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November 15,
2001
Focusing on a law school
that consistently
ranks among the top ten in the nation, the
Envision discussion
brought to light the values and distinguishing
qualities that
define the study of law at the University of Virginia. The
image that emerged from this exchange is that of
a public-spirited
law school that places a premium on collegiality
among faculty
and students, on the ethical standards of the profession,
and on the synthesis of theoretical analysis and practical
training. Above all, the School of Law is
committed to providing
the most rewarding and enriching student experience in the
nation.
A Collegial and Diverse Community
The theme of collegiality surfaced frequently
in the Envision
session. This core value touches many aspects of
the Law School’s
operations, from academic decision making to the
way faculty
interact with their students and with their colleagues. The
Law School’s warm and supportive atmosphere
contributes
to the loyalty of alumni, who as students are
afforded frequent
interaction with faculty, both in formal and
informal academic
settings. Junior faculty are especially important in this
regard, since they are more likely to have close contacts
with students. The Law School has one of the
strongest cadres
of young faculty among its peers, but competition for young
scholars is becoming more intense.
The Law School’s collegial
environment promotes
healthy interchange among a faculty that is
increasingly diverse
in terms of academic interests, political and ideological
perspectives, and training. This spirit of collegiality and
openness endures even when opinions differ. The
faculty’s
ability to work out disagreements (or to agree to disagree)
in a collegial way, it was noted, stems from
shared standards
of merit.
In a time of increasing specialization in other
fields, the Law School has become a community of scholars
with advanced training in a broad range of
academic disciplines.
Indeed, it was observed that the Jeffersonian ideal of the
Academical Village is embodied in the Law School, which is
one of the rare places where faculty trained in
law work beside
Ph.D.s in economics, philosophy, psychology, history, and
other fields. In the past, a law faculty was
composed primarily
of lawyers who had clerked for Supreme Court
justices or other
distinguished judges. Today, the faculty combines those who
are steeped in the practice and principles of the law with
scholars who can place the law in a larger theoretical and
social context.
This rich academic mix also reflects
the needs and
interests of students, who increasingly put their
legal training
to work in fields other than the law. Even within the law,
the growing complexity of the profession and the matters it
must deal with demand familiarity with many subject areas.
Likewise, the scholarly work of the Law School
now must extend
to an array of disciplines outside traditional
legal studies.
Working in the Public Interest
With its strong commitment to public interest law, the
Law School is well positioned to be a significant
contributor
to the Virginia 2020 initiative to strengthen
public service
and outreach activities at the University. The Law School
has taken steps to enable students to pursue
careers in public
interest law, and these efforts should be
expanded, according
to Envision participants. As one faculty member noted, the
Law School must continue to produce alumni and alumnae like
Elaine Jones, director of the NAACP Legal Defense
and Education
Fund, and Linda Fairstein, New York’s chief sex crimes
prosecutor.
In addition to providing courses and
seminars that
focus on public interest matters, the Law School
must do more
to help students afford to enter this arena,
which typically
offers less lucrative salaries than other areas
of practice.
Fellowships and loan-forgiveness funds reduce the
debt burden
on law graduates who choose public interest
careers, but these
programs need to be enlarged. It was noted that
the financial
burden of attending the Law School affects all
students, not
just those interested in public interest law.
Students plagued
by financial worries or who must work to meet expenses are
not able to immerse themselves as fully in their academic
pursuits or in the life of the Law School.
The Student Experience
The Law School’s commitment to superb
teaching, innovative
courses, and low student-faculty ratios
contribute to a student
experience of unmatched quality, according to
Envision participants.
First-year classes are kept small, and students are often
invited into faculty homes for dinners and
reading seminars.
Academic interchange between students and faculty
takes place
in an atmosphere of admiration and respect. The
faculty’s
research enriches work in the classroom, and the
school’s
most productive scholars are typically among its
most highly
regarded teachers.
The Law School’s 175th
anniversary
commemoration this fall provided the occasion to
examine the
future direction of legal training. The challenge
facing law
schools, it was pointed out, is to find more ways
to integrate
legal theory with the real-world responsibilities students
will encounter when they enter the profession.
Simply offering
more "how-to" courses will not suffice. Rather,
it was suggested that students have more opportunities to
work in small groups with faculty to explore the
connections
between academic questions and real-world
issues.
The Law School is addressing this need
with a seminar
series called Principles and Practice, which
bridges the theoretical
and the practical in compelling ways. In this
program, judges
and practicing lawyers team-teach with members of
the faculty,
using course materials created from real-world situations
in law offices and judges’ chambers.
Students find these
courses highly rewarding, but for faculty, they
are labor-intensive.
Although time in the classroom is shared with the visiting
practitioner, the burden of planning and logistics falls on
the faculty member, and faculty find it difficult
to sustain
this pace over more than two or three semesters.
The Law School
will need to find ways to rotate faculty through
these seminars
or to offer other inducements to keep these
courses going.
The Law School is open to innovation in teaching,
but it recognizes when time-honored methods work best. This
is the case with first-year courses designed to inculcate
analytical and problem-solving skills.
Traditional approaches
continue to serve students well in these courses, which, as
one faculty member observed, are really about learning how
to read and think in critical ways. At the same
time, faculty
are venturing into the use of new technology in
their teaching,
especially when it is relevant to the subject
area. A course
on modern methods of proof, for example, uses
advanced technology
to demonstrate ways to present evidence to a
jury.
Ethics and Values
The inculcation of ethical principles
permeates the classroom
experience in the School of Law and stands out as
one of its
core values. Going beyond instructing students in the rules
of the profession, which is required knowledge for passing
the bar, the teaching of ethics in the Law School promotes
a fundamental way of thinking. Ethical studies
are integrated
into the curriculum in ways that command
students’ attention,
such as seminars taught by faculty in their homes
that often
use works of literature and other non-traditional materials
to illustrate ethical dilemmas. Seminars have
focused on ethical
problems in the management of law firms, the
ethics of affirmative
action in a meritocracy, the ethics of criminal procedure,
ethics in time of war, and ethical issues in
intercollegiate
athletics. In these and other courses, the Law School puts
tremendous effort into making the subject of
ethics come alive
for students. As one faculty member put it, these
discussions
capture students’ imaginations and carry
over into their
subsequent lives.
The Law School is a prominent participant in the
University’s new Institute for Practical Ethics and is
collaborating with the College and with outside
practitioners
to offer graduate-level seminars on environmental ethics.
These courses draw students from a wide variety
of disciplines,
which makes for free and lively discourse on the
subject.
The International Dimension
As the University seeks to raise its
international profile
through the Virginia 2020 initiative, the Law
School is extending
its reach to students, faculty, and institutions
abroad. The
Law School currently enrolls students from more than twenty
countries, including foreign academics who are
seeking a greater
depth of knowledge of American law. Most
international business
transactions, it was noted, are conducted within
the framework
of American or English law. Students from abroad
add a valuable
dimension to classroom discussions and expose
their American
peers to international perspectives on the law and related
issues.
To ensure that international students
have a rewarding
experience and contribute fully to intellectual discourse
in the Law School, more language training will be required.
The Law School is working with the
University’s ESL program
to address this issue.
To provide opportunities for American students in
the Law School to study abroad, the school is seeking out
programs that have sufficient academic rigor to
warrant awarding
credit for taking part in them. The Law School is
developing
a relationship with Bucerius Law School in
Germany that shows
great promise in this regard.
The Law School’s programs in international
law are built on a long and distinguished
tradition. The late
Hardy Dillard, a former dean of the Law School, served on
the International Court of Justice, and the
Virginia Journal
of International Law is the oldest
continuously published
student-edited law review of its kind in the country. The
Law School is also home to the John Bassett Moore Society
of International Law, which was founded a half-century ago.
These programs enable the Law School to attract first-rate
students interested in this field.
Opportunities for Collaboration
To prepare future lawyers for handling
disputes in medicine,
business, bioengineering, and many other fields,
the Law School
has developed links with other schools on the Grounds and
is open to creating new ones. There are faculty
who hold joint
appointments in law and medicine, and the Law School draws
on the expertise of a number of faculty around
Grounds, among
them Charles McCurdy (legal history), Paul
Lombardo (bioethics),
and Whitfield Broome (accounting).
Although the age and experience gap between law
and Darden students is somewhat of a hindrance to greater
collaboration between the North Grounds neighbors, it was
noted that bringing law and Darden students
together is much
like putting lawyers and clients in the same
room. The results
could be promising.
It was observed that interdisciplinary
collaboration
is often costly in terms of faculty time and resources. The
University will need to provide the leadership
and the funding
to promote collaborative instruction and
scholarship between
the Law School and other schools.
Funding the Law School
The Law School and the Law School Foundation,
which recently
set a record for funds raised in a law school
campaign, have
developed effective annual giving and reunion
giving programs
that are very donor-friendly. Blurring the
typical boundaries
between types of giving, it was noted, affords a generous
and problem-free approach to donor recognition.
The Law School Foundation’s
fund-raising staff
of 5.5 professionals (as compared with 23 at
Harvard) is made
up largely of law alumni who can approach
prospective donors
with a message of shared values and shared
experiences. Their
work has enabled the Law School to become
virtually self-sufficient.
Faculty were asked what sets the two or three top
law schools in the nation apart from the competition. Their
answer: the top schools are "private and
rich" and
simply being "rich" may be sufficient
to reach the
pinnacle of legal education. Although the Law
School now holds
an endowment of some $150 million, this figure is
significantly
below the assets held by the very top tier of
schools. Enlarging
this perpetual source of revenue is one of the
Law School’s
strategic goals.
Virginia Law, But Better
Offering a remarkably collegial environment, a faculty
of outstanding scholars and teachers, and a
student experience
unrivaled among law schools, the School of Law intends to
build on its present strengths and momentum. It
is confident
in the model of legal education it has developed, regarding
it as fundamentally sound even as it works to improve it.
As it does so, the Law School will have the
support of a loyal
community of alumni. They feel an obligation to preserve a
unique academic culture for the benefit of future
generations
of students
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