EdUp Legal

Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today's episode, we welcome Brian Gallini, the Dean of Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon, a position he has held since 2020.

He shares his experience becoming a dean during the pandemic and his transition from the University of Arkansas. Dean Gallini tells us that he was attracted by Willamette's innovation, nimbleness, and flexibility, which match his leadership philosophy.

He describes Willamette's partnerships with different institutions that focus on providing a mentorship-based approach for admission. He also shares his ideas for alternative licensing and how he and others have been diligently working to explore alternative pathways in Oregon. He shares how members from all three Oregon Law Schools and other members of the Bench and Bar have come together to explore the possibilities that might make sense for Oregon. From this exploration, two things emerged, the Oregon experiential pathway and the supervised practice pathway, which he tells us are in the conceptual phase.

Further, he shares how working as a hockey coach with the University of Pennsylvania and Arkansas for over a decade has impacted his dean's leadership, and he recounts some of those valuable lessons.

Lastly, he shares his prediction for the evolution of legal education in the upcoming decade. He tells us that his aspirational vision is that ten years from now, there is an empirically accepted definition for minimum competence that outlines with transparency and clarity the measurable skills for newly licensed lawyers. He also tells us that he hopes for a better connection between legal education and skills training.

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today’s episode, we welcome David Thomson, the John C. Dwan Professor of Online Learning at Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver.

Professor Thomson tells us about his new book—The Way Forward for Legal Education. In his book, he suggests several proposals that include abandoning the LSAT and instead developing new admission criteria, with more of a focus on teaching justice and service. Other suggestions he mentions are allowing admission to a larger cohort, adding something akin to California's Baby Bar at the conclusion of the 1L year, and greater integration and expansion of experiential learning throughout the curriculum.

Professor Thomson also shares his weekly newsletter, called the Chalk Board Life, which he started amid the pandemic. He shares in his newsletter reflections on the core of teaching and how to preserve the heart in teaching regardless of the delivery method.

He also tells us about the upcoming conference he and his colleagues are hosting in Denver, the Hybrid and Online Learning Pedagogy Conference, which will take place September 22-24, 2022, at Sturm College of Law in Denver. He shares with us how the conference came to be and what we can look forward to. Registration is still open.

After sharing with us his vision for the future of legal education, Professor Thomson explains how he thinks legal education will change in the coming decade. He believes that the changes in legal education will happen at different speeds, at different places, based on various leadership and institutional incentives.

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today’s episode, we welcome Aliza Shatzman, the president and co-founder of the Legal Accountability Project, a non-profit aimed at ensuring law clerks have positive clerkship experiences and helping support and extend resources to those who don’t.

Aliza shares with us her experiences with gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation while clerking in D.C., the revocation of her dream job, and the exemption that judges and clerks have from Title VII that led her to co-found the Legal Accountability project on June 1, 2022, with Matt Goodman. She shares with us the reception she is getting for her non-profit from the various stakeholders, such as judges, former clerks, current clerks, student leaders, and law schools. She tells us the two initiatives the Legal Accountability Project is working on in collaboration with law schools beginning in the fall. The first is a centralized reporting database that provides anonymous information on clerkships, and the second is a workplace assessment of the federal and state judiciaries.

Finally, she shares her thoughts on the evolution of legal education and her predictions for the coming decade. She hopes that this year, 10 law schools will partner with the Legal Accountability Project on the database and that more will partner with them on the workplace assessment, 5-10 years down the road. On a broader scale, she hopes legal education is more responsive to student needs.

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network! 

In today's episode, we welcome Jennifer Gerarda Brown. She is Dean and Professor of Law of the Quinnipiac University School of Law, a position she has held since 2013. She has been on their faculty since 1994. Dean Brown shares with us her role when the pandemic hit and how she served as interim provost at Quinnipiac during this time. She got to see it all from the provost's office. Instead of dealing with the day-to-day, she dealt with everyone on the management committee of the University, an experience which informs some of her work in her dean role. She gives us an insight into what they are doing at Quinnipiac, such as a 24-hour retreat for students called Beginners Wisdom: Integrating Personal and Professional Values, an idea that came from students in the Fall of 2012. It is for all law students, and they invite staff and alumni. During this retreat, they meditate, talk about change, how people change in law school, and talk about isolation and loneliness. Dean Brown also tells us about the new 1L course at Quinnipiac to help address the professional identity formation requirements called Foundations of Practice, which is a course focused on how students sustain themselves during the first year of law school and how to set a good foundation for your legal education. 

Dean Brown also talks with us about the initiatives the Human Trafficking Prevention Program is undertaking with students playing a significant role. She shares her predictions for the upcoming decade, including what role distance education is likely to play, and maintaining a significant in person program, especially in the first year when students struggle the most. 

Thank you so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for your EdUp time! Connect with your host - Patty Roberts ● If you want to get involved, leave us a comment or rate us! ● Join the EdUp community at The EdUp Experience! ● Follow EdUp on Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube Thanks for listening!

Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

We welcome Elisabeth Steele from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in today's episode. Elisabeth is a pedagogical coach and a virtual presence coach. She teaches effective online practices, involving classroom observations, face-to-face classes, meeting with students, conducting small group instructional diagnoses, and providing professional development to the instructors.

Elisabeth shares with us her passion project that developed during the pandemic, which includes helping educators and attorneys to communicate more effectively on video. She shares with us some tips on things to think about when presenting or teaching online as far as visual appeal. She tells us that an excellent way to make sure people feel connected is by having good audio and being on brand with your message. You want your background to complete your message, so make sure you are the focus of your video and keep backgrounds in the background.

She also shares with us about her focus on people of color exemplars, diversity in legal education, diversity among faculty, diversity generally, inclusiveness, and belonging, how it shows up in her work and how we can help it show up in our work.

Finally, she shares with us how these changes will impact the evolution of legal education in the coming decade and the movement from a synchronous, remote lecture to educational experiences that are more interactive, which is a focus on recreating what a lot of law practice work looks like.

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today’s episode, we welcome Dean Antony Page, the third dean of the Florida International University College of Law, a position he has held since the Summer of 2018.

He shares with us his unconventional path to the deanship, his background as a professor, his public and private sector background, and how he served as a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service.

Dean Page tells us about the diversity of FIU and how FIU is plurality Hispanic, majority minority not to mention that roughly half of the student population are the first in their family to have graduated from a four-year college, making them first-generation law students. He also shares with us the law path program, which started in the Summer of 2018, student wellness, and some secrets on FIU’s success in bar preparation and passage. Furthermore, Dean Page shares FIU’s international law commission fellowships, which he started with professor Charles Jalloh several years ago, where students are sent to serve as fellows or externs at the International Law Commission in Geneva.

He discusses his predictions on legal education, which are a focus on skill, and a lot less memorizing doctrine. He also tells us that he would like to see changes in the regulators and more experimentation from their end.

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Welcome back to America's leading legal education podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today’s episode, we welcome Karen J. Sneddon, Interim Dean and Professor of Law of Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia, a position she started in October 2021. Dean Sneddon, who has been a part of the faculty at Mercer since 2006, shares with us that in 2023 they will be celebrating their 150th anniversary. 

Dean Sneddon tells us that part of Mercer’s commitment is preparing students for practice and preparing them to be strong writers. A writer is what Dean Sneddon believes best describes what a lawyer does. She tells us writing is part of our identity because we put ourselves on the page when we write. It is about thinking "I will make a difference with every word I choose to put on the page." It is to advance a position, make an argument, and make a difference, big or small.

Dean Sneddon also shares with us her law review article Clause A to Clause Z: Narrative Transportation and the Transactional Reader, for which she received the 2020 Teresa G. Phelps Scholarship Award for Legal Communication. She shares with us the idea of making a transactional document more narrative, which makes it more engaging.

Dean Sneddon also tells us some of the things Mercer is doing to prepare students for their career and how every student at Mercer majors in changing the world. Finally, she shares her thoughts on legal education in the upcoming decade and how there will be more of a connection to actual practice, experiential opportunities, and leadership training in the three years of law school.

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network! 

In today’s episode, we welcome a 1987 St. Mary's University School of Law alumni, Mike Bassett, a civil litigation attorney who has practiced law for nearly four decades. He is the founder of the Bassett Firm, a Dallas-based boutique law firm that has tried over 300 cases to verdict in motor vehicle accident, criminal defense, food-borne illness, non-subscriber employer liability and subrogation cases. He is also host of a podcast, Legal Grounds—Conversations on Life, Leadership, and the Law, and a published author of a very personal book, The Man in the Ditch—A Redemption Story for Today. 

He tells us that being a lawyer is a vocation and shares with us what it is like to be a young lawyer in the Bassett Law firm, the essential doctrines in the profession, and the need to be a lifelong learner and to be comfortable with hard work. Mike shares his experience in law school and how he found his passion in the profession following graduation. His passion comes from helping and being there for his clients who end up in the ditch. He tells us that as lawyers, we need to understand that we cannot do this alone and must remember that we have a community all around us. We need to embrace the concept of forgiveness and compassion and be grounded in the idea of decency, particularly because we are blessed to have a legal education. Finally, he shares his thoughts about the evolution of legal education in the coming decade and the need to provide increased access to legal education, focusing on how to engage people remotely. He also shares the advice he would give to an incoming law school class, including the commitment to consistency and persistence needed to be successful. 

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today's episode, we welcome Laura A. Rosenbury. She is the Dean and Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, a position she has held since July 2015. Dean Rosenbury shares the remarkable progress Levin College of Law is making, including a 200% increase in applications, 31 new faculty members, fundraising exceeding $100 million in private funds, and having six of the most accomplished and diverse classes in the law school's 113-year history within the past seven years. Dean Rosenbury shares some of the quick changes she and her team made to generate more applications, improve contacts with employers, and increase alumni outreach. She also explains how outreach to over 1000 alumni led to their $100 million in funds, through both large and small gifts. All of the successes since 2016 have meant a jump for the Levin College of Law of 27 spots in the U.S. News rankings, placing them among the top 25 law schools in the nation. Dean Rosenbury predicts increased use of the internet to accelerate connections globally, and utilizing zoom to expose students to the diversity of legal practice, as likely to be part of the future of legal education. 

Thank you so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for your EdUp time!

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Welcome back to America's leading higher education law podcast, EdUp Legal - part of the EdUp Experience Podcast Network!

In today's episode, we welcome Carla D. Pratt, a national leader in diversity and inclusion and the holder of the inaugural Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Chair in Civil Rights, Race, and Justice in the Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, a position she starts this summer after four years as dean of Washburn University School of Law.

Dean Pratt describes her journey to the dean position at Washburn after having spent considerable time at Penn State, noting that it was Washburn's strong history and commitment to inclusion that attracted her to the position. Dean Pratt shares the innovative curricular approach at Washburn that allows students to receive one-third of their JD degree through distance education. This enables students to spend their last year in residence wherever they intend to live and practice after they graduate and pass the bar exam. The distance education opportunity also allows them to enter the legal market sooner to get some experience in the kind of law they intend to practice through a paid externship in the local legal market. Currently, their first cohort taking advantage of this innovation is spread out among 12 different states across the nation.

Dean Pratt discusses the conclusion of her dean position at Washburn at the end of spring 2022, and her new position in her home state of Oklahoma, serving as the inaugural Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Chair in Civil Rights, Race, and Justice in Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. In addition to her enthusiasm over being back home and being honored with this endowed chair, she predicts the future of legal education and her hopes for innovation that includes increased accessibility to legal education through online delivery. 

Thank you so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for your EdUp time!

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