A survey at Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School examined student expectations and their fulfillment, career specialization interests, changes in attitudes toward the legal profession, and personality changes. It was found that the desired student maturation often does not occur. Available from Am. Bar Fdn., 1155 East 60th St.,…

A study compared the attitudes toward change held by students preparing for careers as teachers, nurses, medical doctors, and lawyers. It was hypothesized that: (1) education majors are less likely to be open to change than other students; (2) education and nursing ("semi-professions") majors are less likely to be open to change than other…

Despite the myths and the movies, law teaching does little more than the most obvious things for its students. It is a sometimes clever, often boring, initiation rite for the legal profession, and it serves up reams of information about the law. However, the materials of law are the materials of human beings, and these experiences have to be…

This study examined how diversity influenced law students' educational experiences. Predominantly White students at Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School, as well as at five other law schools, completed surveys that examined such topics as: frequency of contact with diverse people growing up and in high school, college, and…

A study of law students' beliefs about quality of learning in work settings, and which factors distinguish between settings supporting good learning and those that do not, is described. Results correspond to a theory of ecological learning. Criticisms of workplace learning are examined. It is argued that legal educators need not control the work…

The purpose of this study was to get more insight in the effects of written assessment tasks integrated in a problem-based learning environment. Both the influence on students' performances and students' perceptions were investigated. Students' final exam results were used to find out whether students who make the assessment tasks do better than…

In the study described in this paper, 221 students in beginning and senior level university journalism and law courses read descriptions of ten cases of alleged invasions of privacy by photojournalists, gave their opinions on the ethics of taking and publishing the pictures, and indicated their degree of interest in a number of topics related to…

A survey indicates judgeships are a very attractive legal career. Students preferred selection (in descending order) by initial merit selection, merit promotion from inferior courts, executive appointment, legislative appointment, nonpartisan election, and partisan election. (AVAIL: University of Cincinnati College of Law, Room 12, Taft Hall,…

Students' and graduates' complaints about the Howard University Law School center on graduates' low rates of passing the bar examination but also take note of the poor condition of the physical plant. Article outlines student criticisms and planned administrative responses to the school's decline in quality. (SLD)

The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) documents dimensions of quality in legal education and provides information about law student participation in effective educational activities that law schools and other organizations can use to improve student learning. Since its inception in 2003, more than 64,000 law students at 111 different…

The 1976 entering class of the University of Houston (UH) Law School was surveyed to identify reasons for entering law school and career objectives. Three distinct groups are shown (UH sole school considered, UH only alternative, UH one of several alternatives), each having its own distinctive cluster of social conditions and perspectives. (MSE)

In April, 1991, Timothy McGuire, a third year student at Georgetown University Law Center, published an article in the Georgetown Weekly Law Review entitled "Admissions Apartheid," which accused the admissions office at Georgetown of admitting minority students who were less qualified than white students. The analysis provided in this…

A portion of a larger survey study of the socialization of law students is reported. Focus is on student perceptions and idealized views of law, lawyers, and legal education in general and changes in these attitudes influenced by exposure to law school over a seven-month period during the first year. (JMD)

Surveys of graduating students (n=336 and 917, respectively) at four lower-cost and five higher-cost law schools examined effects of various levels of student debt burden on career plans. High debt amounts were slightly related to taking a job in large private law firms. Debt burdens of one in five or six students was judged to be too high. (DB)

A survey of the faculty and students of the University of Akron (Ohio) School of Law was conducted to ascertain their use and perceptions of the efficiency of the School of Law Library. Results demonstrate the importance of the library in meeting the information and research needs of both groups. Several common threads of dissatisfaction are…