BARBRI’s “State of the Legal Field Survey” reports that “71 percent of 3L law students believe they possess sufficient practice skills. In contrast, only 23 percent of practicing attorneys who work at companies that hire recent law school graduates believe recent law school graduates possess sufficient practice skills.” This finding is puzzling and astounding. It … Continue reading Illusions of Competence
I was surprised to read an article in the New York Times indicating that the system of using bar exams to license lawyers “is facing a new round of scrutiny — not just from the test takers but from law school deans and some state legal establishments.” The article quotes Kristin Booth Glen, former dean … Continue reading Erosion of Support for Bar Exam System
I just read a provocative article entitled, “Litigation as Violence,” by Vincent Cardi (West Virginia), 49 Wake Forest L. Rev. 677 (2014). You may want to assign this nine-page article (and/or this post) in your classes, which may stimulate valuable discussion about the consequences of lawyers’ work for their clients – and themselves. Professor Cardi … Continue reading Litigation as Violence
In a series of posts, I described significant problems with the traditional negotiation paradigm of two coherent models, positional and interest-based negotiation (or other labels for essentially the same models). This paradigm has been helpful in moving us forward in recent decades. But simply saying that something was a interest-based or positional negotiation not only … Continue reading How Can You Get a Piece of the Action?
SSRN subscribers will soon see a passel of my old articles scrolling across their screens and may wonder, “What the heck?” The heck is that, thanks to a new scanner, I was able to make nice pdf files of some articles I wrote before I started posting pieces on SSRN. With the benefit of hindsight, … Continue reading Oldies But Goodies
Based on my study of lawyers’ actual negotiations, A Framework for Advancing Negotiation Theory: Implications from a Study of How Lawyers Reach Agreement in Pretrial Litigation, I have reluctantly concluded that the generally-accepted understanding of negotiation theory is seriously flawed and that we need a better theory. The current framework relies primarily on two models … Continue reading Problems with the System of Negotiation Models, Part 1
I recently stumbled upon a useful analogy that I used in our required Lawyering course, namely that lawyers are like “conflict doctors.” For our final class, we read an excerpt of an article by Frank Sander and Stephen Goldberg with tables identifying various client goals and impediments to settlement. The article listed goals related … Continue reading Conflict Doctors
In 1998, commenting on the hot controversy about the “Rand Report’s” finding that certain mediation programs did not save time or money (measured in terms of lawyers’ work hours), Professor Craig McEwen argued that it was the wrong question to ask whether “mediation works.” Critics of the Report had argued that its methodology led to … Continue reading Some Good Questions
“Oh Boy! A fight.” That’s often what I say in class when students vigorously disagree. I like these “fights” because they usually lead to helpful discussions that clarify differing views. So when Andrea wrote her post, Puffing Sucks, I thought, “Oh Boy! A fight.” She argues that puffing is “[l]ying, through and through,” and that … Continue reading Some Puffing Sucks . . . But Developing Good Relationships Is More Likely to be Effective than a New Rule
I am one of several people on the LEAPS committee who scans certain blogs to identify people who may not be familiar with LEAPS and let them know about it. So I subscribe to the Best Practices for Legal Education blog and the blog for IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal … Continue reading Resources about the FRCP and Legal Education
