Law School Academic Support Blog

Bar Passage Counselor Position at Charlotte Law

Bar Passage Counselor

CharlotteLaw is the first law school in North Carolina's most populous city located in one of the fastest growing regions in the country on the border with South Carolina. Charlotte is a dynamic, rapidly growing, international city which offers a rich array of family, educational, sports/recreational, cultural, and other opportunities. We are currently seeking dynamic, creative, team oriented and student-centered individuals to join our fast growing Team.

The school is a member of The InfiLaw System, a consortium of independent law schools committed to making legal education more responsive to the realities of new career dynamics. Its mission is to establish student-centered, American Bar Association (ABA) accredited law schools in underserved markets that graduate students with practice-ready skills, and achieve true diversity programs aimed at student academic and career success.

The Bar Passage Counselor will develop and implement a support program designed to improve skills relating to bar passage; will counsel students regarding options for bar study and will monitor bar passage rates. The Bar Passage Counselor will have principle responsibility of developing bar passage workshops and a bar passage course.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities:

• Teach a North Carolina Bar studies course, incorporating South Carolina bar studies to extent appropriate. • Review and provide feedback to students regarding the bar exam.
• Create and maintain statistical information on each examinee, including UGPA, LGPA, LSAT, and other predictors use to forecast probability of bar passage.
• Prepare and present various Bar Prep Workshops.
• Arrange for speakers to present at the school’s bar prep workshop series.
• Attend each North Carolina Bar Exam administration and South Carolina bar exam administrations to extent appropriate.
• Prepare and oversee the Bar Prep budget.
• Performs other academic support functions essential to promoting students’ success in law school and to the success and growth of the institution.
• Teaches other related courses as assigned by the Associate Dean.

Qualifications

• Juris Doctor Degree from an approve ABA accredited law school.
• Successful passage of the North Carolina Bar Exam required; passage also of the South Carolina Bar Exam a plus, but not required.
• Must be highly motivated and possess personal initiative and drive.
• Strong oral and written communication skills required due to high level of interaction with students, employers and other professionals
• A strong commitment to CharlotteLaw’s mission pillars of student centeredness, practice ready and serving the underserved.
• Bar related experience preferred.
• Post-secondary teaching experience preferred.

This position is a full-time academic staff position. The Counselor will report to the Associate Dean for Students. CharlotteLaw offers a professional and pleasant work environment for all employees in addition to offering a competitive and comprehensive compensation and benefits package. Please visit www.charlottelaw.org to learn more about our institution.

To apply for this opportunity, please send a letter of interest, a resume, the names of three current professional references (including addresses and phone numbers) to humanresources@charlottelaw.org or via mail to: Charlotte School of Law, Human Resources, 1211 E. Morehead St., Charlotte, NC 28204

CharlotteLaw is an equal employment opportunity employer. Inquiries welcome from qualified candidates.

Is Orientation Worth It? (A Posting by Our Newest Contributing Editor)

I am pleased to welcome our newest contributing editor, Herb Ramy, to the blog.  Herb has just assumed the role of Director of the Academic Excellence Program at New England School of Law after having designed and, for several years, served as Director of the Academic Support Program at Suffolk University Law School.  He is the author of Succeeding in Law School (2006) and Navigating the Internet: Legal Research on the World Wide Web (2000); he has also published several scholarly articles.  Below is his first posting for the blog, and I think you will find it thought provoking and insightful. (dbw)

Is Orientation Worth It?

I have just taken part in my first orientation at New England School of Law (NESL), although I have been a part of a law school orientation for the past nine years at Suffolk University Law School.  I thought the orientation went quite well, and it has been interesting to see what another law school does during those first fretful days of the semester.

On one level, I was happy to learn that NESL’s orientation was not all that different from Suffolk’s.  Both programs are 3-4 days long, utilize faculty/students panels to convey certain law school truisms, and address the topic of case briefing.  Initially, the similarities suggested that I must have been doing something right for the past nine years.  Then, a not so pleasant thought occurred to me . . . maybe both schools have been handling orientation incorrectly!  I don’t think that is really the case, but it got me wondering as to what we are trying to accomplish during an orientation program.  I say “we” because ASP offices often play an important role in these programs.

What are we trying to accomplish during orientation?  If the answer is “we want to teach students the skills necessary for success in law school,” then I’m afraid our efforts may be doomed to failure.  In many (possibly most) law schools, orientation is a 3-5 day affair during which we program 3-5 hours per day.  If we subtract from that time hours devoted to panel discussions, assigning lockers, welcoming speeches, and social functions, we are left with only a handful of hours for skills instruction.  I’m not sure that I can teach case synthesis in an hour, particularly where my students have read the grand total of two cases prior to coming to class!

You may think that I’m advocating for much longer orientation periods, but I’m not.  At one time, I strongly believed in the need for longer and more in depth orientation programs that lasted 3-4 weeks.  Then, reality started to creep into the conversation.  Sure, we can accomplish a great deal if orientation lasts 3 or 4 weeks, but most administrations won’t be willing to do this, and with good reason.  Having students arrive 3-4 weeks before the traditional start of classes can be a logistical nightmare.  Where will they live, eat, and sleep?  What about students who have summer plans that overlap with orientation?  Will other faculty and administrators be willing to participate in an orientation program that begins at the end of July or beginning of August?  Before you say yes, keep in mind that most of these folks don’t take vacations from September through May because of the academic calendar. (By the way, I am purposely excluding CLEO programs or targeted orientation programs from this discussion due to the much smaller number of student participants.)  And, if your school has an evening division, then the above concerns are twice as big a problem.

So, where does that leave us?  Maybe back at the beginning.  Maybe relatively short orientation programs aren’t such a bad thing if we modify our expectations.  Instead of using orientation to teach all the skills necessary to succeed in law school, maybe we should focus on 1 or 2 ideas and hammer them home.  If we do a good job, then orientation can serve a public relations purpose.  Students pleased with our work during orientation are more likely to attend our ASP classes or meet with us one on one.  Then, the real work can begin.

Just my two cents . . . (hnr)

The Orientation Express has left the station....

Well, I have oriented all my students, and now I can sit back and bask in the pleasure of knowing that they are all perfectly prepared for whatever will come in the next few weeks.  Right?  Well, maybe not, but I certainly tried.  I did my usual spiel:  you know, "we call them briefs because they are supposed to be short and private." (In case you wanted to incorporate this joke into your orientation lecture, you should know that the students did not laugh as loudly as I did, but feel free to give it a try.)

I think that I have finally, after many years of doing ASP orientation, come up with a "theme" for my talk.  My theme this year (and perhaps for many years to come) is the triumvirate of learning.  Not a group of three classes, but rather the three stages of getting the most from your classes.  The first stage (before class) is preparation:  reading and briefing all the assigned cases.  The second stage is coming to class, religiously, and taking comprehensive notes.  I do warn students to avoid what I call, "court reporter syndrome" and not take notes as if they were merely recording the class without pausing to let the material sink in.  And finally: (I wish I could put some musical emphasis here, but in your mind I want you to think aah-ah with golden light and all that) outlining (very soon) after class to bring the first two components together.

That's it.  I know I haven't broken down law school into three simple and easy steps, but I tried to make sure my students understand what was expected of them.  In law school, I often felt that I had not only missed the boat, but also that I didn't know there was a boat, when it might be sailing or that I was supposed to be on it.  Often, I could have done what was expected of me if I had only known what that was. Granted, sometimes I wasn't as diligent about finding out the boat schedule as I should have been, but a little guidance would have helped.  Therefore, since the LSAT does not measure psychic ability, I attempted to give my students this information before the pier sits empty again.

Oh, and one last case briefing joke (that I enjoy more than the students, of course) is:  for the first couple of weeks, your briefs may actually be longer than the case itself; those are called boxers.  Bah-dum-bum. (ezs)

The Balancing Act.

Well, summer seems to be over.  I am sitting here in my office (alone) trying to wrap my brain around orientation which will begin later this week.  On the one hand, it is a time filled with all sorts of promise: new students with their fresh, sunny new faces and on the other hand, students returning under the cloud cover of academic probation (or as we call it, "Academic Warning").  It is an interesting balance as we go forward. 

Balance is the word I use to describe our orientation strategy.  We spend a good deal of time scaring the poop out of students by reminding them (endlessly) that this is NOT college, you CANNOT get away with studying only before exams, you CANNOT miss classes, etc.  Also, we tell them they are entering a foreign country where the locals appear to speaking English, but they aren't.  Instead, we are all speaking "law" which is a different language altogether and the first few weeks of law school are more like immersion in a foreign country to learn the language than anything else.  We do temper this with the revelation that we do not expect students to "get it" at first, but then we crush their shiny fresh spirits by explaining that they should "get it" really soon or else.

I think if I delivered my orientation lecture while wearing a blindfold and holding the scales of justice, I might get the point across more clearly.  Or, perhaps the students would think they got caught in one of those tourist walks that are led by folks in costume all around Boston (ask me sometime about how my nine-year-old heckled Ben Franklin).

But then, just to complete the scene, I tell the students that I am here to help; that they should feel free to come and see me for anything during those first hard weeks.  In a way, it is a cruel manipulation.  First, I tell students to be scared; really scared.  But then I tell them not to be because I can help.   It's like if Superman hung you on the edge of a cliff and then flew by (about two hours later) to rescue you (minus the tights and cape, after all it is still pretty hot here).

I sincerely mean everything I tell the students, I am not running a scam here but I often feel like I have placed the image of the monster in the students' heads only to then offer to help slay it.  But the bottom line is this:  I am offering an accurate warning and then offering to help the students arm themselves for the onslaught.  My only "profit" from student attentiveness to my orientation lecture is perhaps a slight lack of business down the road (but really, with three kids and three cats at home, I am just excited anyone would listen to me at all). (ezs)

Balancing Act

My friend Ellen Swain (Vermont Law School Academic Success Program Director) recently directed me to an interesting ABA Journal article.

In Discontented in the Law, author Jill Schachner Chanen explains: "It’s no secret that law and job satisfaction don’t always go hand in hand, but a recent survey shows just how miserable some lawyers really are, especially those newer to the practice. ... The reason boils down to work-life balance, according to a survey by the National Association for Law Placement Foundation. The struggle to find that balance is especially pronounced among lawyers in supervised or nonmanagerial positions, the survey found."

Consider this: what do students learn in law school?

If they don't learn to "balance," then their learning of legal concepts, analytical processes, preferred methods of citation, and tax regulations is for naught. 

Excellent law students become excellent lawyers.  Miserable law students (even those—or maybe especially those—with high GPAs) become miserable lawyers.   
   
Ms. Chanen writes that Milwaukee lawyer Christina Plum, chair of the ABA’s Young Lawyers Division, also is not surprised by findings in the survey (mentioned above). "It’s hard for me to imagine a lawyer not having to struggle to balance work with all of the other choices in their lives," she says.

Yes, it is a struggle.  But it would be far less of a struggle if students spent their (pardon me, please) 1000 days in law school practicing how to achieve this balance.

This, I believe, is the most critical message of academic support.  Yes, students, you need to learn how to read casebooks.  Follow the exercises in Ruth Ann McKinney's book.  You need to learn how to brief cases.  Check out the examples in Bridging the Gap.  You need to learn rules, strategies, and so much more.  But if you don't learn "balance," it is all for naught.  Spend three hours outside of class for every hour in class.  That's 60 hours each week, right?  Sleep eight hours each night. 56?  That gives you 52 (awake) hours each week for the other stuff of life.  Use it.  Or lose it. 

If we don't make this message explicit to our students, we are doing them a disservice. (djt)