Lubar Fund for Public Policy Announced

Marquette University Law School The University has announced today that Sheldon B. Lubar has made a $2 million gift to the Law School. Mr. Lubar is a much-admired business and civic leader: he is the founder and chairman of Lubar & Co., has been a presidential appointee with Senate confirmation, and has engaged deeply in seeking to improve this region. The gift, one of the largest in the history of the Law School, will create the Lubar Fund for Public Policy. The Lubar Fund will support public policy research and initiatives, including conferences and symposia; faculty research; curriculum development; and programs that enhance the teaching of public policy issues at Marquette Law School. The gift represents extraordinary confidence by a renowned business and civic leader in our public policy work at the Law School. Although that work began to be distinctly recognized with the appointment of Mike Gousha several years ago, it has been my sense—more than an intuition but still evolving into a full plan—that we are only scratching the surface here. I look forward to our effort to mine this field, for the betterment of the community, and am grateful to Shel Lubar for his support and confidence.

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Some Exam-Taking Advice from Professor Kircher

[Editor’s note:  In this post, Professor John J. Kircher provides the first installment in our new series, “What are your best exam-taking tips for law students?”]

To begin with, always be careful to understand the “call” of the question. That is, what is the professor asking you to do? If he or she casts you in the role of the defense counsel and asks you to evaluate that side, don’t waste your time explaining what a great case the plaintiff has under the circumstances provided!

Also, if the question is jurisdiction-specific (e.g., Wisconsin), don’t waste your time and effort explaining the law of all other jurisdictions.

Finally, if you are uncertain about the answer to a particular question, go on to the other exam questions.  It is better to have one unanswered question than to spin your wheels and waste time trying to figure out its answer only to have inadequate time to properly answer the remaining questions.

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Video Feedback on Student Work

Recently, for the first time, I used video and audio technology to provide feedback on student papers in my first-year legal writing class. From my perspective, it was a terrific success.  Giving live, oral feedback over video of each student’s paper allowed me to explain my questions, comments, and corrections more naturally and precisely, and also more quickly.  I think that most students found the oral feedback useful as well.

The technology I used is TechSmith’s Jing.  There may well be other free software products that offer something similar, but Jing is the one that was brought to my attention (by a student, actually–thanks, Priya Barnes).  After viewing another educator’s blog post and video demonstrating his use of the product to give feedback, I thought I’d try it.

Here is how the video/audio method of commenting works:

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