Idea of the Month: Cross-training for Law Students
The semester is more than half over for many of our students. If students haven't already completed a course-related writing assignment, now is a great time for them to do so. Because writing exercises are exceptional at helping students develop and refine their analytical skills, many of us give students writing assignments. Ideally we design these exercises to promote a variety of complementary goals, similar to what athletes do when they cross-train.
Among other objectives, writing exercises can be designed to help students
1. identify a client's goal;
2. respond appropriately and creatively to a client's problem;
3. engage in factual investigation;
4. research and evaluate sources used by lawyers in the field;
5. draft documents that are used in practice;
6. work quickly under tight deadlines;
7. follow instructions given by a professor in the role of a supervising attorney;
8. self-assess;
9. review and give feedback to peers; and
10. engage in metacognition - reflecting on what they learned from the process.
To read more of this idea, please go to http://lawteaching.org/ideas/
Article of the Month: Carl Circo, Teaching Transactional Skills in Partnership with the Bar, 9 Berkeley Business Law Journal 187 (2012). Lawteaching Digest, Vol 35, Issue 5
In his Berkeley Business Law Journal article, Professor Carl J. Circo explores the legal education reform movement as it relates to transactional practice skills, collecting the myriad conversations about what our law students need and proposing a creative partnership between the bar and the academy to help meet that challenge.
Professor Circo provides observations and suggestions from the ABA Standards and taskforces, the NALP Foundation roundtable conference series, and a white paper issued by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. He also offers a unique look at what the profession wants from new graduates by recounting comments from practitioners at recent conferences, as well as by summarizing results from a survey Professor Circo administered to law firm training and development professionals about the skills that entry-level transactional lawyers need. Through this examination, Professor Circo's article paints a telling picture about the concerns of practitioners. Although "[d]ifferent bar organizations and lawyers offer many alternative perspectives on the goals of legal education," Professor Circo identifies a few larger themes that emerge. Practitioners stress the need for teaching "general competencies" of business practice, including creative problem solving, project management, team
work, risk assessment, and flexibility.
To read more of this review and for access to the full text of the article, please go to http://lawteaching.org/articles/