Law School Academic Support Blog

Academic and Bar Support Scholarship Spotlight

Lots of chatter about these two excellent pieces of ASP scholarship.

1.  Scott Johns (Denver), Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good, 45 Seattle Univ. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2022). 

From the abstract:

This Article challenges conventional stories told about the bar exam. Part I describes the background of the bar exam as currently used by most jurisdictions to include a hypothetical “Socratic” conversation as a prelude to understanding the bar exam and its impact on demography and the public good. Part II catalogues stories we tell to justify our recurrent resort to bar exams as the penultimate source of wisdom in making licensure decisions. Part III exposes fallacies behind many of these justifications. Part IV analyzes whether we might look to common law tort principles as a tool for exposing whether the bar exam, by producing recurrent well-known racial disparate impacts, might suffer from constitutional infirmity. Part V concludes with an exploration of some common-sense alternatives to the behemoth of the bar exam to better protect the public.

2.  Beth A. Brennan (Montana), Explicit Instruction in Legal Education: Boon or Spoon?, 52 U. Mem. L. Rev. 1 (2021):

From the abstract:

This Article examines explicit instruction as a pedagogical tool for legal educators. Part I examines cognitive psychological theories of thinking and learning to understand the differences between spoon-feeding and explicit instruction and explain why initial explicit instruction is useful. Part II delves into the cognitive differences between novices and experts that support initial explicit instruction. Part III examines experts’ cognitive barriers to effective teaching. Part IV provides examples of how explicit instruction can be used in the law school classroom.

The Article concludes that the time is ripe for the academy to bring explicit instruction out of the shadows, and to incorporate initial explicit instruction into legal education.

H/T:  Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog

(Posted by Louis Schulze, FIU Law)

Apples and Honey

Today is Rosh Hashannah. Rosh Hashannah, as you may know, is the Jewish New Year and a holiday of thankfulness and promise. One of the traditions of the holiday is to dip apples in honey to have a sweet new year. As we speak, I have honey cookie dough chilling, waiting to be baked and apples ready to be called into play on the counter. I think apples and honey are also a good analogy for Academic Support.[1]

Apples are often associated with teachers and we are --above anything else--teachers. Apples can mean wisdom and insight-think Sir Isaac Newton and his discoveries in physics all due to falling apples (or so the story goes). Academic Support people are also big thinkers and scholars-just look at the catalog of our collective work. Apples are also a sign of fall, like your friendly neighborhood ASP professional teaching at orientation. We are versatile and come in many varieties as well.  We work well alone or with other ingredients.

However, we are also like the honey. We work incredibly hard (like bees) to make things a little sweeter for the people around us. We work together like a hive. We cooperate and collaborate to make structures that provide comfort to our students. In fact, as academics go, I think we are the most generous and willing to share. We do not hold back. And yet, like bees, sometimes we are not adequately valued.

So, to all of you who celebrate-and those of you who don’t-I wish you a sweet year ahead in every part of your personal and professional life.

Shana Tova. Happy 5783!!

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] Just a warning that I will let this analogy play out beyond its logical conclusion.

Assistant Professor of Law in Academic and Bar Success at Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial University is searching for an Assistant Professor of Law in Academic and Bar Success. This position could start as early as Jan 1, 2023, but no later than July 1, 2023. 

LMU Law is a wonderful place to work with incredible students, collaborative faculty, and supportive administrators. While this is a 12-month contract position, the person hired will get every other summer off from teaching. Also, it is worth noting that this is a faculty position.
 
If you have questions, you may also contact the Faculty Recruitment Chair, Stevie Swanson, at [email protected].

A Possible Exercise in Interpretation

I heard a recent joke that goes something like this, in a conversation between an insurance agent and the insured homeowner:

• Agent: Hello.
• Insured: Hi.  I'd like to report a theft from my house.
• Agent: I'm so sorry to hear the news.  Let me take a look at your policy.
• [pause]
• Agent: Okay, tell me more.  Did your house also catch on fire?
• Insured: Oh, no.  Just a theft.
• Agent: Well, in that case, I'm so sorry.  You're not covered.
• Insured: What do you mean I'm not covered? My policy says right here that it is fire and theft protection.
• Agent: Well, that's precisely right.  You see, you bought fire and theft protection, not fire or theft protection.  So, since you didn't also have a fire, you aren't covered.  It's as clear as day.

All kidding aside, contracts are often like that, as is much of law.  

So, as you study cases, statutes, and other legal materials, pay attention to the writing, the terms, and the connectors.  Be curious.  Think outside the box.  Be on the lookout for ambiguities in the text because that's the heart of lawyering, precision.  Parse the words, particularly criminal statutes.  And, if you seen ambiguities, try to clear them up.  And, don't forget to do the same on midterm exams and practice exams.  That's because it's in the ambiguities in which the points are most heavily concentrated.  And if you'd like more advice and exercise in how to become better at reading, check on Prof. Jane Griese's book on Critical Reading for Law School Success.  It's the book that I wished I had had in law school. (SJ).

Grief that is old enough to drink....

The attacks of 9/11/2001 were twenty-one years ago.

I probably have students who were born in 2001. I probably also have students (my undergraduates) who were not yet born when the events of 9/11 unfolded. I can tell you that I was standing in the hallway of my law school building looking up at multiple TV screens, watching planes crash into buildings over and over on a seemingly endless and tragic loop, some slightly out of sync-all against the backdrop of the bluest September sky. Thousands died that day, and what was most terrifying about it was that we didn’t think it could ever happen. It never dawned on us that we would be targeted this way. Were we blindsided because of optimism, privilege, pride? Possibly all, or none, of these things. Nonetheless, we were stunned.

Twenty-one years later, where are we? Sure, there are new buildings where the World Trade Center stood, but we have never been the same: we do not fly on airplanes or trust people as we did on 9/10/2001. But 9/11 also sent the fight against racial profiling back at least 30 years. We might be almost back to our 9/10 senses at this point, but that wasn’t a great place either. The Patriot Act seemed to allow law enforcement to do things that had been, at least on 9/10, held illegal. The immigration implications of 9/11 are still clearly visible in calls for bans and walls. Fear and anger are never good starting points for sweeping legislation. The desire to return to when things seemed “better” isn’t actually a plan for governance.

I look at the recent decision in Dobbs[1], and I wonder, is this also a sentimental journey back to when we, as Americans, thought we had more control?  In 21 years, will we be getting close to recapturing the rights we held in 1973?

Or will we have another moment where we realize that the grief is now old enough to drink?

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf

Assistant Dean of ASP at Baylor

Assistant Dean/Academic Support Program

Baylor Law will be interviewing to fill a full-time, non-tenure-track lecture position.  The selected individual will hold the title of Assistant Dean/Academic Support and will have the opportunity to lead in further significant development of Baylor Law’s formal program for academic support.  This individual will work closely with members of the Law School leadership, staff, and faculty to envision, design, manage, and implement programming to support the school’s educational, training, and professional development goals for its students. The Director will draw on experience, research, and national best practices to develop and coordinate programming to support teaching and learning at Baylor Law.

Core Responsibilities:

• In collaboration with the faculty, develop, and implement cohesive and comprehensive programming to help transition students into the law school learning environment and to promote their academic success through graduation and bar exam passage.
• Research and implement the most current best practices for fostering academic success skills and bar exam success.
• Develop data-driven mechanisms for evaluating the academic success of students and program goals.
• Regularly review Baylor Law’s academic and bar support program and make recommendations to the faculty to enhance the educational experience for students.
• Teach in the Academic Success Program.
• Attend and participate in faculty meetings as requested.
• Serve on faculty and staff committees that seek to advance the goals of Baylor Law and the Academic Success Program.
• Supervise academic support staff.

Qualifications

• J.D. from an ABA-approved law school; strong law school and undergraduate academic credentials.
• Admitted to the bar in at least one jurisdiction.
• At least two years working as a practicing attorney in any field.
• At least two years of prior law school teaching experience in or related to academic support or bar preparation is preferred.
• Superior written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills.
• An understanding of the dynamics of diversity and accessibility (including first-generation college graduates) in legal education and a demonstrated ability to incorporate this understanding into one’s work.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with a diverse population of students, faculty, staff, and administrators.
• Excellent organization and time-management skills.
• Excellent critical thinking and listening skills.
• Knowledge of advising, coaching, and counseling techniques.
• Flexibility to work in the evenings, and sometimes on weekends.
• Experience working with statistics and data is a plus.
• Prior successful experience directing, or serving as an associate director, of an academic support or bar preparation program is a plus.

Assistant Director of Academic Success at Chicago Kent

Chicago-Kent is looking to hire an Assistant Director of Academic Success.  You can find the job description online here: https://iit7.peopleadmin.com/postings/8699

 

Reporting to the Director of Academic and Bar Success, and working with other student affairs personnel, the Assistant Director will be responsible for implementing the law school’s academic success program, including working closely with faculty and administration to maximize student learning and achievement in law school and on the bar exam. The Assistant Director supports the Academic and Bar success department to train law students for the rigor of law school, the bar exam and practice through academic workshops and individual advising. The Assistant Director will develop, enhance, and implement academic support programming; work with other student affairs personnel to provide academic counseling throughout law school; and present workshops related to academic and law-specific skill development (as needed). Additionally, the Assistant Director will support the academic needs of students in the Legal Writing program.

Impervious to Facts

"Too often facts around me change, but my mind doesn't.  Impervious to new information, I function like a navigation system that has missed a turn but won't re-route,"  writes attorney Mike Kerrigan in a story about "A Sweet Lesson From Pie," WSJ (Sep. 8, 2022).

I suspect that is true of most of us.  But why?  In my own case, my stubborn mind clings to the facts as I know them because, to admit that facts have changed and a new course of "navigation" is required is in someways to admit that I'm a human being, frail in more ways that I wish to admit.

I think that is especially a challenge in legal education and for bar exam authorities.  We cling to the past because that's all we know and, to be frank, sometimes all we want to know.

Take legal education.  We know that learning requires much from our students and from us.  But many of our classes go on despite the new facts that have emerged from the learning sciences. Louis N. Jr. Schulze, Using Science to Build Better Learners: One School's Successful Efforts to Raise Its Bar Passage Rates in an Era of Decline, 68 J. Legal Educ. 230 (2019)., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2960192

Take the bar exam.  The best available data suggests that there is a dearth of evidence to support a relationship between bar exam scores and competency to practice law.  Yet we cling to the past. Putting the Bar Exam on Constitutional Notice: Cut Scores, Race & Ethnicity, and the Public Good (August 31, 2022). Forthcoming, Seattle University Law Review, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2022, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4205899

I've made lots of wrong turns in my career, my work, and in my life.  To keep on going in the wrong way gets me no closer to where I should be going.  So let's give ourselves and each other the freedom to be changed, the freedom to travel a new path, the freedom to, in short, be curious, creative, and courageous about our work in legal education, on the bar exam, and in life in general.  (Scott Johns).

 

Alarming Information on Challenging Students

If you talk to older faculty members, you will inevitably hear about "kids nowadays".  Their inability to read or write complete sentences.  I don't agree with that sentiment.  However, a recent article in Education Weekly indicates the pandemic may have exacerbated problems with some populations access to challenging assignments.  Over the past few years, kids may not have been challenged as much as before, so their skills may be lagging behind.  I believe that may have happened in law school classrooms as well.  The expectations changed to merely survive under the circumstances.  That approach was warranted, but we need to now increase expectations in a way that stays within desirable difficulties while improving student performance.  I find that balance difficult.  Looking to other areas of education may help in that process.  

Good luck to everyone in the new year.

Here is the link to the Education Weekly article:  https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/some-students-are-routinely-denied-challenging-work-the-pandemic-made-that-worse/2022/08?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=eml&utm_campaign=cm&M=4913724&UUID=7029b5431a7e3a2a604b5704b1ce9ce6&T=6663472

(Steven Foster)

A Soothing Approach to Calming the Nerves

Many law schools have been at it for a few weeks and, at our law school, some of our student are having their first midterms exams, right after Labor Day. What a shock!  

If you find one of your students (or yourself) already fatigued and stressed by the many tugs and pulls that constitute the first few weeks of law school, you are not alone.  I too can't seem to find a quite space for my mind, which seems to ramble and ruminate all day long.  

That's why I am personally excited to share this little article:   Elizabeth Berstein, "The Underrated Therapy for Anxiety and Stress: Water It gives our brain a break from the intense, focused attention that much of daily life requires." WSJ (8.23.22).      If I understand the research correctly, just a little bit of going often, sitting by even a trickle of a stream or perhaps a campus water fountain or pond, and listening and watching, can quiet our minds, calm our spirits, and help us appreciate a little bit of the awe of the experience of being present in something that seems to move so effortlessly.  That's a richness that money cannot buy.  

So feel free to put away the headphones and go out and experience nature's wonders, wherever they lie.  Right now, as I write, I see snow-glaciated mountains in the distant despite this hot close-to-ninety degree day.  They tower so high and yet seem to float so majestically on the horizon.  Well, it's time for me to stop writing and to start staring out the window, appreciating the beauty that abounds.  Oh, and I almost forgot.  I think it is A-okay to let your mind wander a bit, to let your students take a moment in the midst of class to look out the windows to see something that's always been there but never been seen, to be still and quiet and present.  That's a true gift.  (Scott Johns).

http://pixabay.com (free photo download)

 

 

Thoughts from the Recent Past

I sometimes look through SSRN for articles from the past to help me better see the present and what might work best for the future for our students.  That being said, I am often troubled in pursuing past research because so little action has tended to take place in consequence of the revelation that people shared so publicly and wisely with us in the past.  I think that's true in academic support and bar passage.  A not-so-long-ago article from 2004 makes the point, I think. Day, Christian C., Law Schools Can Defeat Our Bar Pass Problem - Do the Work!. California Western Law Review, Vol. 40, p. 321, 2004, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=563923

In brief, Prof. Day's thesis is that it's largely up to us, as legal educators, to think, strategize, organize, and implement educational experiences that best help our students enter the professor as attorneys.  And, if I may add, I think it is up to see as legal educators to challenge the status quo story about the bar exam as a neutral non-biased arbiter of competency to practice law.  

First, let me start with Prof. Day's suggestions as to how law school educators might better tackle bar issues (and I quote):

• The dean and the faculty should lead the battle.
• Recognize and support students who learn differently.
• Recognize that the law does not come easily for most. Professors must teach students to see what professors may have seen almost intuitively.
• Law schools can prepare students for the bar by teaching them the law.
• Law schools should encourage students to take "bar courses" for a grade and be prepared to counsel them if their work is poor in these courses.
• Law professors should concentrate on creating relevant essay exams and not create multiple choice questions too prepare students for the bar.
• Law schools should identify and assist students who come to law school with bad study habits learned in hight school an d college.
• Law schools must produce better legal writers by improving essay exam writing.
• Law schools must give students better feedback regarding their performance.
• Law schools should stress the importance of the bar exam to students.
• Law schools should advise students to get their financial and personal lives in order to pass the bar.
• Law schools should counsel graduates who failed the bar and offer recommendations to improve their chances.
• Law schools should keep detailed statistics to pinpoint students at risk.
• Law schools must "bit the bullet" with their retention policies.
• Law schools should create and maintain strong academic support offices.
• Law schools can offer special, non-credit, bar prep courses.
• Law schools should limit or phase-out take-home and open-book exams.
• Schools might consider grading on the curve.
• Law schools should crate more small sections in basic courses.
• Law schools may have to reduce some of their offerings in order to make certain their students are grasping the basis.
• Schools should eliminate "Pass/Fail" grades except in the most limited circumstances.
• Last, but not the least reinstate and enforce attendance policies.  Id.

I'm sure that there's not agreement as to all of these suggestions; they are, after all, just suggestions.  But from the high altitude view it seems to me that Prof. Day challenges us as legal educators to take seriously our role in training students for holding licenses as legal practitioners.  That's a high calling.

Second, as legal educators, I believe that we have an obligation to understand, analyze, and to improve the educational experiences of our students and to challenge the status quo.  I'm sort of a radical, as some of my prior writing might suggestion. https://papers.ssrn.com/  When authorities make claims, I doubt.  That's why I appreciated a very recent article challenging the story that the bar exam is a neutral instrument. DeVito, Scott and Hample, Kelsey and Lain, Erin, Examining the Bar Exam: An Empirical Analysis of Racial Bias in the Uniform Bar Examination (January 26, 2022). University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4018386

I'll let you dig into the details but pay particular attention to the appendix because that's a particularly glaring spotlight on the lack of transparency about the relationship between the bar exam and race & ethnicity.  In brief, the appendix surveys publicly available data from 56 jurisdictions (the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and the 5 territories) and only one jurisdiction routinely provides data regarding bar exam results and race.  That state is California.  That seems revealing to me.  It's as though there's no problem because we don't report a problem.  Yet, the thrust of the article, convincingly to me, is that the authors took the time to put in the "elbow grease" to analyze the limited data available and what they learned is not good at all.  Take a close read at that article.  It too is well worth your time.

All in all, these two articles, among many others, suggest that we ought not be silent.  That we have obligations to question, to speak up, to debate, to analyze, to understand, and to advocate.  In short, we have a high calling as academic support professions.  A very high calling indeed.  And one in which all of our voices are needed.  (Scott Johns, Denver Law).