Moving Beyond Langdell: An Annotated Bibliography of Current Methods for Law Teaching

Abstract:     
Many legal educators came into teaching after having practiced in the legal field. However, few of us had any formal training on how to teach effectively and often fall back upon the traditional methods of what we learned during our formal education – perhaps with a few changes designed to excise those elements of our training which we deemed ineffective or inappropriate. In fact, few legal scholars expended precious research time evaluating methods for teaching the law. And although general research on teaching adult learners has been conducted in universities, except under unusual circumstances, this research rarely filtered down to law faculties. That which did usually did not deal directly with the somewhat unique law school setting. Recently, greater emphasis has been placed on how we do what we do and many law professors have begun researching and writing in the area of teaching pedagogy. This bibliography compiles in one place, an annotated ready reference of articles that pertain to teaching methods and techniques for law teachers. Many of the sources contained in the bibliography are practice oriented and have direct practical application to the classroom setting. The bibliography is designed for the classroom teacher as the primary audience and offers 45 subject categories.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 48

Keywords: Gonzaga Institute for Law Teaching, legal education, teaching, law, methods, annotated bibliography, pedagogy, effective teaching

JEL Classification: K19

Accepted Paper Series