Constructing C.A.L. tutorials

ON THE assumption that law schools should seek to foster a legal profession which takes ethics seriously, this article explores how it may promote the moral development of its students. Having examined how legal education currently fails in this regards, it explores competing psychological theories of moral development and argues that law schools should seek to start students on a ‘moral apprenticeship’ leading to the development of the necessary moral character to equip them for the ethical challenges of practice. The article then looks at the extent to which ideal methods for promoting moral development can be implemented given the current climate in legal education. In particular, it argues that an excellent and viable means of assisting in the process of moral character development is through student involvement in live‐client clinics, particularly if they are run on an extra‐curricular basis.     

Ybarra. Ugh.

The last time the Ninth Circuit decided an exclusionary land use control case, there was no clear-cut victory for either side, the result in Southern Alameda Spanish Speaking Organization v. Union City, 424 F.2d 291, 22 ZD 246 (9th Cir. 1970) being that the Chicano, low-income housing group did not get to use the site it wanted, but the court opined that Union City had to provide some sites somewhere. But in Ybarra v. City of Town of Los Altos Hills, 503 F.2d 250, 26 ZD 426 (9th Cir. 1974) the plaintiff Chicano group lost all.     

Michael H. v. Gerald D.

The author attempts to apply semiotic analysis to a question of family law. By examining the language used by the Supreme Court in the title case, Michael H. v. Gerald D., along with the case briefs, lower court opinions, other Supreme Court cases and prior legal scholarship, the author attempts to determine the requisite relationships between father–child and father–mother in order for a legal tie to exist between a father and his biological child. The author tries to not only determine the necessary circumstances but also the political ideology that distinguishes these familial ties. The author further attempts to analyze the goals of these underlying political ideologies.     

U.S. CLS

This essay offers a brief account of the rise of cls thought in the United States and of its development within a largely hostile legal academy. As the essay suggests, cls thought has been variously deformed, arrested, normalized, and diffused – leaving the contemporary American legal academy in a state of suspended animation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.