Law School Academic Support Blog

Bar Exam Success

Steven Friedland, a law professor at Elon School of Law, and Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, an attorney and investigative journalist who now works at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, have written a recent Thomson/West publication entitled The Essential Rules for Bar Exam Success.  Although I have only had time to dip into several chapters, it is clear that the book contains a great deal of useful information for bar takers. 

Chapters 1 and 2 provide an introduction to bar study and the bar exam.  Chapter 3 covers common mistakes bar takers make, while Chapter 4 describes the qualities of successful bar takers.  Chapter 5 covers goals.  Chapter 6 focuses on several techniques.  Chapters 7 through 9 discuss critical reading, critical thinking, and critical writing.  Chapters 10 through 12 provide strategies for three weeks out, one week out, the day of the exam, and the aftermath.  Chapter 13 provides a workbook section for applying the studier's knowledge of the law.  (Amy Jarmon)

   

Update on regional differences

I wrote a while back (maybe March?) about my irritation with the hyper-focus on generational differences (The Millenials v. Gen X v. Boomers)  and the under-focus on how other differences, such as region, shape classes of law students. I received some feedback from that blog post, mostly about whether regional differences are as real and important as I thought they were. Tuesday's Wall Street Journal (Sept. 23, 2008) has a great article on regional personality differences, titled "United States of Mind", that really delves into a study of the "Big 5" personality inventory by state. 

I am posting a link to the article here, but I don't believe it is accessible online unless you have a subscription to WSJ.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211987961064719.html
(RCF)

My Faculty, My Students, Myself: Thoughts on Being New to Academic Support

Corie Rosen
Director of Academic Support, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University

The recent loss of novelist and professor David Foster Wallace was both tragic and eye opening.  Wallace was not only a renowned thinker and writer; he was also a fellow educator, albeit in a different area.  Wallace famously expressed his feeling that lifelong learning was the only way to pursue a full understanding of the world around us, something he called the “big T-truth.”  I had already begun to evaluate my work as a new Academic Support Professor, but his passing pushed me to think more deeply, about the nature of higher learning and the challenges that we face as teachers and about the ways in which our roles as teachers, counselors, and mentors, best serve our students as they strive to find the “big T-truth” with respect to their legal educations.

    As a new Academic Support Professor, the challenges I faced were myriad, but the sense of accomplishment and delight inherent in facing and conquering them was unparalleled.  In looking back on the past year, I found that the challenges I faced broke out into three major groups, which I will term my faculty, my students, and myself.

But before I faced any of those three, I had to first address a threshold question.  I needed to define my purpose, to get at what that “big T-truth” was going to be in the universe of my classroom.  To clarify my purpose in my own mind, I asked myself probing questions:  What role does my course play in the education of students?  What specific ideas do I want them to take home?  What universal values will I seek to bolster through the course as a whole?  What do I want my students to think and feel about the law?  About the process of legal learning?

    In tackling these first questions, many possibilities occurred to me.  Perhaps Academic Support was intended merely to give students a place to go to ask questions, to feel that someone in their school environment was approachable and could formulate clear solutions.  That seemed a noble goal, but it fell short of what I thought Academic Support ought to be, and short of everything that I had read Academic Support was intended to be.  Was it then a forum where struggling students could obtain the instruction they needed to keep pace with their classmates?  That, too, seemed worthy, surely a large part of the overall goal, but somehow not the entirety of what I wanted to accomplish. 

    In the end, after much thought, I came to a decision.  Academic Support, at least for me, would be a program, a set of classes and individual meetings, in which students would feel supported, would obtain necessary instruction, and would benefit from a peer supported learning environment.  My Academic Support classroom would also be a forum where students could try on new, difficult, or otherwise missed ideas without fear of embarrassment, where students could tackle legal thinking and learning from a new angle, where students would make understanding their own learning process part of addressing the larger questions that would ensure them improved classroom performance, and where students could rediscover the joy of learning that, more often than not, had carried them through their academic careers before the law school phase, but had fallen off due to the forced curve, difficulty level, or other concerns. 

If I could, I decided, my class would provide all of the practical nuts and bolts learning that ASP-ers needed.  In addition, I would try to impart a passion for thinking critically about real world legal issues, and, I hoped, some support for the idea that lawyers and legal thinkers must be, above all, lifelong learners.  In my mind, the importance of lifelong learning is what Wallace was addressing when he talked about the deep thinking and continual probing of ideas that help us to get at the “big T-truth.”  If there was any big picture idea I wanted my students to have, a relentless passion for new knowledge was it.  This passion, I thought, would propel them through the remainder of their law school careers and do much to ensure that they became happy, healthy lawyers beyond the university halls.

    My goals after answering the threshold question were then two fold: to help students with practical and immediate learning-related issues, and to ensure that the process of addressing those issues resulted in students who were able to carry those skills beyond the ASP classroom.  At first blush, these seemed reasonable goals for a new educator, freshly scrubbed and brimming with enthusiasm.  And, as I tackled these and other ideas throughout the course of my first year, I found that, these were indeed workable goals, and, I still believe, the right aspirations for my teaching experience. 

However, after addressing these threshold issues, I still needed to contend with the other, less theoretical challenges that would face me as a new Academic Support Instructor.  I broke these challenges into three categories: dealing with the academy environment as an Academic Support instructor, reaching difficult students, and managing my expectations with respect to both myself and my charges.  In other words, they broke into three clear categories, my faculty, my students, and myself.   

Dealing with the academy was the first, and most apparent challenge that I faced outside of the classroom.  At my home institution, Academic Support was still extremely new and many of our doctrinal faculty seemed unsure as to what it was I would do with all the class time I had been allotted.  I caught sidelong glances from time to time when, at a lunch or before a meeting, I would mention something about my classroom or a conference I was slated to attend.  I found that it was my duty to dispel what I call the Magic Wand Theory of ASP that many of our faculty held – the idea that, with the help of a few key texts and exercises, absolutely anyone could turn a struggling student into a strong one, and that ASP was not entitled to a legitimate, important status within the legal academy. 

Fortunately for me, I work with a fairly open minded faculty, many of whom have recently come from other institutions where ASP was a priority, all of whom love to talk, listen, and debate.  They dialogued with me as I explained teaching methods I had just learned about or described conference presentations by which I had been enlightened.  They listened when I told them success stories, about brilliant students who had struggled initially and, with the help of ASP, had demonstrated their capability beyond all doubt.  And slowly, conversation by conversation, what at first had seemed daunting, began to be pleasant.  Over lunch and through faculty colloquia, I formed relationships and dispelled misconceptions.  I found that what I had thought was a complex problem could be solved by the simplest of actions; just talking with our faculty has proven the most effective and straightforward means of clarifying the importance and efficacy of ASP.  Today there are few, if any, adherents of the Magic Wand Theory remaining and the result of all this talking is that I enjoy wonderful working relationship with many of the people who I once worried would never embrace ASP. 

The challenge that has proved far greater, and the one that, after years of preparation for the job, I had anticipated I was most prepared to face, has been dealing with difficult students.  This is true in part because the troubles of these students vary tremendously and each student is a unique, individual, each with his or her own strengths and weaknesses, backgrounds and behaviors.  I have been at this for less than three semesters and already I have seen issues that run the gamut. 

Ranging from extreme PTSD to deep seated family troubles, from a troublesome lack of boundaries to simple anger at not having performed as expected, these individualized problems have presented my greatest challenges.  Dealing with each has been very much an exercise in handling students’ personal and learning-related needs in a case-by-case fashion, often working hard to divorce that student’s idea of him or herself as unfixable, from the problem at hand.  It was a revelation when I discovered that a student I had thought was blowing off my class was in fact troubled by serious trouble at home.  In tackling these problems, I have found that identification is often half the battle.  And in the identification game, I have found nothing more valuable than the students’ trust.  The rapport building needed to establish this trust takes time, and I have learned to allow the students to open up to me on their own schedules, to allow them the space to confront their problems individually before we take them on together.   

Building rapport with students, convincing faculty that ASP is something to be embraced, and facilitating a classroom environment that stands in line with my specific, daily and long-term, global teaching goals has proven daunting in some ways, but exhilarating in most.  And, in addressing these goals, my third greatest challenge emerged.  This challenge has been pacing myself and allowing things to take time, instead of trying to do everything for everyone all at once.  When I began at ASU, I wanted to do so many things.  I wanted to maintain the spectacular program my predecessor had put into place.  I wanted to both emulate her and develop my own style both in and out of the classroom.  I wanted to expand our program and add an upper level ASP class.  I wanted to give a presentation to the faculty.  I wanted to meet everyone in our wonderful national ASP community.  And I wanted to solve every student problem, whether academic or personal, with precision, perfection, and compassion.  Needless to say, I learned very quickly that all of these things, together with preparing for a new slate of classes and establishing roots in a new city, were impossible to do all at once and, after months of sixteen and eighteen hour days, the law of diminishing returns found me at last, rendering me too tired to be of much use to anyone and forcing me acknowledge that I had become one of my own professional challenges. 

Today, I use a new and far more effective tactic.  I allow things to evolve more naturally.  Like building rapport with my students and my faculty, developing my program and my professional self takes time.   No matter how I try, these things cannot be rushed if they are to be effective.  Today, I am delighted to look back on the past year and recognize how far I’ve come.  I spent my first two semesters doing the essential, getting to know the material in my classes, the seminal literature in the field, the culture of my institution, and the needs and personalities of the individual students.  This semester I have inaugurated a program for upper level students and I will be attending two exciting conferences, where I will deepen my knowledge and expand my network.  Next semester, I hope to begin work on an article.  The semester after that, well, who knows?   I have learned to trust that, with continued hard work and commitment to helping my students succeed, new goals, and the means with which to meet them, will arise in their own time.  For now, I am happy to face the challenges inherent in ASP with the knowledge and foresight I have developed over the past year.  I am delighted to work everyday toward helping my students through the law school learning experience, guiding and supporting them as they seek out their own, educational, big T-truths, becoming stronger people, more effective law students and, I hope, in the end, lifelong legal learners.

Taking Stock

Most law schools are in their fifth or sixth week of classes at this point.  As I talk to students, I find that many of them are in pure survival mode.  They are hurtling through the semester without any conscious thought about what they should be doing next in their studies. 

Many are merely reading for class and doing no additional thinking about the law.  Most of the students have not looked at their class notes since taking them.  Outlines vary in completeness from non-existent to a month behind for many students.

It is critical that students take stock now because they can still retrieve the situation and gain control.  One-third of the semester is over.  However, for most students, the completed coursework can be reviewed and condensed into outlines in 10 hours or less per course (especially true for 1L students whose professors go slowly the first two weeks to get everyone into the routine).

Here are some tips that I offer students who have not yet focused beyond survival:

• If the entire outline for a course seems too difficult of a task, then focus on the first sub-topic.  Move on to the next sub-topic and so forth.  The trick is to BEGIN.   
• If your professor does not provide a syllabus that is structured by topics and sub-topics, the general table of contents of the casebook can provide the structure.  Do not structure the outline by case briefs.
• Remember that your outline is your master document for exam studying and should provide the overview of the course, the inter-relationships of the material, and the essentials stressed by your professor.
• If at all possible, condense material BEFORE it goes into your outline.  Wholesale inclusion of every brief and every word in class results in overwhelming detail and obscuring the bigger picture of the course.
• Unless you are dealing with a major case, cases are likely to be mere illustrations of the rules, elements, factors, or policies that you need to know.
• Where appropriate, condense material by using graphics.  For visual learners, a picture is truly worth a thousand words.
• Avoid the shortcut of using another student's outline or a commercial outline instead of making your own.  You gain deeper understanding and greater retention by processing the material yourself.  Other outlines can be useful to suggest a format or to check completeness after you have finished your outline - but match your outline to your professor's course.         
• Set a deadline by the end of this next weekend to have your outlines caught up in all courses if possible, but at least in 3/4 of your courses.  Complete any other outlines by the end of the following week.
• Have a goal of outlining new material every week once your outlines are current.  You will not have to re-learn material to outline if you do it regularly and you can begin your exam review earlier.

Students often fail to understand that outlines left too late in the semester will make it impossible to learn and retain all of the information before the end of the semester.  And, the longer students wait to begin their outlines, the more likely they are to be sidetracked by papers or projects that seem more pressing.  (Amy Jarmon)

Report from the Fall 2008 LSAC Bar Preparation Workshop

I have just returned from the Fall 2008 LSAC Bar Preparation Workshop held at Southwestern Law School in L.A, California. It was a wonderful affair, and HUGE thanks go out to Paul Bateman from Southwestern, Kent Lollis from LSAC, and the planning committee for doing a great job putting together the conference. 

As is my usual fashion, here are the highlights. My apologies in advance if I miss some presenters; I am feeling a bit jet-lagged:

Catherine Carpenter (Southwestern) and Rod Fong (Golden Gate) kicked off the conference with discussions on the history and implementation of 301-6. This was informative and helpful to all of us as we work to find ways to meet the requirements of the new standards.

The following morning started with the inimitable Mike Schwartz on what happens in the first year of law school shouldn't stay in the first year. Mike's presentation was really a theme that ran throughout all the presentations; if we build a secure foundation for learning the first year, bar preparation and support become a much easier task during the third year of law school and beyond.  A secure foundation includes more than just great teaching of the first year/MBE subjects; a secure foundation encompasses autonomy support, life management skills, and the ability to find and use the resources offered by the school. 

New this year was the extended-commerical format before breakout sessions. Many of us who attended the LSAC workshops in the past have felt like we had to chose blindly between several great workshops.  This year, the planning committee adopted an extended-commerial format, where the leaders of the breakout sessions were asked as a panel to give brief blurbs on what they were doing in their session.  This was a great change to the program and much appreciated by those of us in attendance. 

The next set of presenters, Lisa Lukasik of UNC Law, Jan Jemison of Hastings, and myself, of Vermont Law, presented on advising, counseling, and conferencing before, during, and after bar results.  I started off on how to introduce the bar exam during pre-orientation and orientation for 1L's, Lisa did a fabulous job presenting on programs for 3L's and bar takers, and Jan gave a wonderful overview of how the LEOP program supports non-passers after bar results are released.  Lisa has some really awesome resources for working with students who have anxiety or stress before exams. 

Laurie Zimet was the new presenter on upgrading learning strategies to meet the challenges of the bar. Laurie, as always, demonstrated some fabulous active learning techniques that reminded us all that the skills students should master for law school exams are remarkably similar to the skills students need to master the bar exam. 

I was only able to attend two of the three breakouts sessions that followed, but I received rave reports   about the session I did not attend.  Ben Bratman (Pitt) presented on the MEE/Essay portion of the exam; I was not able to attend that breakout, but I heard great things about his lesson. Pavel Wonsowicz (UCLA) presented on how the MPT is the best friend of every bar student who takes the bar in an MPT jurisdiction.  Pavel was not only informative and gave us some strategies to take back to our students, but provided the comic relief we all needed after so much information being thrown at us.  Mary Basick (Whittier), a new member of our community, presented on the MBE. Mary was a knockout; I strongly recommend any school that is struggling with how to teach MCQ skills to bar takers to contact Mary. 

The last formal presentation of the workshop was Emmy Reeves (Richmond) and Paula Manning (Whittier) on the what and how of data collection and the program evaluation requirements under 301-6.  Both ladies are masters in the field of program evaluation and using the statistics to measure program outcomes.  All of us in the field have strong feelings about how statistics are collected and used to evaluate learning,  but the presentation steered away from the emotional aspects of data collection and focused on how to do what we must do in order to meet the requirements posed by 301-6.

If you are new to ASP and have not been able to make the LSAC workshops, ask your dean for the money to go. These are an invaluble to those of us who work in ASP, and great networking opportunities to get to know your peers who also work in the trenches.
(RCF)

Welcome ASP'er at U of Akron

We are delighted to welcome Katherine Silver Kelly as the Interim Director of Academic Success Programs at the University of Akron School of Law.  Your new colleagues in ASP will be more than happy to assist you in any way that we can as you settle in to your new position.  Everyone please introduce yourselves to Katherine when you see her ASP workshops.

Unfortunately, Katherine's photo has not been added to the U of Akron web site yet. Katherine provided us with some background information:

Katherine is an alumna of Berea College in Kentucky where she earned a B.A. in History, the University of Kentucky where she earned a M.A. in Social Science Education, and Converse College in South Carolina where she earned a certification in Special Education.  She earned her J.D. from the University of Akron School of Law in 2006 where she served as vice president of the Moot Court Honor Society and was a two-time member of the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Moot Court Team.  She also served as an ASP tutor, was the student member of the faculty curriculum committee, and was SBA vice-president.

After graduating with honors from law school, Katherine worked at the Summit County Court of common Pleas as a Judicial Attorney.  Prior to attending law school, Katherine was a high school teacher for several years.  She taught economics, government and world history at several schools in Houston, Texas.  She also served as an instructor for the Texas Education Association Teacher Cerification Program for special education certification and coached swimming.

Katherine is excited to be back at the University of Akron and about being Interim Director of ASP as it is the perfect blend of teaching and law.  You can link to her office web site at: University of Akron Academic Success Programs.  (Posted by Amy L. Jarmon on behalf of the Law School Academic Support Blog Editors)

 

Unexpected and recurrent challenges

It's been a hectic, wonderful start to the school year here at VLS.  Our students have had a brisk start, with many 1L's anxious to start their outlines and get rolling on preparing for exams. I have also had a brisk start. The new year means there are unexpected challenges that you could not predict or prepare for, as well as recurring challenges that require review and consideration.  My recurrent challenge for this year has been scheduling.  I need to find time to read, write, and renew my commitment to doing everything I can for my profession, but this often takes a back seat to student concerns.  Student concerns, especially the unexpected ones that pop up without warning signs, are the core of my job, but they can also overwhelm even experienced ASPers.  I started my year with a commitment to having office hours and taking student drop-ins on a critical or emergency basis.  That plan went out the window early in the semester. I am now back to taking students drop-ins when they drop-in, which is neither efficient for me or helpful for students who need to learn better calendaring habits.  Part of the problem lies in student expectations, part of the problem lies in faculty expectation, and a lot of the problem lies in my ability to bend the rules for just one student, who becomes 10-20 students by the end of the week.  Scheduling is a recurrent problem, and one that needs a new tack in order to fit in all my responsibilities. 
Unexpected challenges also come up at the start of the school year.  This year we are challenged to find notetakers for students with disabilities. Normally, this is an easy task--students get paid to do something they need to do anyway! But this year we have struggled to find notetakers in  a handful of classes. I have made personal appeals, emailed students, and appeared in classes, to no avail this far. I have confidence we will find the assistance we need, but this is an unexpected challenge that I have not encountered before. 
Even those of us with a few year sunder our belt encounter these challenges, not just ASPer's new to the profession. (RCF)

Welcome to new and visiting ASP'ers at New England School of Law

We are delighted to welcome Elizabeth Bloom as the new Assistant Director of the Academic Excellence Program at New England School of Law.  Elizabeth's background includes teaching experience in legal writing on a full-time basis at Northeastern as well as during her legal education at Georgetown Law.  Elizabeth also has litigation experience.  The accompanying photo of Elizabeth graces her faculty profile on the NESL web pages.    You can read Elizabeth's complete faculty profile on the NESL web pages at Professor Elizabeth Bloom

As we have mentioned before on these postings, ASP professionals are happy to assist new members of our profession.  Our doors (and e-mails and telephones) are open to you if we can provide any assistance as you settle in to your new position, Elizabeth.  Please make Elizabeth welcome when you meet her at a future workshop or conference!

We are also happy to announce that our well-known colleague, Robert Coulthard, has moved to Boston as a Visiting Assistant Professor at New England School of Law.  Many of us know Robert from his previous work with bar preparation at Oklahoma City University Law School and University of Missouri-Kansas City.    The photo of Robert is from his NESL faculty profile.  You can read Robert's faculty profile on the NESL web pages at Professor Robert Coulthard.  We shall all look forward to seeing you more at East Coast venues for ASP workshops and conferences, Robert!  (Posted by Amy Jarmon on behalf of the Law School Academic Support Blog Editors.)

New Director at University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law

We are delighted to welcome Christie I. Floyd as the new Director of Academic Support at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, located in Louisville, Kentucky.  Christie joined the administration at Brandeis School of Law this summer and will be a wonderful addition to the academic support profession.  Christie is pictured to the left.  Make sure that you greet her at the next ASP workshop or law school conference that you both attend!

ASP professionals are very big-hearted, Christie.  Let any of us know if there is any way that we can help you in your new endeavors. 

Christie kindly provided us with some biographical information so that you could find out some more about her:

Christie is a 2001 graduate of the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and while there, served as Editor-in-Chief of the Brandeis Law Journal.  Her Student Note, "Admissibility of Prior Acts Evidence in Sexual Assault and Child Molestation Cases in Kentucky: A Proposed Solution That Recognizes Cultural Context," 38 Brandeis L.J. 133, was published in 1999.  She was named Oustanding Graduate of 2001 by the National Women Lawyers' Association.

 

Since 2001 and prior to joining U of L, Christie practiced as an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney and Deputy Division Chief of the Commonwealth Attorney's Office Domestic Violence/Child Abuse Unit.  In that capapcity, she also served on the Kentucky Sex Offender Risk Assessment Advisory board and Kentucky Sex Offender Management Task Force.  Christie was instrumental in founding Kentucky's first child advocacy center in 1991 and has participated in numerous groups targeting legislative and policy changes in areas of domestic violence and child abuse.  She has also played a significant role in training new prosecutors and police officers. 

As the new Director of Academic Support, Christie Floyd hopes to broaden and enrich the level of academic support afforded students at the Univeristy of Louisville.  (Posted by Amy Jarmon on behalf of the Law School Academic Support Blog Editors.)

Questions to ask ourselves

I need to ask myself a series of questions this week "to take the pulse" of my office.  Hopefully, It will help me double-check what has been accomplished as well as what still needs to be done to improve the academic success program.  I find it is so easy to become focused on putting out fires during the first month of school that some essentials get delayed or overlooked if I do not pause to reflect on my checklist.

• Have I met all of the new faculty so that they know who I am and about my program?
• Have I met all of the new administrative staff so that they know who I am and about my program?
• Have I sent all faculty a list of the student workshop topics on academic success and dates for this semester?
• Has every student received a list of the workshop topics and dates as well?
• Have I drafted weekly listserv reminders for students that include focused reasons why the week's workshop topic might be of help?
• Have I updated my workshop packet materials and sent them to our photocopy shop?
• Have I met with all probation students and begun weekly appointments?
• Have I communicated with the Associate Dean of Academics about the status of probation student appointments?
• Have all of the administrative tasks for the 1L tutoring program been completed so that it is running smoothly?
• Have I sorted and finalized files of materials from Tutor training with suggestions for changes for the spring semester?
• Are there additional books that need to be ordered for the study aids library with the beginning of the new budget year - multiple copies for an existing book or new series?
• Have I remembered to include student suggestions for study aids in my ordering plan?
• Have I developed possible topics for my weekly study tips e-mails to students - and begun the series?
• Have I found time to circulate through the student lounge and cafeteria so that I can visit with returning law students and meet new law students?
• Have I developed enough training materials for my office work study students?
• Have I worked with our high school pipeline faculty on implementing on-going programs and initiating new programs for the semester?
• Am I up to date on university or community projects related to my office?
• Have I provided myself with professional development activities that will keep me motivated and updated?
• Have I written down new ideas for future semesters so that I shall not forget them?
• Have I sorted and finalized files of materials from our Summer Entry Program with suggestions for changes for next year?
• Have I reviewed the intranet and law school academic success web content recently for necessary updates?

There are still items to be completed on this list.  However, by capturing them on paper, I feel more secure that tasks will not fall through the cracks.  Of course, as for most of us, this list will be evolving as I remember more tasks or think of new projects.  (Amy Jarmon)

What I would like to see...in an ASP casebook

I was recently approached by a publishers rep and asked which textbook I use for my mandatory spring class.  I don't have a book for my spring class; I cobble together pieces of different books I like to create a text for my spring class. I always require Getting to Maybe, but it is really not enough for an entire graded course. Many of the books I love (Expert Learning, Reading Like a Lawyer) I use during the first semester of law school.   I need something more advanced that is tailored to the needs of second semester 1L's who are struggling after their first semester, and may or may not have used some of the great starting off right in law school texts. 

What I would like to see is a legal skills casebook.  The ed psych is pretty clear we need use the methods and lessons from the doctrinal or casebook classes to teach skills if we really want them to stick and transfer across classes and years.  If we are using the casebook and, to a lesser extent, the problem method, in their other classes, we should have a book with a similar format to help teach skills. I know this is a tough order. Using Charles Calleros and Mike Schwartz's ideas about using non-legal cases or problems to illustrate the types of problems these students are experiencing, the "cases" in the imagined skills casebook would be the type of problems that are holding them back from achieving their best. Asking students to collaborate to find possible solutions these cases or problems would teach them some of the skills they need, and would ask them to use the skills they need to succeed in class to resolve their own challenges.  While I am not a big fan of the socratic method, I do believe using cases and hypotheticals  involving students own problems in law school would help them see why we use the socratic method.  If they have to read a case or a problem in a casebook before class, and the skills professor is able to tweek the case and create hypotheticals about the problems that keep students from achieving their best.  We would be using the same methods as their other classes, but with cases and problems that teach students the skills necessary for success.

These are just my preliminary ideas about an imaginary casebook. There may be a book out there that I have not found yet that meets my needs. I read a great deal, but by no means I have read everything there is to read in the field.  My hope is that one day we will have a flexible curriculum based on best practices to help guide ASP, yet adaptable to the needs of individual students and the needs of individual institutions. (RCF)

We don't serve customers, we educate students

I have been seeing, and hearing, much about "customer service" lately. Customer service is important; it is what keeps people coming back to purchase products and services from retailers.  What really concerns me is the move towards "customer service" in law school.  We don't serve customers, we serve students.  We don't sell a product or a service, we educate people.  Law school isn't like a pair of shoes; you can't return it if it doesn't fit right or doesn't match a dress.  You can't "return" law school if it's not right. Our duty is just-in-time critical.  We only have one shot to get legal education right for each student, and sometimes that may produce discomfort.  We are not retailers; we do not mass-produce a product that can sit idly on store shelves until it it is purchased or thrown away.  Nor is education strictly a service; we build relationships, and if we do it right, we help people become a more actualized professional.  There isn't a metaphor that can accurately capture what education is, and customer service is certainly not the way to describe what we do. 

By focusing on "customer service", law schools are demeaning the students.  Our students are more than customers. I don't want them to come out of my office happy with their experience; I want them to come out of my office with the help they need to become better students and better people.  Sometimes that is one visit, but more often than not, it is a process that requires several visits. We work together to find ways to solve their problems.  Sometimes students should come out of my office less happy; fixing a problem is hard work, and that is not always what they want to hear. But I am not dispensing advice to make people happy, I am a support to help them through their law school career. 

"Customer service" also demeans the institution and the process.  I am not a telemarketer or a retail clerk.  Education is a calling.   If legal educators wanted to be in retail, they would not be working in law schools.   We are in the "business" of the public good.  We are not doing our jobs if we produce a static product that does not change or grow with the needs of the community. If we were just in it to keep our "customers" happy, we would all need to be paid a lot more.  But our satisfaction doesn't come from the money, but comes from knowing we help people, dynamic and ever changing, meet the needs of people in the community.

The "customer service" model contributes to the dehumanization of law students. This is what we should be working to ameliorate and end, not encourage.  People are not products.  Viewing them as a product we send out to be "sold" after three years of manufacture ignores their humanity, their individuality, and their unique gifts and talents. 

Customer service certainly doesn't help us promote professionalism. If we are just retailers, than it doesn't matter how they turn out, because we sold our product and we are done (unless they want to give us more money, of course).  But I do care how may students turn out. I care deeply about their lives and careers after they exit law school. My focus may be on their time as students, but as people, I want them to know education never ends. As lawyers, we have a duty to promote professionalism before, during, and after their time in our hallowed halls.  Professional quandaries aren't limited to exercises in a textbook. We are teaching people to answer tough questions that will challenge them throughout their careers. If students are just customers, we are failing to fulfill our responsibilities to our students and to the greater community.

I am hoping this "customer service" movement dies a quick death, soon.  I educate students, not customers. I serve the community, not just my students.  I have a duty higher, and more precious, than just producing a product for the marketplace. 
(RCF)