No less than Columbus’ namesake founded U.S. legal education. Christopher Columbus Langdell devised the “case method”—the formalistic “science” of “discovering” law from appellate court opinions through the process of “legal reasoning.” As dean of Harvard Law School in the late nineteenth century, Langdell institutionalized the case method during the eras of Reconstruction, Redemption, and Jim [...]
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 invalidation, in Department of Homeland Security, et. al. v. Regents of the University of California, et. al. of the Trump Administration’s attempt to rescind the DACA program has obvious practical (if only temporary) significance for millions of Americans. The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program provided renewable two-year deferrals from [...]
When we embarked on our law school journeys three years ago, we did so with the knowledge that we would have the same opportunity that so many others have had to be licensed shortly after graduation. COVID-19, unfortunately, changed everything. It deprived so many of us of stability, of normalcy, and of opportunity. In the [...]
Author’s Note: During my tenure as the first Supreme Court Archivist-Legal Historian to the Supreme Court of Missouri, I authored an in-house history column. Reproduced below is my July Fourth column from 2013. On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail. “My dear Friend,” , “he Second of July, 1776, [...]
Since murder is a horrible wrong, preventing a murder must be a good thing, right? Truth be told, it can get complicated. Among the many questions raised by the killing of George Floyd, we should pause to consider what would have happened if a bystander had actually been successful in rescuing Floyd from the knee [...]
Susan Sorella is in her last year at Suffolk Law School in Boston. When she began clerking for criminal defense lawyer Bobby Coughlin, Susan had no idea she would become a central figure in a murder case that pitted the mob against corrupt FBI agents. Or that she would be compelled to take the lead [...]
How do you ask a person to be the last person to die for a mistake? That is the question American law school deans and their supervisors must consider as the fall term approaches. I pose this question to advocate for law schools to teach fully online in fall 2020 because a law school might [...]
The Supreme Court created quite a stir recently when it held in Bostock v. Clayton Country, Georgia that Title VII, the major federal anti-employment-discrimination law, protected gay and transgender employees on the same basis as heterosexual employees. Deciding three companion cases involving different employees, the Court filled a major gap in employee protection – most [...]
The next administration of the Florida Bar Exam is currently scheduled to take place in person on July 28 and 29, 2020 for over 2,000 examinees. Yes—in person. Typically, the Florida Bar Exam is held twice annually at the Tampa Convention Center for all examinees. On May 5, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the [...]
This statement is in response to the article titled “Oregon’s Law Schools Ask Supreme Court to Waive Bar Exam Due to COVID-19. The Bar Is Not Pleased.” As a 2020 law graduate and someone intending to sit for the July bar, the article seriously lacks key information as to why students, professors, and licensed attorneys [...]
