American ancestor is a Native American. While certain types of racial ancestry carried with them negative stigmas and were usually denied, if possible, most white Americans seem happy to boast about their Indian ancestry, especially if the ancestor was a grandparent, or some more distant ancestor.

As a legal matter, these assumptions are completely without foundation. In Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535 (1974), the United States Supreme Court confirmed that Native-American status was not a purely racial matter, but was derived from membership in a tribe recognized by the federal government. Moreover, at least since the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 984 (now 25 U.S.C. §§ 461-79 (1983)), authority to determine tribal membership was vested exclusively in the federally-recognized tribes themselves.

In other words, the only people who are Native American are those whose status is recognized by their tribe. All members of recognized tribes have Tribal Identification Numbers (which are similar to Social Security Numbers and are sometimes referred to as registration numbers).

Native American status is, therefore, a concrete matter of tribal citizenship and not an amorphous racial classification. Consequently, a law student without a Tribal Identification Number is technically not a Native American, no matter what her or his ancestry may be.

The law school totals reported by the American Bar Association are based on self-reported ethnicity claims filed at the time of application to law school. The Census totals, in contrast, are based on a more rigorous definition of Native American.

Whether or not this same pattern was duplicated in the first decade of the 21st century is not yet clear, as the United States Census Bureau has not yet released its figures for the number of Native-American lawyers in 2010 (or, for that matter, for any racial, ethnic, or citizenship group). However, signs point to the continuation of the same phenomenon.

According to American Bar Association statistics, obtained from the Law School Admission Council and the law schools, there were 3332 Native-American third-year law students enrolled in ABA-accredited law schools between the 2000-01 and 2009-10 academic years. While a few of these students may have failed to graduate or failed to pass the bar examination, their numbers suggest that the number of Native-American lawyers in the United States should have at least doubled during the past decade, and there is little reason at this time to believe that actually happened.

Native-American lawyer groups have been aware of this discrepancy for some time, and they have expressed anger at what they believe has been the unwarranted assertion of Native-American status by law school applicants who have no basis for such a claim, and at what they see as an unjustified willingness of law schools to accept such claims at face value. Even today, only a handful of law schools—Harvard is one—ask students that claim Native-American status to name the tribe with which they claim affiliation.

(For reporting purposes the American Bar Association counts “Native Americans” as part of the category of “minority law students,” and for the past three or four decades all law schools have been under pressure to admit more minority students. To achieve a more diverse student body, most law schools will accept minority students with lower college grades or LSAT scores than normally expected of admitted students. Consequently, applicants who can claim to be a minority student have a strategic advantage when it comes to law school admissions.)

Concern that numbers inflated by the presence of pseudo-Native Americans were masking the fact that very few real Native Americans were attending law school in the United States, the leading Indian bar association finally decided to take action. On April 8, 2008, the National Native American Bar Association (NNABA) adopted a resolution denouncing the fraudulent self-identification of law school applicants as Native Americans.

The NNABA also expressed the belief that many of those who claimed to be Native Americans not only lacked a formal tribal affiliation but lacked any Native-American heritage whatsoever. As a solution, it called upon the LSAC to require law school applicants claiming Native-American status to list their tribal affiliation and Tribal Identification Number when they register with the LSAC as part of the application process.

After publicizing its claims in a number of different venues, in late 2010 and early 2011, the NNABA appealed directly to the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates and Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar (of which the writer is a member) to endorse its proposals.

The efforts were successful, and on Monday, August 8, 2011, the ABA’s House of Delegates approved a resolution urging the Law School Admissions Council and ABA-approved law schools to require additional information from people who indicate on their registration for the Law School Admission Test and law school applications that they are Native American; specifically, they are to supply information about their tribal citizenship, tribal affiliation or their enrollment number. Applicants who don’t belong to a tribe recognized by the government but who wish to claim Native American status would have to provide a detailed “heritage statement.”

The ABA resolution has no binding effect, so it is still an open question as to how the LSAC and the law schools will respond to what NNABA president-elect Mary Smith refers to as “an issue of ethics and professional responsibility.”

In 1983 when I became a law professor, no one had a personal computer.  Dictaphones were a common piece of office equipment.  Secretaries typed our syllabi, handouts, and examinations. Examinations had to be reproduced on the mimeograph machine and collated by hand. Of course, students handwrote exam answers in bluebooks.  The law school didn’t allow students to type their answers, even if they offered to provide their own portable typewriters.

Around 1985 faculty members received personal desktop computers for the first time, thanks to Dean Frank DeGuire’s advocacy and generous donations from the members of the Woolsack Society. Those computers changed our lives and made instruction so much more efficient, especially once we learned how to press “Escape,” “Transfer,” and “Save” to save a document to a 5 ½” floppy disk. (Lost documents were a constant problem for neophyte computer users.)  

Of course, we still didn’t have access to the Internet yet, so we couldn’t instantaneously upload a handout to our course page, or email it to our students.  Instead, we had to distribute handouts in class. Students had to avoid misplacing them and hope that if they lost their copy an extra would be available on a shelf in the professor’s office complex.

Email also didn’t exist when I starting teaching law. And, it was many years before we could actually communicate with students electronically.  “Back then,” students had to make appointments to ask their professors questions. They still do – or, they visit us during office hours. But now, students can ask questions any time, any day and we can respond within minutes.  Recently, I was talking with a student in my office and explaining how much I like being able to answer students’ questions by email, especially because of the detailed responses I can provide. The student said, “You probably don’t remember this, but a year and a half ago, I sent you an email late on Easter Sunday.” “And,” she continued, “you responded 20 minutes later.”  I can’t say that I can always answer a student’s question that fast, but there is no doubt that my “student contact hours” have increased now that I can meet with them personally or virtually. Sometimes I’m tempted to “tweet” my random thoughts about my courses, but that would probably be overkill. Would anyone “follow me”? Besides, lecturing has never been my preferred teaching style – I really prefer “questions and answers.” Usually, I’m asking the questions, but there’s nothing like a great student question to prevent complacency!

As my colleague Gordon Hylton recently noted, such qualifications are considered indicators of the person’s potential to teach law.  The irony here is that few law professors have any background in education or pedagogy and even fewer have any experience teaching. And while law schools often support a new professor as she develops her classroom skills (through formal or informal mentoring or paying for the professor to attend conferences), law schools don’t offer any formal training in teaching law.  Generally, a law professor’s only real teaching qualification is that she once was a law student.

While teaching law is clearly an important part of being a law professor, the coin of the realm is scholarship.  Law professors, like other academics, must produce scholarship, and preferably scholarship more substantive than that about teaching or pedagogy.  It’s said that producing scholarship can make one a better teacher, and surely the more a person knows about an area of law, the better she understands it and the more likely she is to be able to convey that knowledge to her students.  But to the extent that a professor must take time to research and then to write scholarship, she loses time to devote to learning more about teaching.

Striking a balance between scholarship and teaching for any individual law professor parallels a larger attempt to strike a balance between law school envisioned as an academic “think tank” and law school envisioned as a place that trains lawyers.  In 2007, the Carnegie Foundation released its report on law schools, called Educating Lawyers:  Preparation for the Practice of Law.  The authors of that report concluded that law school does a good job imparting legal doctrine, but they chided law schools for failing to adequately prepare students for the actual practice of law. Brief overviews of that report can be found here and here.  To that end, it may be that law schools will begin to place more emphasis on teaching and on clinical and skills program, a development that would benefit women in the legal academy.

The number of women on law faculties has improved in recent years, but does not reach half, particularly at the associate professor and full professor level. A large number of women are found on the often lower-paying, lower prestige clinical and legal writing faculty, many of whom are not eligible for tenure.
According to recent statistics from the Association of American Law Schools, nearly two-thirds of lecturers and instructors, which are non-tenure track positions, are women.

As the number of women in law school decreases, I fear the number of women with the credentials for law teaching will also decrease.  However, it remains vitally important that women maintain a presence in the legal academy, for it is there that women students first see the possibilities of what it means to be a woman lawyer.

Cross-posted at Ms. JD.

“When a butterfly struggles to free itself from its cocoon, it causes fluid to be pumped back into its wings. This independent act of vigilance, determination, and extreme effort is what allows the butterfly to take flight. This fact has inspired me as I enter the next phase of my life, and has shaped my perception of law school’s purpose. I enter the ‘cocoon’ of law school well-prepared and with the knowledge that with conviction and a lot of hard work, after three years I too will take flight.”

The above paragraph, while admittedly a bit hokey, was the opening to my personal statement.  It reminds me of a fact that Father O’Meara shares with the entering 1L class each year: it is common knowledge in biology “that growth occurs along places where there is tension, stimulation, or irritation.”  His point is that tension is necessary for both development and learning. These statements illustrate the personal growth I, and I’m assuming most other students, experience during law school.  Law school is structured in such a way that it pushes students to their physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual boundaries.  It forces you as both a future professional and a human being to look inward and outward for answers or solutions to life’s most difficult questions . . . oftentimes leaving you bewildered, confused, and experiencing extreme bouts of self-doubt.  There will be tears.  There will likely be anger.  It will try your personal relationships and drastically alter your perspective in many ways.  You will feel yourself changing and sometimes not understand it, or perhaps not like it.  I encourage you to push through it.  Take moments of self-reflection.  Don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself.  In the end you will achieve a peace and contentment that comes with self-awareness—even if it’s a sense of being aware about how little you know and how much you still have to learn.  Struggle, for it is the only way you can flex your wings.

“I believe in the ‘butterfly effect,’ the idea that there exists the propensity of a system to be sensitive to initial conditions. As a lawyer, I will be the causal factor of the initial conditions which, over time, will help change our legal system, the local community in which it resides, and the society of which that community is a part.”

These lines concluded my personal statement and have particular meaning now that I prepare to exit law school and enter the next phase of my professional career.  While law school will change you in many ways, this is a reminder to stay true to yourself and your goals, as idealistic and altruistic as they may be.  You have the unique opportunity of attending Marquette, a school that prides itself on educating the whole person and not producing only good lawyers, but good people.  Through education comes power.  You will know and understand far more about our society than most and that knowledge and understanding will give you the ability to make a difference.  Understand that this difference may not be as large or overwhelming as you initially thought, but most major developments and improvements throughout history started with something small.  Remember the Allegory of the Starfish:

A man was walking along the beach where hundreds of starfish had washed ashore at high tide and were slowly perishing in the hot sun. The man saw a boy picking up the starfish one at a time and throwing them back into the ocean. He approached the boy and asked him why he was doing that.  There were hundreds of miles of beach and he couldn’t possibly make a difference. The boy slowly leaned down, picked up a starfish, and hurled it back into the ocean. He looked at the man and said, “It made a difference to that one.”

One client, one case, one ethical decision at a time you will have the power and ability to make a difference in people’s lives and, over time, within broader society. Do not take that power lightly or for granted.  With that power comes responsibility.  As an attorney you will have the responsibility to protect some of the things your clients hold most dear: their property, their family, their secrets, their liberty and freedom. You have a responsibility not to let them down, to “zealously advocate” for them. You have a responsibility to the bar to do so in an ethical manner. And you have a responsibility to yourself to stay true to your moral code or risk not being able to look at yourself in the mirror.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis.” The first stands for “danger;” the second for “opportunity.” In crisis, be aware of the danger but recognize the opportunity.  There will be many times throughout your law school, and likely also your professional career, where you will be faced with a crisis—whether your client’s or your own.  Take the tools you have acquired through your legal education, and the strong sense of self that will develop if you take your education seriously, and use them to face the danger and seize the opportunity.  Law school is not easy, neither I guess is being a lawyer, but in my limited experience its been well worth the challenge.

[Editor's Note: This month, we asked a few veteran faculty members to share their reflections on what has changed the most in legal education since they became law professors.  This post is the first in the series.]

I became a law professor in 1970, my first year on the Georgetown law faculty. I believe that one of the most changed aspects of legal education in the past forty-one years is the care and feeding of law students. By that, I refer to the remarkable proliferation of in-house extra-curricular activities. Innumerable law societies shedding light on the various interests of students and weekly opportunities to hear great speakers are but the tip of the iceberg. Not to be overlooked is the availability of frequent free lunches at these noon events. So much for the “feeding.” As to the “care,” the heightened interaction between faculty and students represents a fundamental change in legal education. I do not believe that I ever spoke to one of my professors outside of class. Contrast this with the expectations of today’s students. To conclude, I almost wish I were a law student now instead of then.

The subject of early Marquette law degrees is complicated by the decision of the University to award Marquette Law degrees to all the former students of the Milwaukee Law School (which Marquette acquired in 1908) who had passed the Wisconsin bar examination.  The decision was apparently made at the last minute, and few documents pertaining to the decision survive.  (It is, for example, hardly mentioned in the Trustee minutes.)  Apparently the decision was also intended to apply to former Milwaukee Law School students who were enrolled at the time of the “merger” and who continued on in the new night program at Marquette.

As a consequence, more than 80 law degrees were awarded in 1908, before the new law school actually began operations, and additional degrees to former Milwaukee Law School students were awarded at the next several commencements.  This decision later came back to haunt the law school, as critics (especially faculty members of the University of Wisconsin Law School) later accused the school of “selling diplomas.”  (Degrees were not automatically awarded to former Milwaukee Law School students who passed the bar examination; they first had to apply to Marquette for a degree and pay a $5 diploma fee.)  In response, the degrees awarded to the Milwaukee Law School students were soon re-labeled “honorary degrees.”

However, by the spring of 1911, there were students who had completed all of the requirements of the new full-time, day-only law program at Marquette.  A class picture of these students now hangs in the hallway of the Dean’s suite in Eckstein Hall.  (The composite photograph actually shows 11 members of the graduating class, when in fact only 9 actually graduated.  The photograph was apparently prepared before the end of the Spring 1911 semester and circumstances apparently kept two of the 11 from graduating.  Things like that do happen.)

The 1911 Commencement was held at 8 p.m. on the evening of June 21, 1911, in the Pabst Theater.  Music was provided by the Marquette University Orchestra and the Marquette University Mandolin Club, and the event was presided over by Marquette President James McCabe, S.J.

The 1911 Commencement had a distinctively “legal” flavor (in part because the Marquette Medical College and its affiliated programs held their own separate graduation ceremony).  The Commencement address was delivered by Patrick H. O’Donnell, a prominent Chicago lawyer and graduate of Georgetown law school who was instrumental in the creation of the law school at Loyola of Chicago the following year.

The only honorary doctorate awarded that day was a Doctorate of Laws degree awarded to the Rev. Antoine Ivan Rezek, the author of the recently published “The History of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette.”  (Why Father Rezek was awarded a Doctor of Laws degree rather than a Doctor of Arts is not clear.)

Of the 29 actual degrees awarded, 18 were in the field of law.  Of the non-law students, Luis Rivera, a citizen of the Philippines, received a Master of Arts degree.  Nine students received the Bachelor of Arts degree while a tenth received the degree of Bachelor of Science.

As  mentioned above, nine graduates were awarded the Bachelor of Laws degree for work done in the day division, while an additional nine were awarded “the Honorary Degree of  Bachelor of Laws” for work done either at the Milwaukee Law School or in the Marquette evening program and for passing the Wisconsin bar examination.  Because the next administration of the bar examination was not until July, none of those students who had finished the night course in June of 1911 were eligible for degrees.

(In 1911, any person who had studied law for three years was eligible to take the Wisconsin bar examination regardless of whether or not they had a law degree, and the diploma privilege would not be extended to Marquette degree holders for another two decades.)

Only one of the first nine “true” graduates—Albert O’Melia—graduated with honors, but there was obviously a great honor simply in being a member of the inaugural graduating class.  A more detailed account of the law school experiences of the Class of 1911 can be found in my earlier blog post entitled “The First Joe Tierney’s Marquette Legal Education.”

[Update: a reference in the fourth paragraph was corrected to read "1911" instead of "2011."]

New law professors have traditionally been hired to law school faculties on the basis of their impressive level of performance in law school.  High grades and law review membership have usually been equated with potential for teaching, particularly if they are supplemented with a prestigious clerkship and some, but not too much, experience as a practicing lawyer. Professors hired solely for their practical expertise in law are relatively rare.

A recently published study by Joni Hersch and W. Kip Viscusi, two law professors at Vanderbilt University, reveals that this situation maybe slowly changing. 

According to Hersch and Viscusi, at least some law schools have begun to hire individuals whose credentials also include a Ph.D. degree. Although Ph.D. degrees in law are quite common in Europe and other parts of the world, they are almost unheard in the United States, so law professors with Ph.D. degrees in the United States usually hold the degree in a field other than law.

Examining the faculties of 26 “leading” law schools, Hersch and Viscusi, discovered that 361 of 1,338 current law professors (27%) have Ph.D. degrees.  Thirteen percent (13%) of faculty members have Ph.D. degrees in the social sciences other than economics; 7% have degrees in economics; and 7% have them in other fields ranging from English to chemistry.  Slightly more than 18% of law professors with Ph.D. degrees (65) possess a Ph.D. degree but no law degree.  However, most law professors with Ph.D. degrees (296) hold both a law degree and a Ph.D.

Northwestern University appears to have gone further than any other school in this regard, and 50% of its law faculty now hold Ph.D. degrees.  Other law schools with high percentages of Ph.D. professors include Pennsylvania (43%); UC-Berkeley (42%); Yale (40%); Cornell (40%); and Stanford (39%).

The issue of hiring law professors with Ph.D. degrees goes to the core of the question of the real purpose of law school education. If law schools are primarily academic departments charged with providing students with a sophisticated analytical framework for studying the structure and function of American law, then the Ph.D. law professors, with their systematic training in scholarship and research, clearly have an edge over their non-Ph.D. counterparts who typically scramble for years trying to pick up such skills on the fly.  On the other hand, if the primary purpose of law schools is to prepare lawyers for the nuts and bolts of the practice of law, the Ph.D. law professor is probably at a disadvantage, having spent years in graduate school rather in setting where one learns what it really means to practice law.

Obviously, the temptation is to say that law schools should be both, both centers of scholarship and sources of practical training.  However, balancing the scholarly with the practical is a challenge.  As it is, much of the legal scholarship produced by law professors is held in relatively low regard by the other branches of the academy, and the bar regularly complains that law schools are not doing an adequate job of preparing their students for the realities of law practice.

The Marquette Law School faculty currently includes four professors with Ph.D. degrees.  Three earned their degrees in American universities: Professors Blinka (History); Hylton (History of American Civilization); and Papke (American Studies); while the fourth, Professor Calboli, received hers in law from a European university.

Professors Tracey E. George and Suzanna Sherry from Vanderbilt Law School have said that law school has three purposes:  1) to teach basic legal doctrine; 2) to help students learn how to use that doctrine; and 3) to teach students how to teach themselves the law. 

Although surely 1Ls do learn basic legal doctrine, it’s really third purpose that takes center stage in the first year.  The third purpose can be recast as learning “to think like a lawyer,” a topic I’ve
previously discussed, and which may have some unintended consequences of its own.  However, teaching students how to teach themselves the law also involves teaching students how to read legal texts and how to find and pull relevant information from those texts.

Reading in law school is unlike other reading that most incoming 1Ls have done.  As any current law student or lawyer knows, it’s demanding and challenging reading that requires an active mind, ready to engage with the text.  (It’s still important to have “for fun” reading even though it’s difficult to squeeze in the time to do it.)  Incoming students need to recognize that the texts they are reading contain the law itself, not (generally) any commentary about the law.  In this way, as Christopher Columbus Langdell envisioned in the late 19^th century, students learn the law by reading the law itself, rather than by reading about the law.  This is a big change from education in other fields, where the texts contain information about the subject.

I suggest to 1Ls that they do not begin their first semesters with “book briefing,” simply marking parts of the case in the book itself, as their sole method of case briefing.  I think it’s important in the beginning for students to take the time to craft their own briefs, making sure to put the facts, the issues, and the reasoning in their own words.  It’s good legal writing practice and helps students avoid simply parroting what the cases say without really understanding
what is written.  Later, after a semester or a year, students are experienced enough legal readers to do book briefing.

What other reading or briefing tips would you offer 1Ls?

The program’s Marquette contingent for 2011 consisted of 24 law students and Professors Gordon Hylton and Alan Madry.  The session lasted from July 16 through August 13.

This year’s course offerings included International Human Rights (team-taught by a group of professors from Giessen and Gottingen including program co-director Thilo Marauhn of the University of Giessen); Comparative and International Sports Law (taught by Professor J. Gordon Hylton of Marquette); International Business Transactions (taught by Adjunct Professor Eric Ibele of the Univeristy of Wisconsin); and International Economic Law (taught by Sven Simon of the University of Giessen). Classes were held at the law and economics campus of the University of Giessen.  The program also included law-oriented field trips to Brussels and Berlin and a recreation tour of the Rhine Valley.

Also participating in the program in Giessen were co-directors Professor Alan Madry of Marquette and Professor Stephen Barkan of the University of Wisconsin.  (Professor Barkan is also a former Marquette law professor who served as Interim Dean of the Law School during the 1994-95 academic year.)  Students were expected to enroll in two of the courses, although a number of foreign students enrolled in three or four.

Students from Marquette included: Ryan Albregts, Andrea Austin, Margaret Barr, Justin Bertron, Tyler Brennan, Allison Ceille, Jason Cooper, Alexandra Dziamski, Matthew Galvin, Cody Garza, John Graham, Patricia Heise, Aneet Kaur, Patrick Kern, Derek Kulland, Stephen Laczniak, Adam Lopez, Patricia Mattingly, Jonathan Meulemans, Brad Meyer, Jessica Pfau, Lauren Raupp, Bryan Strand, and Ryan Truesdale.

In addition to the Marquette students, there were six law students from the University of Wisconsin as well as students from the law schools at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Southern California.  The 36 remaining students came from the following countries: Brazil, the Central African Republic, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Greece, (South) Korea, Krygystan, Latvia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and Ukraine.

An article on the program published earlier this week in the Giessener Anzeiger (a local newspaper) can be found at http://www.giessener-anzeiger.de/lokales/hochschule/11064040.htm.  Unfortunately, the article is in German, and the photo accompanying the article is of the class attending the University of Giessen’s International Summer School in Biodiversity and Law, rather than the students and faculty in the International and Comparative Law program.  (Both programs held commencement exercises in the same building on the same day.)  One of the students in the picture is Professor Hylton’s daughter Veronica.

A program description provided by the University of Giessen can be found at http://www.recht.uni-giessen.de/wps/fb01/home/summer_program_law/1002292/. The Marquette description is here.

The difficulty starts from the moment we study for the LSAT.  In our first years, we are tasked with reading and processing and cogently articulating concepts gleaned (or pulled like teeth) from ancient cases about barrels falling out of windows, churches burning down, and smoke balls that supposedly cured every minor ailment under the sun.  Come second year, we may find ourselves toiling in the law review cite-check room as staffers or coming out of our shells as we practice oral argument for Appellate Writing & Advocacy, along with even more copious amounts of reading, this time on topics like criminal process, agency and corporate law, taxation, postmortem property transfers, and intellectual property.  Then you will get the taste of working as an attorney, whether in a summer associate position at a large firm or clerking for a mid-size or smaller firm, in which your legal studies for the first time become “real.”  When third year arrives, you will have the chance to take workshops on pretrial practice and contract drafting among others, and (you guessed it) more reading.  In sum, as Justice Stephen Breyer was right to tell his children, “[I]f you do your homework really well, . . . you can do homework the rest of your life!”

Once you begin practicing in the real world, you will have even more difficult homework, and the stakes are even higher. 

In law school, students learn in something of an incubator largely separated from the real world consequences of failure.  True, there are the harsh realities and long-term consequences of poor exam performance.  Furthermore, if you come to class unprepared, you might draw the ire of your professors and a few arrogant snickers from your class gunners.  But in the grand scheme of things, the only one acutely suffering from sloth in law school is the student.  If that same indolence creeps into your work post-graduation, then others feel the sting.  Most immediately suffering are your clients, the very people and organizations you are charged with providing educated and prudent counseling and zealous advocacy.  If you choose to litigate, you are also stunting the growth of the law.  Judges heavily rely on effective advocacy from lawyers in reaching their decisions; they do so out of necessity, given their overflowing dockets and calendars filled to capacity.  These consequences demand the very best from us.

Amid the seemingly infinite obstacles without guarantee of rewards awaiting us at the end, some choose to run from even more difficulty.  For them, the thought of striving to be the best feels like simply too much effort or even a delusion of grandeur.  As Bryan Garner scolded readers in a recent article for the ABA’s Student Lawyer magazine, some yearn for the weekend and getting away from it all, at the expense of working toward excellence.  Other students gravitate toward what Justice Scalia last September called “law and ice cream” classes while foregoing courses covering more challenging material.  I have especially noticed as much when I have advised people take Dean Kearney’s and Professor Shriner’s litigation-based courses, many shuddering at the amount of reading those classes require.  And even the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct speak largely to how not to be a bad lawyer, with few official statements that express aspirations about what the best among us should do.  Being the best is repeatedly passed up for being just good enough.  In fact, I remember voicing these gripes about this focus in legal ethics to Professor O’Meara early last spring semester.  He responded, as if to finish my thought, “And we can be better than that.”

That we can.  Before the economic and professional realities of the real world hit, legal education provides a focused opportunity to hone your skills and learn self-discipline.  To do well, you must constantly push yourself and raise your own personal expectations.  Take useful and difficult classes like Administrative Law, Advanced Civil Procedure, Business Associations, Creditor-Debtor Law, Criminal Process, Federal Courts, Insurance, Remedies, Secured Transactions, and Taxation.  Find those professors who constantly challenge you and work you hard enough that you know that they respect your competence.  Sign up for judicial internships, especially those that get you writing and learning to write well.  In fact, seize every opportunity you can handle to write, whether it is on this faculty blog, your own law blog, or trying to get a law review article published. And, again, do it well.  If you are on a law review, write a comment that will meaningfully add to an area of law’s growing body of knowledge.  Stay current on developments in subject areas that interest you, because you may just have to practice in a world where those new developments matter, regardless of whether or not your professors choose to cover it in class.  Based on advice given to me by Professor Fallone, Dean Kearney, and Professor Shriner, “collect judges” and find “heroes in the law.”  In other words, keep your eyes open for members of academia, the bench, and the bar that you look up to, and emulate their best characteristics, whether the ways they speak, write, or generally conduct themselves.

Shunning the easier paths and looking for the harder ones is draining and (yes) hard, but there are benefits to be had.  Some of the classes of which I have my most fond memories in undergrad and law school are those that were the hardest.  If anything, they make for good war stories and a feeling of true accomplishment.  After all, as my father would tell me before and during and after law school, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”  That idea came from a book he read, a book called The Dip by Seth Godin, the same book that partly inspired this blog post.  One oft-used concept from The Dip is a simple one: difficulty weeds out those willing to quit, which in turn creates scarcity among those persons that do make it through adversity.  And, most importantly, “scarcity creates value.”  Seth Godin, The Dip: A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (And When to Stick) 36 (2007).  As such, difficulty works to your benefit.  Id. at 26, 41-42.

Instead, there are too many people asking their professors just to tell them “what the law is” rather than digging deeper and debating the purpose and continuing relevance of the rules today.  One cannot have a truly rich education experience without closely examining the how and why, as opposed to pursuing the what single-mindedly. There is too little pride and too much cynicism bleeding into self-hatred in the legal profession, and with the profession’s already tarnished reputation, we should do everything in our power to restore its lustre.  And as I noted before, there are too many people willing to settle for being just average, which is simply not acceptable anymore in today’s legal market.  I say we can be better than that.

We can be much better than that.