McBlogmick

Jeff Lipshaw, a professor at Suffolk Law School has a nice post about choosing a litigation or transactional career here. He explains things in a way that lots of professors really can't.

All last year, many of you heard me drone on at length about the article I was working on. It's posted here on the Social Science Research Network if you're interested. The Berkeley Journal of Labor and Employment Law will be publishing it at some point in the fall.

In the article, I argue that our current system of enforcement for employment discrimination is fundamentally broken, and I suggest one way to fix it. Hope your summer's going well!

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I know it's completely unhelpful for the exams just finished, but yesterday, at Prawfsblawg, Rick Hills had an interesting post on essay exam writing--his advice was to focus on the facts more, and I agree wholeheartedly. In my classes, I'll keep giving similar advice, but feel free to come talk to me more if you'd like.

Someone just sent me this link to an editorial in The Nation by Patricia J. Williams who is a very thoughtful writer on issues of race, gender, and the intersection of both.

Try this if you like philosophy.

In the spirit of the season. which begins this evening. . .

Le shana tova and gemar chatima tova to everyone celebrating the high holidays!

And a peaceful Ramadan for those who observe that holy month!

I know it's early, but if you've come across this site because you'll be starting law school at Cumberland this fall or because you will be in one of my classes this fall, welcome!

This blog is where I post interesting factoids that relate (at least tangentially) to my classes or to things I'm interested in. One of the features of this site is that I post podcast summaries of units we do in class if you are interested in using them to review. They're very general, hitting only the high points, and you won't get much out of them without doing the reading and thinking about the material, but they do help put the details in a broader context. You can listen to the podcasts on your computer or download them to an Mp3 player. You can download them from here, or you can subscribe through ITunes.

I will also have a page for each class on Westlaw's TWEN (The West Education Network). Those pages contain discussion boards, class-specific links, links to Cali (computer assisted learning institute) lessons, the syllabus, and a calendar of assignments.

Feel free to post questions on the comments to posts here or to use the discussion boards on TWEN when they're up and running.

See you in August!

This abstract came across my e-mail, and it looks great. I haven't read this one, but I saw the author present on a prior study a few years ago. She also is one of the authors of Just Writing, one of the best style/writing manuals, and one I recommend to all of my writing students. Her legal writing textbooks are great also, but I don't imagine that many people besides me like to geek out with a good legal writing textbook . . .

This site is maintained by CALI, and podcasting is part of its technology and law teaching empire. If you have a moment, it would help CALI and me significantly if you could take this survey. CALI will not release to me the results for my students, and it won't release the results of the survey at all until well after the semester has ended.

I really use this kind of information to structure what I provide for students, so knowing on a grand scale what works, what doesn't, and why helps me and my future students enormously.

Thanks!!

As a law professor, I'm always looking for good resources to help students make sense of what it is they are learning and to figure out how to understand what we are doing. Here are links to abstracts for two great ones that I ran across today.

The first is an article on how legal experts read cases and what law students can do to become experts more quickly. The Paradox of Legal Expertise, by Leah Christiansen.

The second is an article on legal logic by a judge from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and two of his clerks. Ruggero Aldisert, the judge, has written an excellent book on appeals and another on logic for lawyers. Logic for Law Students, by Ruggero Aldisert, Stephen Clowney, and Jeremy Peterson.

I ran across this abstract recently, and it relates strongly to discussions in my Employment Law class on work/life balance, gender discrimination, and being a lawyer. You might find it interesting.

I'm taking a hiatus from blogging for my classes over break. I've deleted the posts for my Fall classes--they were mostly just podcast posts--and I'll start new in the Spring for my Spring classes.

Who's excited for Federal Courts and Property?!

Welcome to the blog for Professor Marcia L. McCormick at Cumberland Law School. The podcasts included for you are summaries of the chapters we have covered, with some hypotheticals worked in where appropriate. If there is a topic you would like me to cover in more detail, let me know.