Michael Meltsner

A patient's view of OpenNotes

Michael Meltsner — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 05:28:54 PDT

Whither legal education

Michael Meltsner — Thu, 31 May 2012 08:44:39 PDT

Adaption of remarks discussing current law school curricula and clinical legal education delivered by the author at a 1985 Symposium sponsored by the New York Law School.

Equality and health

Michael Meltsner — Thu, 31 May 2012 08:44:37 PDT

This article describes civil rights litigation over discrimination in health care in the 1960's. As a consequence of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enforcement shifted to federal regulators whose performance is measured and evaluated.

Scenes from a clinic

Michael Meltsner et al. — Thu, 31 May 2012 08:44:35 PDT

In this essay the authors describe a law school clinic in which students are able to carefully examine their goals, a variety of learning techniques that may be useful to them in the future, as well as the personal and group relationships they encounter as professionals.

Race, rape, and injustice: documenting and challenging death penalty cases in the civil rights era

Barrett J. Foerster — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:56:14 PDT

This book tells the dramatic story of how twenty-eight law students—one of whom was the author—went south at the height of the civil rights era and helped change death penalty jurisprudence forever. The 1965 project was organized by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which sought to determine statistically whether capital punishment in southern rape cases had been applied discriminatorily over the previous twenty years. If the research showed that a disproportionate number of African Americans convicted of raping white women had received the death penalty regardless of nonracial variables (such as the degree of violence used), then capital punishment in the South could be barred because of its discriminatory application and the consequent violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

Healing the breach: harmonizing legal practice and education

Michael Meltsner — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:32:36 PDT

The article makes available the author’s 1986 public lecture in honor of the late judge Sterry Waterman. Introducing the Vermont Law School’s new general practice of law training program, Professor Meltsner discusses aspects of legal culture that shape learning and practice in the law office and emphasizes the importance of healthy supervisory and mentoring relationships to professional growth.

The bike tour leader's dilemma: talking about supervision

Michael Meltsner et al. — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:30:30 PDT

This article explores the range of learning, teaching and managerial issues that lawyers encounter in supervisory relationships. While it appears that many think supervision is an essential skill, it is also regarded as something that is unteachable. The article, however, proposes a series of steps in aid of professional development that promote learning and satisfaction through effective supervisory relationships.

Me and Muhammed

Michael Meltsner — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:37:02 PDT

This article describes the representation of Muhammad Ali in the federal case that led to restoration of his boxing license in New York State and ultimately in other jurisdictions. An unusual aspect of the litgation is the manner in which the author's childhood experiences led him to the theory that ultimately persuaded a federal court to find the actions of the New York Athletic Commission unconstitutionally arbitrary and capricious.

Celebrating the lawyering process

Michael Meltsner — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:48:04 PDT

This article describes the origins and shaping of the classic text, with special emphasis on the goals of the authors and the developmental phase of clinical legal education from which their work emerged. The author surveys Gary Bellow's unique role and influence from the perspective of a contemporary, and identifies innovative teaching approaches that the text facilitated. Comments from law teachers over the years highlight the utility and importance of the book. The article raises a major concern about the failed effort to alter conventional modes of legal education by employing clinical role methodologies as an alternative curricular organizing principle to use of doctrinal materials and case analysis.

Litigating against the dealth penalty: the strategy behind Furman

Michael Meltsner — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:29:04 PDT

In this article, excerpted from Professor Meltsner’s book Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment, the author describes the moratorium strategy crafted by NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers to reduce or eliminate executions in the years before the Court considered the constitutional arguments for abolition. In the 1972 Furman case the Court determined that the sort of broad discretionary death laws employed by those states that retained the penalty produced arbitrary and capricious death sentencing.

Writing, reflecting and professionalism

Michael Meltsner — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:25:30 PDT

In this article, I present an approach to stimulating reflective writing that may interest law teachers looking to raise issues of professional values and clinicians seeking an alternative to the use of open-ended journal writing. The students whose experience will be described were enrolled in an experimental course on the legal profession, but the method employed may work equally well in a variety of clinical settings, whether externship or in-house clinics, or for that matter in other law school courses.

Examining U.S. ‘Torture Years’ In A Theatre, Not A Courtroom

Sacha Pfeiffer et al. — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 07:34:11 PDT

Toward simulation in legal education : an experimental course in pretrial litigation

Michael Meltsner et al. — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:07:59 PST

Short takes

Michael Meltsner — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:06:30 PST

Reflections on clinical legal education

Michael Meltsner et al. — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:05:08 PST

Public interest advocacy : materials for clinical legal education

Michael Meltsner et al. — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:02:55 PST

Cruel and unusual: the Supreme Court and capital punishment

Michael Meltsner — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:00:42 PST

The making of a civil rights lawyer

Michael Meltsner — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:59:15 PST

Clinical education at Columbia: the Columbia legal assistance resource

Michael Meltsner — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:04:27 PST

A brief description of one of the first modern clinical programs at a major law school.

Feeling like a lawyer

Michael Meltsner — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:04:25 PST

An address to the National Clinical Law Teachers Conference, arguing that clinic experience provides opportunities for understanding group and interpersonal relations that while essential to successful legal practice are largely disregarded in the mainstream law school curriculum and denigrated in certain constructs of the lawyer’s role.