What the Best Law Teachers Do:
About Michael Hunter Schwartz
Michael Hunter Schwartz is a Professor of Law. He teaches contracts and remedies, each of which he has taught for over fifteen years, and he is the Director of Ex-L at Washburn University School of Law, Washburn's academic assistance program.
Professor Schwartz is a nationally-known expert in law school teaching and learning. Professor Schwartz is the author of Expert Learning for Law Students (2005) and a co-author of Pass the Bar! (2006), each of which has been adopted as a text at more than a dozen law schools. In 2007, the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) adopted Expert Learning for Law Students as a text for all of its programming. Professor Schwartz has authored two influential law review articles addressing teaching and learning, "Teaching Law Students to be Self-Regulated Learners," 2003 Mich. State Det. C.L. L. Rev. 447 (2003) and "Teaching Law by Design: How Learning Theory and Instructional Design Can Inform and Reform Law Teaching," 38 San Diego L. Rev. 347 (2001), and he has authored several shorter essays on law teaching topics. Professor Schwartz was a member of the Steering Committee for and is a contributing author to Best Practices for Legal Education (CLEA 2007) (902 KB PDF), and he is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Institute for Law School Teaching. Professor Schwartz recently signed a contract with Carolina Academic Press to author both a contracts text and a remedies text and to serve as series editor for an innovative series of law school texts designed to implement many of the ideas in Best Practices for Legal Education and to apply instructional design and learning theory principles to the design of casebooks. The text authors include leading experts in law teaching and learning. Professor Schwartz also is a co-author of Teaching Law By Design: Engaging Students From the Syllabus to the Final Exam (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming spring 2009).
Professor Schwartz has presented on teaching and learning topics at conferences sponsored by the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the American Association of Law Schools, the Institute for Law School Teaching, the Association of Legal Writing Directors and the New York State Bar Association. In 2007, Professor Schwartz delivered plenary speeches at conferences sponsored by NALP ALI-ABA (the annual Professional Development Institute), the Law School Admissions Council and the Kansas State Bar Association, spoke at conferences sponsored by the Institute for Law School Teaching and the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS), and taught expert learning skills as part of CLEO's summer programs. This year, Professor Schwartz moderated a panel of the New Law Teachers Section of the AALS that addressed teaching methods, and he is scheduled to present at conferences sponsored by the LSAC, SEALS and the Legal Writing Institute.
A representative list of law schools at which Professor Schwartz has spoken about teaching and learning topics includes Albany, District of Columbia, Franklin Pierce, UC Hastings, John Marshall (Atlanta), John Marshall (Chicago), Marquette, Mercer, New Mexico, Northern Kentucky, Santa Clara, Southern New England, UMKC, Wisconsin, and Wyoming law schools. In the next few months, Professor Schwartz is scheduled to conduct teaching and learning workshops at Tulsa, La Verne, Cleveland Marshall and Campbell law schools.
Project Investigator
Professor Michael Hunter Schwartz
Washburn University School of Law
1700 SW College Ave., Room 309
Topeka, KS 66621
(785) 670-1666
michael.schwartz [at] washburn.edu
