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Tuesday, January 06, 2009
On Class Exercises
One of my upcoming classes this semester is Legal Profession -- also called Legal Ethics most places. This will be the fourth time I've taught the class, and like many others, I've found it a difficult course to teach. Many students feel like a captive audience, and many legal ethics teachers feel like captive performers; it's code-based, with all the attendant difficulties of mixing code and cases; and so on. I also struggled to find just the right book, burning through three books in three years. I've finally settled on the Lerman & Schrag book, which I quite like; it's not quite as intellectually searching as some of the texts, but I find it teaches very well indeed in the classroom and I think their supplemental materials (to be honest -- the teacher's manual) are great. (Of course, after I got through the book last year, they issued a new edition, so in a sense I'll have done four books in four years. Oy!)
I've also assigned Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons this year, although I'm still unsure about how and where it will fit in; still, I'm excited about giving students the book as a basis for thinking about what kinds of lawyers they want to be, what the proper role of "cunning" is in a lawyer's life, and what part of their professional or ethical life must remain unimpregnable.
Lerman & Schrag works so well as a casebook because it contains many superb class exercises, and I found the class very responsive to them last year. Here's what I say about class exercises in my syllabus this year:
This will be a heavily participation-oriented course, centered on the problems contained in each chapter and noted above in the schedule of readings. Each week, half of the class will be on call. If it is your week on call, you should be especially prepared to talk out loud about the problems, the issues they raise, and the Model Rules and other legal doctrines implicated by each one. You may be asked to play the role of one of the characters in the problem, to perform in front of the class in teams, to lead the class in an exercise, to perform an interpretive dance, to express your views about the materials through the medium of show tunes, to take up the deadly serpent, or a variety of other activities. Even if you are not singled out to perform in this manner, you will still be responsible for taking an active role in class discussion for the week.
My colleagues' advice is always welcome, so let me ask: are these expectations too onerous?
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Posted by Paul Horwitz on January 6, 2009 at 11:50 AM in Paul Horwitz | Permalink
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Comments
That should read "recently had to RE-take"
Posted by: Interloping non-prawf | Jan 8, 2009 6:26:54 PM
As someone who recently had to take the MPRE (not because of deficient performance, but because of bar requirements in a new jurisdiction), I can say I would have opted for the interpretive dance/snake handling-based exam, if such an option had been available.
On a non-facetious note, I wonder whether you use any of Joseph Allegretti's materials in your course? I just picked up his book The Lawyer's Calling, and so far I have found it very helpful in conceptualizing my own work (indigent criminal defense). It is a "Christian" book, but in my view it transcends its ecumenical roots. Although I have rarely darkened the door of a church, I find the book useful and thought-provoking. I have been curious as to whether it is part of the PR "cannon", and, if not, whether that is because it is marginalized as a Christian book, or because it is just not that impressive to those more thoroughly versed in the field than I.
Posted by: Interloping non-prawf | Jan 8, 2009 6:26:03 PM
I taught PR this fall, using the second edition of Lerman & Schrag--a great casebook, BTW. And I divided the class into several hot benches (4 for a 60-person class), with each responsible for class participation on assigned weeks. It worked very well (I think--haven't seen my teaching evals yet); the students on call participated regularly and, somewhat to my surprise, even students who weren't on call often raised their hands and talked. Not sure why--maybe a particularly good class dynamic, or maybe the casebook's problems were particularly compelling. PR has its challenges, but it can be a fun class to teach.
Posted by: harwellwells | Jan 8, 2009 11:44:59 AM
I took it this semester, so it looks like I'll be without my Horwitz fix this semester. Oh well, there's always next year.
(I laughed at the "Oy!".)
Posted by: Sharon Nichols | Jan 6, 2009 11:19:05 PM
I don't teach PR - or, as we call it, "Law Governing Lawyers" - although I do touch upon related issues in my Law & Theology seminar. Although it's not directly responsive to the question, one of the things that I did as a member of our Speakers From Practice committee was to organize a presentation called "Why Good Lawyers Do Bad Things" in which I assembled a panel of, among others, lawyers who had become ensnared in ethical problems even to the point of serving time in a federal prison. I still recall one of the panelists - a successful lawyer - telling the students that he had always dreamed of going to Oxford, but thought it would be the college in England and not the federal penitentiary in Wisconsin. If I ever teach this course, that guy is on the program.
Posted by: Rick Esenberg | Jan 6, 2009 10:16:55 PM
I actually really enjoyed my PR class last semester. We did some small group exercises, which were all right, but the class itself was the most interesting and engaging. The professor is an expert on the subject, which helps I'm sure, and we used her book, which is very good - I believe it's being published this year or next, and Margaret Raymond is her name. Everyone was on call every class, but there was a list where you could sign in as unprepared (with a maximum number of times for doing so). That worked well, and the questions ranged from hypotheticals to questions about the cases but we focused a lot on the stickier situations and how to personally grapple with some of the ethics issues that aren't so clear cut (or clearly defined by the Model Rules). Good luck with your course!
Posted by: Judith | Jan 6, 2009 7:04:33 PM
Especially in a course like PR where student motivation can already be an issue, my fear with designating some students as "on call" is that the rest of the students take it as permission to check out completely. I have started using more small group exercises in the PR course, which I've found to be effective, for the most part, in getting students to take ownership of the questions raised by the material.
Posted by: Rob Vischer | Jan 6, 2009 6:36:51 PM
Paul,
I've done something similar in the past with this course and was generally pleased with the results, but I'm curious how many students you have in the class. That might influence how onerous the expectations are (or are perceived to be at least).
Also, when a student is on call, might he or she also be required to perform the magic trick of staring into all the yellow eyes of classmates without blinking once?
Posted by: Alex Long | Jan 6, 2009 12:27:23 PM
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