The Legal Community: Judges, Lawyers, Officials and Clerks in the Writing of Europe

This article argues that EU legal studies whould pay more attention to the legal discourse that sustains the conceptions of law and legal politics underlying European law. Drawing loosely on Bourdieu's concept of 'legal fields', it offers a social and intellectual reconstruction of European legal thinking by way of empirical analysis of European legal writing. The article argues that the autonomy, technicality and specificity of European law should be seen at least in part as consequences of the social and professional structure of the community of EU laywers.     

The performance of law students at a London college

This article examines the value of jurisprudence in legal education. It argues that jurisprudence should be mandated at an early stage of the students' law curriculum as the legal ideals that may be imparted through a jurisprudence course cannot be adequately taught in a professional ethics course or through teaching jurisprudential perspectives in doctrinal subjects. Law schools have a special responsibility to get students thinking about what law is, what makes law legitimate, and how law is related to justice, morality, politics and rationality. A mandatory jurisprudence course should be intentionally structured along these themes.     

Discourse theory of law in times of populism

Jürgen Habermas's discourse theory of law has shaped debates on what we consider to be legitimate law. This contribution will firstly identify the Zeitgeist in which discourse theory emerged. Secondly, it points out the emancipatory potential of law that discourse theory has helped us to understand, both on a domestic and a transnational level. Thirdly, the paper turns to discuss two recent challenges for the discourse theory of law, namely (a) the realities of social power that undermine and contradict its promises, and (b) the rise of populism, which places the core normative assumptions of discourse theory in doubt.     

Merging law and ethics: Discourse legal theory and freedom of expression in Hurley

This article, analyzing and building on the work of Jürgen Habermas, demonstrates how discourse legal theory disavows a separation between law and ethics. The article suggests that discourse theory puts forward a more political theory of law that promotes the normative goal of creating a more just society through discursive practices. A critique of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Hurley v. Irish‐American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston shows how the Court overvalued the private function of speech and undervalued its public, discursive function. The article argues that discourse theory provides a more protective access standard for disempowered groups, especially when public fora are used for the expression of ideas.     

Using soft skills courses to inspire law teachers: a new methodology for a more humanistic legal education

ABSTRACT

Law schools have in recent years been engaged in a process of revising their curricula, in large part adapting to rapid changes in technology, but also in a more generalised effort to improve “teaching the law”. Yet thus far, legal pedagogy seems to focus disproportionately on the traditional model of the “thinking lawyer”, when it should equally promote the model of the “feeling lawyer”, helping students to sharpen soft skills such as empathy, integrity and problem-solving. The main claim of this paper is that law professors could begin to pay more attention to the growing importance of soft skills in legal education and preparedness for legal practice. In this direction, we propose a set of pedagogical principles revolving around four axes: compassionate, attentive, reason-based and empathetic teaching (CARE). This methodology could help law professors become more effective pedagogues. Soft skills courses constitute a well-suited vehicle for introducing these principles to law school curricula in different legal systems. By systematically incorporating them, law schools can encourage law teachers to provide a more inclusive learning environment for their students. At the same time, law teachers who implement the particular methodology can hopefully rediscover fulfilment in their teaching. Overall, teaching soft skills can significantly improve students’ and teachers’ experience in legal education.     

Lawyers’ wellbeing and professional legal education

Abstract

THIS PAPER examines the wellbeing and satisfaction levels of lawyers in the workplace. It argues that research suggesting a crisis in the legal profession in the United States is comparable with research on wellbeing and levels of satisfaction for lawyers in Australasia. Some reports in both jurisdictions are critical of conventional legal education and practical legal training programs, which do not encourage students to develop personal and interpersonal skills that can improve self‐awareness, communication skills and the capacity to manage stress and anxiety. Consequently, law students are allowed to assume that these “soft skills” are less important for lawyers compared with cognitive skills such as “knowing the law” and “thinking like a lawyer”.

The paper describes the preliminary results of research conducted with graduates of the School of Law at the University of Newcastle Australia. The results confirm existing research to show that clinical legal education programs that expose law students under supervision to clients with real cases may promote the development of interpersonal skills, which in turn may help them cope with stressors in legal practice, especially in the first few years post‐admission.     

知识产权法采用对话式教学法动因之思考

随着时代的发展,单单采用传统讲授法已经不能完全适应知识产权法学教学的要求,时代要求我们在教学方法上要有所创新,有所突破。本文认为,应对知识产权法教学进行改革,从传统讲授法走向对话式教学法。因为,对话式教学法有利于激发学生的积极性主动性;有利于培养学生清晰准确的表达能力;有利于培养学生创新思考能力和批判性思考能力;有利于大学生更好地为未来职业进行准备。     

Violence in Fascist Criminal Law Discourse: War, Repression and Anti-Democracy

This article constructs a critical historical, political and theoretical analysis of the essence of Fascist criminal law discourse in terms of the violence that shaped and characterised it. The article examines the significance of violence in key declarations about the role and purpose of criminal law by Alfredo Rocco, Fascist Minister of Justice and leading ideologue, in his principal speech on the final draft of the 1930 Italian Penal Code. It is grounded on the premise that criminal law is particularly significant for understanding the relationship between State power and individuals, and so what was distinctive about Fascist thinking in this regard. The article analyses Rocco’s declarations as a discourse in order to highlight their contextual foundations, construction and ideological connections. It argues that the core theme of that discourse is violence, which has three principal dimensions: a close historical and rhetorical connection with war, a focus on repressive and intimidatory force, and a paramount concern with subordinating individuals to State interests. The article then uses this analysis to develop a theoretical reading of the nexus between criminal law and violence in Fascism, in terms of its foundations and reversal of ends and means. The article thus provides an original perspective on Fascism and criminal law, which it argues is important for critical engagement with criminal law discourse in our democracies today.     

The War on Terrorism: When the Exception Becomes the Rule

This article argues that the semiotics of the war on terrorism points at a significant shift in United States' discourses on security. This shift can best be described as a move from defence to prevention or from danger to risk. Whereas the notion of defence is closely connected to the state of war, this article claims that the war on terrorism instead institutionalises a permanent state of exception. Building upon Agamben's notion that the state of exception is the non-localisable foundation of a political order, this article makes two claims. First, it argues that semiotic shifts in United States' security politics point at a general trend that, to some extent, structures international American interventions. In a sense, the semiotic shifts in American security discourse declare the United States as the sovereign of the global order: they allow the United States to exempt itself from the (international) framework of law, while demanding compliance by others. Second, it claims that this production of American sovereignty is paralleled by reducing the life of (some) individuals to the bare life of homo sacer(life that can be killed without punishment). In the war on terrorism, the production of bare life is mainly brought about by bureaucratic techniques of risk management and surveillance, which reduce human life to biographic risk profiles.     

The Sovereign Event in a Nation's Law

This article interrogates the relationship between the sovereign event and a legal decision that purports to place sovereignty beyond law. It argues that sovereignty cannot be regarded as unitary, and elaborates the process of iterability by which the sovereign event is split from the outset. This dynamic is examined through an interrogation of the non-justiciability of sovereignty in Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2)(1992). Along with the unitary conception of sovereignty, Mabo (No. 2) deployed an absolute measure for community in the form of the ‘skeletal principle’ of the doctrine of tenure. The paper argues that a conception of the political that affirms the One sovereign source of community and law instead of the original dis-position of law, nation and community repeats the original violence, and will, at best, run aground on the righteous (mis)recognition of the ‘appropriate savage’. It concludes with an indicative rethinking of community through the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Learning to be A Peacemaking Lawyer: Law Student Perspectives on Building Peacemaking into Law School Curricula,Building Paths to Practice for New Lawyers,and Interdisciplinary Training

From our perspectives as students, we reflect on the teachings of Lawyer as Peacemaker, a Winter 2015 course taught at UCLA School of Law — the school's course devoted to peacemaking lawyering. Utilizing our newfound peacemaking worldview, we share our collective reactions to the Lawyer as Peacemaker course and the ten articles in the Family Court Review Special Issue on Peacemaking for Divorcing Families. We then advocate for integrating peacemaking into law school curricula and experiential learning offerings and make recommendations on how law schools today can prepare students to practice peace.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• This article is a collaborative work product of three students who come from an array of work experience, backgrounds and interests and from their newly founded peacemaking worldview, the three students collaboratively analyzed ideas presented in the Lawyer as Peacemaker course and the articles from this issue.
• The peacemaking mediation allows the parties more control over their legal disputes and allows the control of the costs that come with litigation.
• Peacemaking involves a holistic and collaborative method, involving mental health professionals to financial advisors as well as legal professionals.
• However, peacemaking skill courses are not readily available to many law students while studying in law school.
• This valuable asset should be made available more extensively to law students interested in family law.

     

Building institutional capacity: knowledge production for transnational security governance in Mexico

ABSTRACT

This article engages with institutionalist knowledge production in US-Mexican security relations, demonstrating how anti-crime governance in the Americas has shifted from a heavy-handed military rationale to a good governance and civil society–centred approach. This shift has been facilitated by the newly emerging resilience discourse which advocates turning local communities from passive beneficiaries of government-sponsored law enforcement into pro-active security partners. It will be argued that the rise of good governance and society-centred policy thinking has enhanced the epistemic authority of a heterogeneous, but ideologically aligned set of human rights advocacy groups, think tanks, policy-oriented academics and for-profit development NGOs – both in Mexico and the United States. This transnational expert community has been instrumental in inserting the issue of drug-related violent crime in Mexico into a globally dominant statebuilding framework. In consequence, security governance in Mexico has taken on a more transnational character and become the object of a highly intrusive international monitoring regime.     

Rite of passage: The impact of teaching methods on first year law students

Abstract

SEVERAL RECENT articles suggest that the undergraduate law program harms students in many ways. What we do not know, however, is the cause of these harms. More specifically, we do not know the way in which law students are impacted by current teaching and methods. This is the first empirical research that looks at this specific question.

In 2005 I conducted doctoral research on recent law graduates about both their understanding of undergraduate law school teaching practices and more importantly, the impact of these practices on them personally. The result of the research confirms recent literature and provides new and important information about the extent to which teaching methods harm students.

Specifically, the research suggests that the two main teaching methods used in first year law school, the case method and the lecture method, are not entirely effective or efficient for student learning; the law school curriculum is based on an epistemology of objectivism that makes learning law difficult and the first year law school examinations impact students in several negative ways. This research suggests that the combination of first year teaching practices causes many students to feel isolated, disoriented, disengaged, and ultimately resigned to having no control. This article is a summary of my doctoral research.     

THE POLICE AND HIGHER EDUCATION The Challenge of the Times

As law enforcement agencies continue to increase their educational standards, it is incumbent upon colleges and universities to offer curricula that prepare policemen to meet the challenge of modern times Criminal justice programs should pave the way for innovation and change in the police establishment by producing well-educated men, with a strong liberal arts background, capable of understanding self, community, and the role of the police in modem society.     

Turning the Tables on Legal History: Parker's Common Law,History, and Democracy in America

Parker's Common Law, History, and Democracy in America joins an ongoing effort to turn the tables on “law and …” by replacing the familiar question “What can history, sociology, and cultural studies tell us about law?” with a new line of inquiry asking “What can law teach us about the reach and limits of disciplinary thinking?” In his study of the reception of common law into nineteenth‐century American jurisprudence, Parker unearths a notion of time based on stability and repetition that challenges the dominant modernist and historicist approach to the writing of law and history. Parker, however, shies away from drawing the full implications of this move and it remains unclear whether, in the final analysis, he escapes the spell of legal historicism.     

HOFSTRA'S FAMILY LAW WITH SKILLS COURSE: IMPLEMENTING FLER (THE FAMILY LAW EDUCATION REFORM PROJECT)

The Family Law Education Reform Project (FLER) Final Report documented that the current doctrinally oriented family law curriculum at most law schools does not adequately prepare students for modern family law practice. FLER recommended that law school courses move from the study of cases to the study of the legal system's effect on families, and integrate the study of alternative dispute resolution and interdisciplinary knowledge. In response, Hofstra Law School has made a comprehensive attempt to implement FLER's curricular recommendations. This article discusses one major innovation – the Family Law with Skills course. Family Law with Skills is the basic course in Hofstra's revised curriculum and is designed to integrate doctrinal teaching with professional skills development. In addition to studying legal doctrine, students are required to engage in structured field observation of family court proceedings; interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and mediation representation exercises in a divorce dispute; direct and cross examination of a social worker in a child protection dispute; and drafting of a surrogacy agreement. The article describes each exercise and discusses its rationale, student reaction to the course, and lessons learned.     

On Two Distinct and Opposing Versions of Natural Law: “Exclusive” versus “Inclusive”

Abstract. This paper takes the dichotomy between “exclusive” and “inclusive” positivism and applies it by analogy to natural‐law theories. With John Finnis, and with Beyleved and Brownsword, we have examples of “exclusive natural‐law theory,” on which approach the law is valid only if its content satisfies a normative monological moral theory. The discourse theories of Alexy and Habermas are seen instead as “inclusive natural‐law theories,” in which the positive law is a constitutive moment in that it identifies moral rules and specifies their meaning. The article argues that inclusive theories of natural law are better suited to expressing an authentic “republican” attitude. *

相似文献   

Writing Workshops for First Year Law: my contribution as an applied linguist

“Law schools should focus more on teaching writing – not some Procrustean monstrosity called ‘legal writing,’ but the ordinary techniques of constructing a sentence and telling a story” writes Roosevelt in his review of Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary by Posner. The Australian Threshold Learning Outcome expects law graduates to be effective, appropriate and persuasive as communicators when interacting with both legal and non-legal persons. We also know that embedding learning outcomes or graduate attributes throughout a programme encourages progressive learning. Furthermore, the whole of degree curriculum design undertaken from a shared perspective reflects industry and student requirements better than individual subjects can. In the absence of any whole of degree curriculum, the semester-long series of Writing Workshops for First Year Law (WWFYL) was created. Building on the success of past collaboration (Curró and Longo), WWFYL reflect a move away from a solitary, silent teaching culture to open sharing of practice. The widening participation and skills agendas remind us of the need to focus on the integration of academic literacies into law. If law is language, can applied linguistics make a contribution to the literacy needs of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds? As an applied linguist, my objective is to raise awareness of the elements and features of legal writing and demystify the specialised discourse and textual features. In this paper I present my theoretical framework borrowed from socio-constructivist theories, focusing on how students learn specific subject matter in particular contexts: “a teaching and learning process that makes transparent the practices and discourses of the subject area” (D. Warren, “Curriculum Design in a Context of Widening Participation in Higher Education” (2002) 1 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 85, p. 88). Two snapshots of my classroom discourse demonstrating the practical application of my teaching are presented, as well as evaluation data supporting my approach.     

Lawyers for God and Neighbor: The Emergence of “Law as a Calling” as a Mobilizing Frame for Christian Lawyers

Drawing on movement framing, collective identity, and mobilization scholarship, this article examines the emergence and potential effects of framing “law as a calling” for the Christian Lawyering community. The article finds that the term should have strong resonance and salience in the broader Christian community. It also finds that because of its interpretive malleability, “law as a calling” has been discussed and actualized in three related, but distinct, ways. That is, “law as a calling” has been conceptualized as requiring Christian Lawyers to turn inward, turn outward by pursuing social justice, and turn outward as a culture warrior. The article argues that while the different interpretations of “law as a calling” address a range of needs required to mobilize potential and existing Christian L/lawyers, the different ideological factions of self‐identifying Christian Lawyers emphasize different understandings of “law as a calling.”     

Trading Signs: Semiotic Practices in Law and Medicine

Lawyers write, blog and are otherwise producers of words; they structure public life through legal discourse and integrate all issues that reinforce legal reasoning. Even if one is inclined not to justify the power of their words in the context of a democratic theory, one is hardly able to challenge its public acceptance. But semiotic analyses harden the question whether these emperors wear nothing but robes. That attitude intensifies where medicine becomes increasingly relevant for legal discourse, as becomes clear where for instance US political viewpoints bring bioethical issues to the Courts. One major theme in today’s medicine pertains to identity in its psychological, philosophical and social dimensions. Identity thus becomes a groundbreaking semiotic issue in law and medicine; both discourses are particular important to the otherness of the other. A US criminal law case interests here (Harrington v. State of Iowa, 2003; cited as: 659N.W.2d 509). The case is decided with “information about what the person has stored in his brain”. A chain of signs is involved: from “brain-function” to “brain-storage” via “brain-scan” to “brain-fingerprint”, for which the case became famous. A long series of signs and meanings belong here to intertwined discourses. Central is a particular sign in each discourse: “brain” means brain scan, and “fingerprint” means law! The two display trading mechanisms, which determine the otherness of the other and the self! The chain of signs in the Harrington case shows inter-disciplinarity in law and inter-discursivity among law and medicine. The trading itself underlines the semiotic dimensions in cyberspace, in particular the semiotics of the virtual (Hayles, Kurzweil) and their effects on legal discourse.