Albany Law's Centers provide countless opportunities for every student. The Government Law Center takes advantage of the School's location in New York's capital and the seat of state government. Through the Clinic & Justice Center students represent low-income clients in real cases. The Center for Excellence in Law Teaching works to inspire law faculties to enhance methods of delivering legal education, and promote the evolution of legal pedagogy through thoughtful dialogue.

Center for Excellence in Law Teaching (CELT)
Teaching and Learning Resources

The 2007 publications of the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education prompted American legal educators to reevaluate how well law schools prepare their graduates for modern legal practice, and subsequently incited a reform movement which challenges whether traditional methods of providing instruction and structuring curriculum result in desired and/or assumed outcomes.

Helpful Links

Assessment Materials

Delivering Instruction

  • Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching, by Howard E. Katz & Kevin Francis O'Neill (2009).  For more on this book click here.
  • Teaching Law by Design: Engaging Students from the Syllabus to the Final Exam, by Gerald Hess, Sophie Sparrow, & Michael Schwartz (2009).
  • The Law Teacher, published by The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, Spring 2009,
  • Law School 2.0: Legal Education for a Digital Age, by David I. C. Thomson, (2009). For more on this book click here.
  • Confronting Cliches in Online Instruction: Using a Hybrid Model to Teach Lawyering Skills, by Joseph Rosenberg, 12 SMU Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 19 (2008). 
  • Teaching Empathy Through Simulation Exercises - A Guide and Sample Problem Set, (2008), by Barbara Glesner-Fines. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Teaching about the Nexus between Law and Society: From Pedagogy to Andragogy, by Patricia L. Easteal, 18 Legal Education Review 163 (2008). (SSRN Abstract)
  • Teaching Law Students to Be Self-Regulated Learners by Michael Schwartz
  • What Helps Law Professors Develop as Teachers? -- An Empirical Study,  by Sophie Sparrow & Gerald Hess
  • What the Best College Teachers Do  by Ken Bain
  • Harnessing the Extraordinary Power of Learning Teams, in Team Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2004)(eds. Larry Michaelsen, Arletta Knight, and Dee Fink). (Available here.)
  • Integrating Learning Strategies into Teaching, in Essays in Teaching Excellence: Toward the Best in the Academy, by Terry Doyle. (Available here.)

Delivering Instruction - Course Specific

  • Practically Grounded: Convergence of Land Use Law Pedagogy and Best Practices, 60 Journal of Legal Education ___ (2010), By Patricia Salkin & John Nolon. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Critical Enculturation:Using Problems to Teach Law, 2 Drexel L. Rev. 1 (2010), By Keith Hirokawa. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Tribal Law and Best Practices in Legal Education: Creating a New Path for the Study of Tribal Law, 19 Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy 63 (2009), by Aliza G. Organick (SSRN Abstract)

Externships

  • LexTern Web, hosted by the Catholic University of America School of Law

Legal Education Reform -  Generally

  • ‘Best Practices': What's the Point?, 16 Clinical Law Review 321 (2009), by Ira P. Robbins. (SSRN Abstract)
  • 'Best Practices' or Not, it is Time to Re-Think Legal Education, 16 Clinical Law Review 301 (2009), by Roy Stuckey. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Best Practices on ‘Best Practices': Legal Education and Beyond, 16 Clinical Law Review 69 (2009) by Ira P. Robbins. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Reframing Legal Education's "Wicked Problems", 61 Rutgers Law Review 867 (2009) by Judith Welch Wegner. (SSRN Abstract)
  • What's Wrong with Langdell's Method, and What to Do About it. 60 Vand. L. Rev. 609 (2007), by Edward Rubin

Legal Research & Writing 

  • Best Practices: What First-Year Law Students Should Learn in a Legal Research Class, Legal Reference Services Quarterly (2009), by Nancy P. Johnson. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Legal Research as a Fundamental Skill: A Lifeboat for Students & Law Schools, 39 U. Balt. L. Rev. 175 (2009), by Sarah Valentine. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Socrates and Langdell in Legal Writing: Is the Socratic Method a Proper Tool for Legal Writing Courses? 43 Cal. W.L.Rev. 267 (2007), by Jeffrey D. Jackson.
  • Using Actual Legal Work to Teach Legal Research and Writing, 4 J. of the Ass'n of Legal Writing Directors 10 (2007), by Michael A. Millemann.  (Published Online)
  • Library Research Labs: A Hands-On Approach to Taking the First Step with Your Students to Reflect Good Practice in Legal Education, 14 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing 73 (2006), by Samantha A. Moppett and Richard Buckingham. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Teaching Legal Research and Writing with Actual Legal Work: Extending Clinical Education into the First Year, 12 Clinical L. Rev. 441 (2006), by Michael A. Millemann and Stephen D. Schwinn. (SSRN Abstract)

Outcome Measures

Professional Identity

  • Pitfalls Ahead: A Manifesto for the Training of Lawyers, by Anita Bernstein (2009). (SSRN Abstract)
  • What Law Schools Should Teach Future Transactional Lawyers: Perspectives from Practice, by Michael Woronoff (SSRN Abstract)

Student Learning

  • Leading Change in Legal Education - Educating Lawyers and Best Practices: Good News for Diversity, 18 Seattle University Law Review 775 (2008), by Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez (SSRN Abstract)
  • Law Students are Different from the General Population: Empirical Findings Regarding Learning Styles, 17 Perspecitives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing 155 (2009), by Robin Boyle, Jeffrey Minnetti & Andrea Honigsfeld. (SSRN Abstract)
  • Humanizing Legal Education: An Introduction to a Symposium Whose Time Came, 47 Washburn Law Journal 236 (2008) by Michael Schwartz.
  • Law School and Bar Examination Performance: Developing an Empirical Model to Test Whether Required Writing Exercises or Other Changes in Large-Section Law Class Teaching Methodologies Result in Improved Exam Performance, 57 J. Legal Educ. 195 (2007), by Andrea A. Curcio et al.
  • Harnessing the Extraordinary Power of Learning Teams, in Team Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2004)(eds. Larry Michaelsen, Arletta Knight, and Dee Fink). (Available here.)

Technology in the Classroom

  • Law School 2.0: Legal Education for a Digital Age, by David I. C. Thomson, (2009). For more on this book click here
  • Legal Education in the Age of Cognitive Science & Advanced Technology, Ohio State Public Law Working Paper No.94,  by Deborah Merritt (SSRN Abstract)
  • Confronting Cliches in Online Instruction: Using a Hybrid Model to Teach Lawyering Skills, by Joseph Rosenberg, 12 SMU Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 19 (2008).
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