Law School Academic Support Blog

Track Work

The “spring” semester is underway here at my school. I say “spring” because anyone who has ever been in Boston in January knows that green leaves, blue skies, and dry sidewalks are a long way off. Recently, I took an involuntary month-long vacation from my normal commute. The train that I have taken to work for many years was shut down for almost all of January for track work. Not running at all. Not going inbound or outbound. Not moving under or over ground-just not at all. So, I had to change my usual routine and take a bus to a different train line and then walk a different route to the law school. As I joked with a Bar Prep buddy, my commute went from an MEE to an MPT in terms of timing. But after four weeks of this new daily odyssey, I suppose I got used to it[1].

Today, I was finally able to take my normal route into work. I thought it would be glorious, but after a month of doing it differently, it was strange and even a little awkward[2]. Even going back to something that is very familiar is still a transition. I might even miss some of the small joys I found in the “new normal.”[3] I thought that this must be how our students feel after taking a month long break from law school and then starting up-except in reverse. I am sure a month away from school with no reading or papers or exams was lovely.

Now that we have started up again, I have been meeting with 1Ls over these past weeks. I am mainly seeing students who did not do as well on exams as they (or we) had hoped. We have spent time trying to determine the reason why things went awry during exams and try to start better habits in the place of the methods that were not effective. Yet, the abrupt jolt back into law school after a month off is not something we have discussed or given much thought.  Even if this is familiar, it is still a transition. And, to make things worse, I am asking students to try different routes to success just when they thought they knew the way after surviving the fall. It is a lot to ask all at once (with the additional stress of non-stellar grades looming).

I think articulating that I am making a big ask at a stressful time might go a long way to developing an honest relationship with students moving forward. I do them no favors by just saying, “it’ll be fine.” I can assure students that there is great relief in plotting a course and making a plan to move forward. I cannot make the train run before the track work is done, but I can help them navigate this detour.

Hopefully, they will extend the same understanding to me when I am cranky that my train is out of service again in late February to early March.

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] Well, most of it. I did see a fistfight on the bus that was a bit rattling and intense. Physical violence in a small moving space is not something I’d like to grow accustomed to….

[2] Although back to MEE commute times which was glorious indeed.

[3] It was faster train, there were more coffee options on the walk from the station to the law school, and I could walk through Primark on the way in or out if I needed anything….

Go have a little fun!

It’s the third week of spring classes here in Idaho. Grades from the fall term were released and exam reviews are underway. A few students are feeling elated with their fall performance. The majority (even those who did well) are experiencing disappointment. Emails are going out to students from all directions with words of encouragement and tips for what to do next.

When I think back to my best and worst semesters of law school, I can’t remember the grades earned. I can remember the key ingredient that made the difference: fun. I worked hard, yes. I remained diligent and met all deadlines. But when my head was swimming with legal theory, or I had simply finished my workday in the library, I went and had fun. That’s right, I actually spent time doing things I enjoy with the people I love – as a law student!

The bad semesters, the ones full of stress and anxiety, were full of wasted time and wasted opportunities for fun. I should get ahead on my reading. I don’t have time for the things I like to do. I can’t meet you for dinner because I’m sitting here looking at my books (not reading, looking at). When I gave myself permission to create more balance in my life and schedule, my work was more efficient, I felt happier, and I learned more.

We spend a lot of time talking about wellness in law school. I love meditating. I love thinking about ways to optimize my wellness. I also think we forget that having fun is a big part of being well. So, let’s all commit to blocking off some time for hobbies, time with family and friends, and doing something for the sake of fun. It’s good for us.

(Ashley Cetnar)

Academic and Bar Support Scholarship Spotlight

This week in scholarship.

1. Benjamin Afton Cavanaugh (St. Mary's), The Next Generation Professional: An Opportunity to Reframe Legal Education to Center Student Wellness, 51 Hofstra L. Rev. 775 (2023).  

From the introduction:

Legal education has a serious design problem. The current rigorous design of legal education breeds depression, imposter syndrome, anxiety, and problems with substance abuse. The outcome of these issues is that too many graduates are not ready “for effective, ethical, and responsible participation as members of the legal profession” because their mental well-being is at an all-time low following graduation and preparation for the bar exam. Law schools across the nation need to undertake a self-evaluation of how to marry the rigor needed to prepare their students for law practice with the necessity of ensuring graduates leave the academic world with a strong sense of themselves as legal professionals and in a healthy state of mental wellness. This self-evaluation starts with being honest about how far programs geared at wellness can really go in resolving the impact the design of law school has on students....

Part II of this Article discusses the design of legal education as a disease that law schools have largely focused on treating the symptoms of rather than doing the hard work of identifying the disease and seeking to cure it. Though the problems with legal education have long been discussed, this Article calls into questions the practice of treating the symptoms rather than addressing the problems head on. Part III examines two change agents—the American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) revisions to Standard 303 and the NextGen Bar Exam—as the drivers to finally identify the diseased aspects of the legal curriculum design and make changes with these looming shifts in mind. Part IV presents an approach to evaluating and changing the first-year law school curriculum that centers student wellness. It lays out a path for law schools to adopt changes to the system of legal education that would shift the focus from treating symptoms of a bad design to resolving the bad design itself. Every law school has different considerations for their student population, a different mission, and different driving goals that should factor into such decisions. The purpose of this Article is not to suggest the method described is the only way forward, but to demonstrate how student wellness can be a core consideration in curriculum design. Thus, Part IV posits that the focus on molding law students for practice should rely on building well-being into the curriculum design rather than putting the onus totally on students to incorporate well-being into their professional identity formation.

2.  DeVito, Scott (Jacksonville), The Kids Are Definitely Not All Right: An Empirical Study Establishing a Statistically Significant Negative Relationship Between Receiving Accommodations in Law School and Passing the Bar Exam, 102 Oregon L. Rev. 1 (2023).

From the abstract:

Many factors can influence whether a person passes the bar examination on their first attempt. One factor that should not is whether that person has a “disability” that would mandate reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. Unfortunately, before the publication of this Article, there has been no publicly available data that could be used to assess the relationship between receiving accommodations and passing the bar examination. To begin to remedy this absence of data, the author filed public records requests with sixty public law schools seeking information as to the number of students accommodated by each law school for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021. This data was then analyzed to see whether the percentage of accommodated students at a law school was correlated with bar passage rates. This analysis shows that there is a statistically significant negative relationship between the percentage of a law school’s student body who received accommodations and the school’s bar pass rate (controlling for other relevant factors). In other words, the more accommodated students a school has, the lower its bar passage rate will be.

[Posted by:  Louis Schulze, FIU Law]

 

 

Director of Bar Success at Emory

Emory University School of Law seeks applicants for a full-time contract faculty position focused on bar examination success. This twelve-month, faculty member/administrator will work closely with the Associate Dean, faculty, and administration to develop and implement programs to provide substantive review and teach skills required for optimal performance on law school and bar examinations. 

Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Contributing to the development and teaching of a third-year bar preparatory course and a skills-focused “laboratory” component to a second semester, first-year course. 
• Working collaboratively with the administration to enhance instruction at orientation and throughout law school on skills, time management, professional expectations, and the like.
• Working collaboratively with the faculty to create and implement bar success strategies.
• Providing mentoring for graduates as they prepare for the bar examination.
• Assisting with compilation and analysis of bar examination data and recommending changes to address weaknesses.
• Providing information and mentoring on the bar application process. 
• Providing individual feedback and assessment to help students improve academic performance, study skills, and bar exam preparation.

Minimum requirements include a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school and an outstanding academic record. Professional experience in bar readiness or academic success programming in a law school with a strong preference for teaching experience in bar examination courses. Applicants preferably should have familiarity with the Uniform Bar Examination and the NextGen Bar Examination, with a demonstrated skill in initiating and maintaining engagement with a diverse group of students.

This is a temporary, one-year contract faculty position with the possibility of renewal beginning on August 1, 2024 and ending on July 31, 2025.  The position is coded as "Instructor" within Emory University systems.  Candidates who are currently contract faculty members of Emory Law may be considered and, if selected as the finalist, will be granted a one-year leave from their contract position (with tolling of their review requirement) in order to perform the duties of this position. 

To Apply

Candidates should complete the online application which requires creating an account, uploading a resume or CV, and providing basic personal information. In addition, applicants should submit a cover letter, a current CV, writing sample, and teaching evaluations (if available) to [email protected]. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis with a first review on January 29, 2024. 

Diving into Spring...

I spent yesterday at a collegiate swim meet. It was indoors for those of you wondering just how crazy we are in Massachusetts (not quite there yet). I sat with an alum of my son’s team, and as a relative newbie (he’s a freshman), I asked a lot of questions about the etiquette and process of this kind of competition. My son is a walk-on to the team (maybe a dive-in?), and he didn’t swim in high school, so my knowledge of swim meet procedure fossilized somewhere in late middle school. My alum guide was very patient with me (she is planning a demeanor-appropriate career in clinical psychology).

As much as I was excited to see my son (he’s my youngest and college has hit me hard), swim meets are not the most pleasant spectator sport. First of all, it is hot-and humid--I could hear my hair frizzing, the “seats” in the viewing gallery are hard (and without backs), and it is incredibly loud in a space that seems intended to warp and amplify sound. Having spent time underwater in my lifetime, I was surprised at the way coaches were cheering for their swimmers although it seemed like the swimmers would be unable to hear them (as their ears were mostly in the water) or see them (as they had to look straight ahead or at the ceiling for the back strokers). I asked my kind college swim meet guru who was in that position just a few years back if the swimmers could even hear the cheering. She confirmed that you really couldn’t hear it, nor could you really see the folks on the side of the pool jumping up and down and urging you to go faster.

But, every single person on the side or end of the pool was either a current swimmer or coach (who has no doubt had competitive swimming experience) and thus must have known that the swimmers couldn’t hear or see them. To me, this is almost the team sport definition of altruism: cheering for someone who couldn’t see or hear you just because they are your teammate. It is true that everyone wanted to win the swim meet, but each individual swim was neither victory nor loss defining.

In a way, Academic Support folks are the coaches on the side of the pool. As students start to come see us (or are asked to see us) with their fall grades, we will review their performance and coach them on their form, their entry, their turns, their methods between exams (meets), and their finishes.  We will tell them that grades are not defining (and they might not believe us, and they are, sadly, somewhat right about that).

First, we will consider entry. We will go back to beginning of how students handled the competing tasks of the semester and look for cleaner and more efficient ways for them to get into the material. Then we will look at the course of the semester in terms of study methods, outlining, juggling responsibilities, and time (and resource) management. Finally, we will discuss how to push to the finish. We will work towards personal records rather than pure wins.

Getting students to understand that you are on their team in helping them succeed is pivotal in this process. Like college athletes, our students may have had other coaches who taught them differently; or may have been told that they have natural talents that will propel them through challenges. Some students will blame outside circumstances for poor grades-and while this may be true in some circumstances[1]- it is often not  a helpful mindset. Students need to see that there are things that they can control that can be tweaked (or entirely overhauled) in order to perform better. Pools may have warmer or colder water than where you practice, but you can be ready for these issues if you prepare. The issues students have can be input issues like reading, outlining, engagement in class; or output issues like exam writing or multiple choice methods. And we need to remind them that they valuable members of our community/team. Everyone in law school belongs on the team and (this one is not easy to see) we all win when we do our personal best.

In the meantime, I’ll be sweaty and frizzy and yelling my support to all the students who were hoping for better grades whether they see me or not. 

(Liz Stillman)

 

[1] Family emergencies, medical emergencies, mental health, financial issues, disruptions during the exam, and many other things happen-and they can change exam outcomes. However, it is very unlikely, especially in a school (like ours) that uses blind exam grading, that personal animus or even annoyance on the part of faculty is a factor in a final grade.