Law School 2.0

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!