2010 News Index
Professor Aïda Alaka's article "The Grammar Wars Come to Law School," has been published at 59 Journal of Legal Education 343 (2010). Professor Alaka's overview of pedagogical shifts in language arts education over the last twenty-plus years, as well as empirical studies of high school and college reading and writing skills, provides insight into why basic skill errors surface in the writing of law students today. With legal education reform under consideration nationally, and with several important studies published regarding the importance of skills training in law schools, this article helps focus development of best practices in legal education. (Posted February 19, 2010).
Professor Tonya Kowalski's article "The Forgotten Sovereigns," has been published at 36 Florida State University Law Review 765 (2009). Our federal system includes 562 federally-recognized American Indian nations, most of whom have their own sovereign lands, governments, and court systems, and who interact every day with the state and federal systems. Yet most legal thought overlooks our sovereign Native American nations and legal heritage. Although much of American law and policy intersects tribal jurisdictions, such issues generally appear in the law school curriculum only in specialized, upper-level courses. Professor Kowalski argues that the three-sovereign system should provide the fundamental framework for the United States legal system across the legal curriculum, and she provides several concrete examples for how to do so. She also argues that many law courses should touch upon how their disciplines impact tribal jurisdictions and their citizens. By changing our fundamental orientation toward the role of tribal sovereigns in the U.S. system, we will advance the academy’s goals of scholarship, teaching, and service. First, we will accurately represent the true structure and diversity of our tripartite federal system. Second, we can improve learning by using direct and comparative tribal perspectives for fundamental legal principles and methods. Third, we can further the social justice mission by raising awareness of tribal sovereignty among future advocates and lawmakers. (Posted February 19, 2010).
D. Duke Dupre will receive an honorary Doctor of Law during the Washburn University School of Law commencement exercises on Saturday, May 15, 2010. See the full story. (Posted January 29, 2010)
Professor Aida Alaka's article "The Phenomenology of Error in Legal Writing," has been published at 28 Quinnipiac Law Review 1 (2009). This article reports the reflections of ten students who participated in individual interviews after their first year of law school regarding "technical errors" in writing. Because legal writing instructors expend a great deal of effort commenting on student writing, Professor Alaka sought information regarding how students experienced and reacted to the critiques they received on writing assignments throughout their first year; that is, whether and how their instructors' comments actually guided the students' revision process. What the students revealed helps to illuminate why the phenomenon of error persists in legal writing and demonstrates that factors both outside of and within students' control underlie it. Professor Alaka suggests that many of the theories articulated in the literature on critiquing student papers may not always hold up in practice and may explain why some legal writing instructors perceive their comments to be ignored. (Posted January 19, 2010).
Professor Aliza G. Organick's article "Tribal Law and Best Practices in Legal Education: Creating a New Path for the Study of Tribal Law ," has been published at 19 The Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy 63 (2009). Teaching culture in the law school classroom is enormously challenging. Teaching culture to law students in a clinical setting poses additional challenges in that we are not solely teaching the theoretical components of cultural competency, we are asking students to put them into practice. Law schools currently do not provide an effective framework for students to do this. By introducing tribal law into the curriculum, law schools begin the process of introducing students to the cultural component of legal theory and practice in culturally distinct communities. Law schools can begin this process by teaching the three-sovereign system endorsed by Justice O’Connor. In addition law schools should consider ways to provide a cross-cultural practice opportunity such as practice in tribal communities. Best practices provide a framework for developing an overall methodology for creating an institutional model that supports inclusion of this topic across the curriculum. In this article, Professor Organick explores the importance of introducing law students to tribal law and the culture of other local legal systems early and often, identifies key components of best practices that establish a framework for teaching culture in general and for teaching it alongside tribal law in particular and finally identifies a few teaching techniques that may be helpful to those interested in trying cultural education. (Posted January 15, 2009).
Professor Bradley Borden's article "Taxing Shared Economies of Scale," has been published at 61 Baylor Law Review 721 (2009). Economies of scale exist if long-run average costs decline as output rises. All else being equal, the decline in average costs should lead to greater profitability, making economies of scale attractive to businesses. Nobel laureate George Stigler recognized that economies of scale should help determine the optimum size of a firm. To obtain economies of scale and optimum firm size, parties may integrate resources or grant access to resources without integrating. Such arrangements create shared economies of scale. Tax law must consider the effects of shared economies of scale and address them. In particular, the varying degrees of scale-sharing raise tax classification issues. Traditional classification analyses focus on the legal definition of tax partnership, which requires a joint-profit motive. The IRS and courts have concluded that sharing economies of scale satisfies the joint-profit-motive test and that arrangements with a joint-profit motive are tax partnerships. Relying on technical analysis and economic theory, Professor Borden argues, however, that if parties integrate resources without integrating all relevant parts of the production process, they often should not come within the definition of tax partnership. By focusing upon shared economies of scale, the IRS and courts have created a slippery slope. Sharing economies of scale is common even in nonintegrated arrangements, which allow parties to benefit from each other’s specialized skills by granting access to resources. If tax law relies upon shared economies of scale to classify business arrangements, its classification system will include arrangements that are not suited for tax partnership classification. (Posted January 5, 2010)
Washburn University School of Law is sad to announce the passing of Professor James B. Wadley on January 1, 2010. See the full story. (Posted January 4, 2010)
