preLaw - Back To School 2008 - (Page 9) news LAW SCHOOL Accreditation Two North Carolina law schools received provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association less than two years after opening their doors. Accreditation of Charlotte School of Law and Elon University School of Law, located in downtown Greensboro, helped make the United States the world’s first nation of 200 accredited law schools. Both schools opened in 2006. If granted full accreditation, they will join the University of North Carolina School of Law, North Carolina Central University School of Law, Campbell University School of Law, Duke University School of Law and Wake Forest University School of Law. Husson College in Bangor that would allow graduates of its proposed law school to take the state bar exam. Husson had said it did not seek accreditation for the school from the American Bar Association. Husson said earlier this year at a hearing before the justices on the proposal that if the court denied its request, the college would not go forward with its plans for a law school, according to the Bangor Daily News. The court denied the request because Husson had not identified an accreditation process specific to legal education. The court did leave the door open for the college to reapply at a later date. New staff • Paul Schiff Berman has been appointed dean of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Berman is currently the Jesse Root professor of law at the University of Connecticut School of Law. He is succeeding Patricia D. White, who is stepping down after nearly a decade of leadership of the college to return to teaching. Berman will join the Arizona State faculty at the start of the academic year. • Kevin R. Johnson is the new dean of the University of California Davis School of Law. He is also the first Latino to lead a law school in the University of California system. Johnson replaced Rex Perschbacher, who led the school since 1998 and will return to the faculty. He joined UC Davis law in 1989 and was named associate dean for academic affairs in 1998. Johnson currently serves on the board of directors of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and on the Immigration Policy Group of Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Dean Kevin Johnson New name Drexel University School of Law received a $30 million gift from philanthropist Earle Mack, Drexel class of ’59, former ambassador to Finland and an arts advocate. In dedication to Mack’s donation, Drexel School of Law has been named in his honor. The newly named Earle Mack School of Law is now one of the only two law schools in the country to employ a cooperative education approach to legal education. Students will have the chance to gain experience through the school’s pro bono service program, which is focused toward educating students about their ethical responsibility. Mack’s gift will also allow students the opportunity to learn outside the classroom and gain real-world professional experience working with law firms, courts and nonprofit organizations. Controversy Students at the University of Wisconsin Law School asked for an apology after Associate Dean Walter Dickey called off a planned “Sex Toys 101” seminar in April. Students for Reproductive Justice said rather than selling sex toys, it planned to educate participants about safe-sex alternatives. In a formal complaint, the group said the school discouraged freedom of expression. Law School Dean Kenneth Davis told the Wisconsin State Journal that the school “un-canceled” the seminar when it learned the students did not intend to sell any products, but the group might not have gotten the message. • A former assistant U.S. attorney and trial attorney took over as dean of Hamline University Law School in July. Donald Lewis succeeds Jon Garon, who finished a five-year term as dean and plans to return to the Hamline law faculty after a one-year sabbatical. Lewis is a Harvard Law graduate and co-founder of Minneapolis law firm Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson. Dean Donald Lewis Denied The Maine Supreme Judicial Court denied a request from Tech news The University of Chicago Law School is saying goodbye to Internet access in all classrooms. Dean Saul Levmore believes that blocking the Internet will help persuade students to pay more attention in class and provide fewer distractions. Levmore jumped on the idea of blocking the Internet when he found out that the school’s building had the ability to control wired and wireless access. “It got a lot easier when I found I had technology on my side,” he said in a recent interview. News about Levmore’s decision is spreading quickly, since 10 other law schools are now considering the idea. Free research As the world is evolving, so is our access to free legal research. Several new sites are now leaning toward providing more and more legal research free of cost. While other sites such as Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis continue to raise their rates and add new features, their silent competitors, Altlaw, Chesslaw, PreCYdent and the Public Library of Law, are slowly beginning to win the battle in popularity. These free legal research sites offer public domain items that you can find on Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw, yet without a cost. Back to School 2008 9
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