We Don’t Need No (Legal) Education? Foundational Questions for the Future of a Discipline
Thursday Session 1
8:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m
Roundtable Session Room: Maple West
Chair(s): David Sandomierski, Osgoode Hall Law School
Participant(s): Faisal Bhabha, Osgoode Hall Law School
Kate Glover, Western University Faculty of Law
Thomas McMorrow, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Anna Su, University of Toronto
Description: This panel brings together a series of researchers and participants from a wide range of sites of legal education to stimulate a conversation about foundational questions. What is the purpose of legal education, and how does this purpose differ across different venues and modes? Given these various ends, what means for improving and attaining these ends are most appropriate? To expand the breadth of the conversation beyond the conventional discourse, this roundtable by design includes participants and researchers deploying diverse methodological approaches (theoretical, empirical, case-based, and ethnographic) to investigating the phenomenon of legal education in a diverse range of sites, including law school classrooms, clinical legal education, undergraduate legal education, public legal education, and graduate studies.
Primary Keyword: Legal Education, Legal Education Reform, and Law Students
Secondary Keyword: Legal Culture, Legal Consciousness, Comparative Legal Cultures
Legal Education and the Legal Profession in Realist/ Empirical Perspectives
Thursday Session 2, 10:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Paper Session
Room: Parlour Suite 7
Description:
A new generation of empirical researchers studying legal education and profession is emerging both within the law-and-society community and within the legal academy. In 2018, the American Association of Law Schools started a new section entirely devoted to empirical research on legal education and the legal profession. Within the Law & Society Association, younger scholars are starting a CRN devoted to research on legal education. The papers in this panel are testament to the fresh perspectives and questions this new generation are bringing to these time-honored topics. Panelists question the nature of interdisciplinarity itself, asking, for example, what place interdisciplinary research on legal education has within the broader umbrella of legal research performed by members of the legal academy. Along with this fruitful questioning come some constructive ideas for shifting interdisciplinary and trans-national exchanges, in keeping with the new legal realist goal of moving beyond critique. Is there a way, for example, to move those involved in rule-of-law projects to take better account of local contexts? Should scholarly movements that study law eschew politics and policy orientations? (Can they?) As U.S. law schools are pushed to produce students that are “practice ready,” how can or should empirical research on practice be deployed to help them address this issue in more realistic ways? In general, how can both qualitative and quantitative research inform legal training and education?
Presentations:
Middletown USA: A Qualitative Study of Solo and Small Firm Practice
Andrij Kowalsky, York University
Research at the Crossroads of Law and Education: A Taxonomy of Legal Education Research
Melissa Castan, Law Faculty, Monash University
Kate Galloway, Bond University
Alex Steel, University of New South Wales
The Problems of Policy-Oriented Research in Law Schools: A Comparative and Historical Perspective
Yannick Ganne, Université de Strasbourg
Transnational Legal Ordering: Education, Rights, Courts, Political Actors, and Social Legitimacy
Thursday Session 2, 10:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Paper Session
Room: Chestnut West
Description: Papers address transnational flows of students; rights protections and judicial networks; the concept of vulnerability in international institutions; the legitimacy of judges in post-conflict situations; political actors and private law conventions; and transparency of EU regulatory authorizations.
Primary Keyword: Transnational Legal Orders, Transnational Law
Secondary Keyword: Legal Culture, Legal Consciousness, Comparative Legal Cultures
Presentations:
Political Actors and the Ratification of international Private Law Conventions
Johanna Hoekstra, University of Greenwich
Social legitimacy of judges in times of transition: the case of the Colombian Tribunal for Peace.
Santiago Pardo, Stanford Law School
Sticky Floors, Springboards, Stairways & Slow Escalators Mobility Pathways and Preferences of International Students in U.S. Law Schools
Carole Silver, Northwestern University Law School
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, New York Univ. Abu Dhabi
The Protection of Fundamental Rights in Europe: A Structured Network of National, Supranational, and International Courts
Michael Tolley, Northeastern University
Vulnerability in the Context of the Accountability of International Institutions: a Useful Concept or a New Empty Buzzword?
Marjolein Schaap – Rubio Imbers, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Judges’ Perspectives on Judicial Education (in Collaboration with the National Judicial Institute of Canada)
CRN: 43 Thursday Session 4, 2:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m
Code: Roundtable Session
Room: Civic Ballroom N.
Chair(s): Tania Sourdin, University of Newcastle
Discussant(s): Toby Goldbach, University of British Columbia Allard School of Law
Participant(s): Honorable Kevin Burke, Minnesota District Court, 4th Judicial District, Hennepin County
Jeremy Fogel, Federal Judicial Center
Adèle Kent, National Judicial Institute
Marcia Turri, Federal Justice – Brazil
Description: Judges worldwide are faced with new challenges and opportunities. Some of these include the growing number of parties appearing in courts without legal representation, the movement to incorporate dispute and conflict resolution processes in judging practices, and the public desire for more responsiveness, transparency, and accountability on the part of the judiciary. This panel will discuss how judicial education and training programs are meeting the needs of judges today as they respond to these trends.
Primary Keyword: Judges and Judging
Secondary Keyword: Courts, Trials, Litigation, and Civil Procedure
Judges’ Perspectives on Judicial Education – continued (in collaboration with the National Judicial Institute of Canada)
CRN: 43 Thursday Session 5, 4:45 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Roundtable Session
Chair(s): Tania Sourdin, University of Newcastle
Discussant(s): Toby Goldbach, University of British Columbia Allard School of Law
Participant(s): Honorable Kevin Burke, Minnesota District Court, 4th Judicial District, Hennepin County
Jeremy Fogel, Federal Judicial Center
Adèle Kent, National Judicial Institute
Marcia Turri, Federal Justice – Brazil
Description: Judges worldwide are faced with new challenges and opportunities. Some of these include the growing number of parties appearing in courts without legal representation, the movement to incorporate dispute and conflict resolution processes in judging practices, and the public desire for more responsiveness, transparency, and accountability on the part of the judiciary. This panel will discuss how judicial education and training programs are meeting the needs of judges today as they respond to these trends. This session is a continuation of the discussion.
Primary Keyword: Judges and Judging
Secondary Keyword: Courts, Trials, Litigation, and Civil Procedure
Global Legal Education: Contemporary and Comparative Perspectives
Thursday Session 5, 4:45 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Roundtable Session
Room: Chestnut East
Chair(s): Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, New York University, Abu Dhabi
Participant(s): Bryant Garth, UC Irvine
Carole Silver, Northwestern University Law School
Description:
Global research supplements and enriches perennial debates as to the meaning, limits, and opportunities for legal education in the U.S. For instance, across emerging economies, and even post the “JD crisis”, law-schools are experimenting with and adapting different versions of the “global” – offering insights to local growth moderated by foreign influences. Beyond empirics, these developments have sparked theoretical interest among institutional scholars examining increasingly convergent concerns and parallels across globalizing jurisdictions. Similarly, at the individual level, this research has been important for unpacking larger debates about diversity, inclusion and reproduction of hierarchy. This roundtable seeks to critically engage with these global, imagined transplants by asking: how do they compare? and why do they even seek to?
Primary Keyword: Legal Education, Legal Education Reform, and Law Students
Secondary Keyword: Transnational Legal Orders, Transnational Law
Undergraduate Legal Studies: The Concept, the Association, and the Field
Friday Session 4, 2:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Professional Development Panel Room: Cedar
Chair/Discussant(s): Jinee Lokaneeta, Drew University
Participant(s): Valerie Hans, Cornell Law School,
Renee Cramer, Drake University,
Jonathan Gould, American University,
Michael McCann, University of Washington
Description: This panel is focused on the field of Undergraduate Legal Studies and the relationship between the Consortium of Undergraduate Law and Justice Programs (CULJP) and the professional interdisciplinary legal studies associations such as Law and Society Association (LSA) and Law, Culture and the Humanities (LCH). The conversation will be on the concept of legal studies, assessing the relationship between these associations and the field of undergraduate legal education.
Primary Keyword: Legal Education, Legal Education Reform, and Law Students
Incidental Racialization: Performative Assimilation in Law School
Friday Session 4B, 3:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Author Meets Reader (AMR) Session
Room: Leaside
Author(s): Yung-Yi Diana Pan, City Univ of New York, Brooklyn College
Chair(s): John Bliss, Harvard Law School
Reader(s): Debra Schleef, University of Mary Washington
David Wilkins, Harvard Law School
Meera Deo, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Description:
Diana Pan’s 2017 book, Incidental Racialization: Performative Assimilation in Law School (Temple University Press), investigates how systemic racial inequalities are reproduced and sustained in law school. Based on interviews with over 100 law students, Pan examines how Latino/a and Asian American students navigate race, gender, and other identities as they undergo professional socialization processes. While the literature on legal education has increasingly considered race, gender, and other variables, Asian Americans and Latina/os have yet to receive substantial empirical attention. This book makes vital contributions to the literature on legal education by providing a systematic analysis of lived experiences of racial hierarchy and intersectionality.
Primary Keyword: Legal Education, Legal Education Reform, and Law Students
Secondary Keyword: Race and Ethnicity
Law and Legal Education: From Empires to Silos
Saturday Session 5, 4:45 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Paper Session Room: Norfolk Room
Description: This panel will bring together a diverse set of papers exploring the hopes and possibilities for legal education amid a past of colonial encounters and a present of silo-istic organization in modern university settings.
Presentations:
Innovation and Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Legal Education: An Empirical Investigation of Silos in Australian Law Schools
Angela Melville, Flinders University
Armstrong Angel, Macquarie University
Amy Barrow, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Ordinary Citizens: The Hope for International Criminal Justice in Africa
Miriam Abaya, Temple Univ. Beasley School of Law
Questions and Criticisms of the Idea of a Legal Transplant of Legal Clinics Through the Reform of Legal Education in Colombia: Improvement of Legal Education or Imposition of a Model of American Colonial Character?
Gustavo Higuita, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
The Colonial Control of Legal Knowledge: the Case Study of Cuba
Ricardo Pelegrin Taboada, Florida International University
High Costs and/of/inTeaching Law: Pedagogy and Reform in Today’s Legal Academy
Sunday Session 1, 8:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Paper Session
Room: Parlour Suite 6
Description:
From diversity to debt to sexual harrassment, the legal academy struggles to balance its commitment to education with obligation to the profession. In a climate of increasing attention on inequality, sexual harrassment, and the lack of diversity in higher education, this panel offers a set of interventions on problems that touch the lives of those committed to excellence in pedagogy and research in the law.
Presentations:
A Faustian Bargain? The Role of Debt in Law Students’ Career Choices
Anna Raup-Kounovsky, University of California, Irvine
Steven Boutcher, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Carroll Seron, Univ. of California, Irvine
Improving Diversity in Legal Academia
Meera Deo, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Law School Deans & Co-Deans: A Look at Position Tenure, Job Requirements, and Job Satisfaction
Rachel Montgomery, American Bar Foundation/ AccessLex Institute
Legal Education
Sunday Session 1, 8:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
Paper Session
Room: Yorkville East Primary
Keyword: Legal Education, Legal Education Reform, and Law Students
Presentations:
Accelerated Law School Admissions and (Neo)Liberal Arts Education
Darren Botello-Samson, Pittsburg State University
Foundations of a Critical Sociological Analysis of International Legal Institutions: Negativity and Politics in the Methodology of International Legal Studies in Brazil
Arthur Roberto Capella Giannattasio, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
How About Women of Color in the Legal Profession? An Intersectional Examination of Job Satisfaction Outcomes in the Legal Profession
Elizabeth (Ferrufino) Bodamer, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Law Schools as a Space for Reconciliation
Kylie Lingard, University of Wollongong
Public Legal Education
Sunday Session 2, 10:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Roundtable Session Room: Parlour Suite 6
Chair(s): Samuel Kirwan, University of Warwick
Participant(s): Edgar Cahn, UDC David A. Clarke School of Law
Lois Gander, University of Alberta
Julie Mathews, Community Legal Education Ontario
Tara Mulqueen, Warwick University
Maria Angelica Prada, CIJUS – Universidad de los Andes
Jeff Surtees, Centre for Public Legal Education
Alberta Lisa Wintersteiger, Law for Life and Birkbeck College
Description: This session focuses on the legal interventions of actors at the ‘margins’ of formal legal systems, as they seek to respond to situations of need and deprivation that have arisen in the context of ‘austerity’ neoliberalism. The policies of neoliberal austerity have led to a rising tide of evictions, stops in income through either benefit delays and sanctions or irregular working patterns, and intensifying household debt. In this context we are interested in the role played by law within frameworks of mutual solidarity, dependency and obligation developed and maintained to sustain life, and how law, particularly in the context of public legal education, can be a both a practical resource and a means of politicising these circumstances.
Primary Keyword: Legal Education, Legal Education Reform, and Law Students
Secondary Keyword: Access to Justice