Law School 2.0

Apple Announcement

The long rumored Apple event is now confirmed. On January 27 at 10 a.m. PST, Apple will be unveiling its "latest creation." It is not publicly known for sure what will be revealed on the 27th, but it is widely believed to be a table device with a virtual keyboard and a new multi-touch interface. If you believe the rumors, think of it as a large (10" or so) iPhone.

Although likely a capable web-browser and gaming machine, for me the most important aspect of this rumored tablet will be its capabilities as an eReader device. Finally, it looks like we will have a multi-use device that can also serve as a capable eReader, with color and embedded video. In other words, we may finally have not only a new eReader device, but a platform to which one can publish multi-media books. This has significant implications for law textbooks - and particularly the Skills & Values series, which seeks to integrate print and online capabilities. This device might just merge those two in the same "book." (Disclosure: I am a series editor of the S&V series, and am currently working on the Discovery book in that series).

Presentation at Appalachian Law School

Earlier today I gave a presentation to the faculty of the Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia. I came here on the invitation of Professor Paula Young, who is the chair of their Faculty Development Committee.  Paula said she read the Law School 2.0 book the day she received it in the mail last spring, and she wanted me to come talk to her faculty about the ideas I present in the book.  Here is a picture of Professor Scott Boone, myself, and Professor Young.

 

I gave my talk in the form of a MindMap, which is viewable on the LS2 Book's website here.  It seemed to be well received among this impressive, and fairly young, faculty.  We had a gathering at Paula's home afterwards, and there were many great follow-up questions from members of the faculty.  We had a great discussion.

The Appalachian Law School is located in a beautiful renovated building, with a separate building that houses the library.  Their classrooms are very well-wired for technology, and their EdTech staff are impressive. I enjoyed my visit, and meeting their faculty, very much.

Web 2.0 Buffet Presentation

On Friday, October 30, I will be presenting about Twitter in teaching and scholarship as part of the Web 2.0 Buffet conference for educators from around Colorado.  This conference is being presented by the eLearning Consortium of Colorado.  For updates about the conference, you may follow it on Twitter @web20buffet. The conference agenda is posted here.

Lexis Publications Board meeting in San Antonio

I just returned from San Antonio where I participated in the Lexis Publications Advisory Board meeting. I have come to enjoy these meetings; my fellow members of the Board are an impressive group, and fun to be around.  I always learn a lot from them too.  We also had several folks from Lexis, some of whom I had not met before, so it was good to meet them.  San Antonio is a beautiful city, especially down by the Riverwalk. Unfortunately, the weather was incredibly hot (not surprisingly) and so we did not get out much.

On the second day of the meeting, I offered a view of the future of law school text publishing. As part of my talk, I discussed the potential impact of the Kindle, and explained how I think electronic publishing is finally maturing, and what I think it will take before it makes significant inroads into law school publishing.  I also explained how electronic publishing and the Skills & Values Series could fit with ePublishing. I am, with Scott Burnham (a professor at Montana Law School) editor of the Series. The S&V books are designed to provide a more active form of learning in all law school courses. Four of these books have been published, and six more are under development (including one I am writing - on Discovery law).  The S&V Series of supplemental texts also each have an online component offering interactive exercises designed to bring to life concepts students are learning in class.  

Of course, the holy grail would be an eReader that had swift web access (faster than the Kindle) and was available in color.  That way, the S&V Series could truly combine the textual material and the interactive online components into an eBook of tremendous value.

ALWD Conference 2009 - Kansas City

The biennial conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors is taking place today and tomorrow at the University of Missouri - Kansas City.  The planned sessions cover the waterfront, from development of programs, to the evolving roles of program directors, all the way to a technology track. Not surprisingly, my presentation on Saturday will be in the technology track - I will present on the subject of Law School 2.0 and share some of the work I have done with wikis in teaching.

I have been struck during the conference (so far) by how much we focus during these meetings on explaining to our students and colleagues what it is we do. I often find myself rather sick of these discussions, but today I am - reluctantly - appreciating the need for it. In some senses, explaining what we do should be simple. We help students to write legal documents. But for a number of reasons, it seems to me, it is actually not a simple thing to explain. 

Some of our colleagues, unfortunately, still think we teach grammar and punctuation. That is, they think we are technicians, rather than rhetoricians. Of course we do teach a certain kind of writing, but so much more of what we do is teach thinking - or more precisely, legal thinking and legal expression.  Some have called this applied analysis.  Indeed, there is such a need for us to focus on applied analysis, there is very little time to teach grammar and legal citation. 

In addition, over the last 15 years, a rich and diverse body of scholarship about the substance and pedagogy of applied analysis has enriched our field immeasurably, and it is an impressive body of work. Scholarship, of course, is very important to our colleagues. Helping them to understand the richness of our scholarship is something we need to do better.

But this is also a good time for those of us who teach applied analysis.  The various criticisms of legal education all generally agree that our students need more "doctrine in context" - or, put another way, applied learning. In the context of the legal problems we teach with - yes, we teach doctrinal law too - and in the simulated environment in which most of us teach, we are (and have been for many years) doing what the criticisms say we need more of in legal education.  

And so we still have an educational mission with our colleagues in the academy. It is easy to forget this when we are busy with our students. But we can't forget it.  

Law School Assessment Conference

The third Legal Education at the Crossroads Conference will focus on Law School Assessment. It will take place on Friday evening, September 11 and go through mid-Day on Sunday, September 13, and will be hosted at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law.  Mike Schwartz and I are the co-chairs of the conference committee, and with us are the well-known leaders in this field Andi Curcio, Greg Munro, and Judith Wegner. Because assessment in legal education is a very hot topic these days, the conference has already engendered a lot of interest. 

We sent out a request for proposals in May, and the deadline was July 1st.  We received 50 proposals for the conference, and were somewhat overwhelmed by that.  We have spent quite a bit of time over the last week reviewing those proposals (all of which are interesting and well done), and making adjustments to the draft conference schedule.  We hope to finalize the schedule in the next week or so, and notify those who submitted proposals. In the meantime, you may visit the website for the conference here.  Watch that site for updates to the conference schedule, registration information, and logistics (such as hotel and transportation information).

If you would like to receive conference updates on Twitter, follow @LEC3A (which is an abbreviation of "Legal Education at the Crossroads v. 3 - Assessment").

ILTL Summer Conference - Day 2

The second day of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning conference at Gonzaga Law School was also very good. I find, however, that on those days where I am presenting in a conference, it is hard to concentrate on the other presentations. I thought my presentation about using Wikis to increase student engagement in law school courses was well attended and went well. As I usually do, I prepared a web page on my faculty website to support the talk (with links and related resources), and if that sounds interesting, you will find it here.

Overall, the ILTL Conference was spectacular, and beautifully organized. Mike Schwartz and Gerry Hess did a masterful job developing, preparing, and presenting this conference. It was great to see old friends in law school teaching and learning, and to make new ones.

ILTL Summer Conference

The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning's Summer Conference is taking place at Gonzaga Law School in Spokane Washington today and tomorrow. 

This morning, I attended a terrific session on Rubrics and their development and use, by Sandra Simpson (Gonzaga).  After that, there was a session by Karen Sneddon (Mercer) about integrating writing into "casebook" courses.  She had some terrific examples of how to do this, and would be pleased to send them to anyone who sent her an E-mail request.

This session was followed by three professors from the University of Montana (including a journalism professor), who had students in a class blog and twitter from the W.R. Grace trial that was being conducted in court during the class.  (This project has received a lot of attention on the 'net, and details can easily be found by searching for "Grace case.")  In that session, the presenters asked us to tweet and post to their blog about the session, and in particular about an excerpt from the movie "Anatomy of a Murder," so that we could see what it was like for the students when they did this from the Grace trial.  I used twitter, so you can find those posts with the hashtag #ILTL09.  Finally, today there is a session entitled "Life after Langdell" in which the presenters are describing an "uncasebook" that they have developed for teachers to get away from the reading of appellate cases for an Evidence class.  Their focus is on spending class time in a more interactive manner (using simulation and role playing), rather than just reviewing and discussing the case law - the "Langdell" method - in Evidence.

Trip to LA to Speak with Loyola LRW Faculty

I was in Los Angeles earlier today to give a talk to the LRW Faculty at Loyola Law School.  My esteemed colleague Arnie Siegel is the Director of the writing program at Loyola, and he asked me to come to speak with his faculty about how I have used CaseMap in teaching legal writing.  

I was very impressed with the group of faculty at the meeting - their questions were very thoughtful and probing, and I hope I was helpful to them.  Last year, they used CaseMap in the spring semester, but we discussed how they might use it in the fall semester, and how that might help them lay a foundation with their students for the spring.  

Much of what I presented can be found in greater detail in the article published here on SSRN.

LWI 2010 Conference in Marco Island, Florida

Late last night I returned from a trip to Marco Island, Florida for meetings relating to the 2010 Legal Writing Institute (LWI) Conference.  I am on the conference committee, so I needed to be there for the Committee meetings on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.  Also, on Monday afternoon, I offered a report on the Communications Committee (which I chair) to the Board of the LWI, which was conducting its annual retreat.

Like many others, I was skeptical about the movement of the conference away from a law school to a resort.  But those concerns were dispelled by my visit to the Marco Island Marriott.  It is a beautiful facility, and I think it will work very well for an LWI conference.  It will definitely be a different vibe, though.  The difference between meetings after meetings in a law school, and being in a location that offers parasailing over the beach... well, let's just say it's going to be really different from what we have done before.  But different in a good way.  Particularly if people bring their families.  I know, late June in southern Florida will be steamy hot - it was nearly 90 when we were there - but we won't have any sessions before 10 a.m., and so people can play on the beach (which is right in front of the hotel) in the early morning when it won't be so hot, and then go into the air conditioning when it gets towards the middle of the day.  (And since it is in June that is why we received extraordinarily good rates on the rooms).  Also, the kids can stay in the two beautiful pools all day, which is what they will want to do anyway.

On Sunday morning, I played golf with Steve Johansen and Ken Chestek at the golf course that is part of the resort, which is located about 15 minutes away - it is called "The Rookery."  (They comp'd the greens fees so we could "check it out" and consider it for a possible golf tourney during the conference).  It was a good course, and challenging.  Lots of fun to play, but for me it was more fun just to hang out with Steve and Ken, who are two good guys I always enjoy being around.  We had to quit early to get to the conference committee meetings on time.

The conference committee meetings were long, but interesting.  On Sunday afternoon, we met a parade of staffers at the resort explaining their offerings.  I am in charge of technology, which is going to be expensive, since we are located in a resort (rather than at a law school, where the tech comes free).  It looks like the opening reception is going to be fun, and fun for the kids too.  More details later.

So get those conference proposals in - they are due on June 15th.  See you in Marco Island in 2010!