University of Arkansas at Little Rock
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Intellectual Property—Copyright Law—AI is “Actual Imitation:” An Argument on Why Generative AI Should Not Be Allowed to Learn from Copyrighted Materials Without Authorization
Get PDFEnvironmental Law—Relatively Impermanent Waters: The Need for State Regulation of Isolated Wetlands in Arkansas After Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency
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Self-Compassion and Law Student Professional Identity Formation
Get PDFThe American Bar Association’s Standards for Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar require law schools to provide students with “substantial opportunities” for “[t]he development of a professional identity.” The Standards do not require a particular curriculum or mode of instruction but offer two guideposts for legal educators: one, that “professional identity focuses on what it means to be a lawyer and the special obligations lawyers have to their clients and society,” and two, that professional formation “should involve an intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.” The guidance and concomitant flexibility afforded by the Standards offer law schools remarkable challenges and opportunities, notably that law students be invited to intentionally explore the contours of their vocation. This essay adds to the discourse on professional identity formation by asserting that self-compassion ought to number among the “values, guiding principles, and well-being practices” to which law students are formally introduced and invited to internalize as essential to their professional identity formation
Axiomatic Shifting Paradigms: Wittgenstein’s Language-Games, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Language, Law, and the Limits of Formalism
No full textThis Article shows how Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea of “language-games” and Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems mark the outer limits of legal formalism and other leading interpretive theories—textualism, originalism, and purposivism. It begins by tracing Wittgenstein’s progression from a “picture theory” of language to the view that social context drives meaning more than any simple correspondence between words and reality. Gödel’s work on formal systems, suggesting that mathematics—long held as the pinnacle of logical certainty—itself cannot be both consistent and complete, reinforces the notion that purely “logical” approaches cannot capture the full range of linguistic and social nuances at play in law.
Next, the Article examines how the late-nineteenth-century “scientific” movement in legal education, associated with Harvard Law School, underlies many assumptions about formalism. It then compares textualism, originalism, and purposivism, each grappling—but ultimately unable to resolve—the deep ambiguities that language poses. By exploring examples such as grammar debates, the sorites paradox (on vagueness), and Wittgenstein’s concept of language as shared practice, the Article shows why no interpretive framework can truly eliminate uncertainty or encapsulate the ever-evolving nature of the meaning of legal texts.
Finally, the Article proposes a “dialectical sublation” of these rival schools of interpretation. Rather than clinging to the impossible dream of perfect textual clarity, it urges jurists and legal theorists to accept the fluidity and contingency inherent in language—and to build that understanding into their interpretive methods
A Critical Perspective on Formative Assessment Mandates
Get PDFFormative assessment is a hot topic in legal education. Numerous commentators maintain that such assessment improves student learning of legal skills and content. Many law schools have adopted formative assessment requirements. And the American Bar Association recently proposed changing law school accreditation standards to mandate formative assessment in the first year. This essay challenges these trends. There is a paucity of evidence that formative assessment enhances learning among law students. Much of the broader assessment literature has limited relevance in legal education. And conducting formative assessment entails serious costs that are frequently overlooked by its proponents. In sum, the evidence supporting the use of formative assessment is plainly not sufficient to override the default rule of professor autonomy with respect to pedagogy. Accordingly, formative assessment mandates at the accreditation or institutional level are unjustified
Criminalization of Landlord/Tenant Law: Arkansas’ “Failure to Vacate” Statute
No full textArkansas is not a notable state. It is often confused with Kansas or Alabama. It is difficult for most Americans to find on a map. Perhaps Arkansas has few distinctions. However, it is the only place in the country where a tenant can be thrown in jail for missing a rental payment. The legal landscape of Arkansas is unique in many ways, primarily in its old-fashioned, even archaic, view of property law.
First, this article examines the history behind the Failure to Vacate statute. Next, this article reviews the constitutional challenges that the statute has faced, and recent litigation. Then, this article reviews the data gathered regarding enforcement of Failure to Vacate across the state. Next, the article examines and analyzes these findings. Finally, the article makes final recommendations on how the failure to vacate should be changed and amended
Democratic Lawyering: Upending the “Hidden Curriculum” to Prepare New Lawyers for a New World
Get PDFMultiple heightening crises reveal the deficiencies and contradictions of legal education, in particular the values it imparts. Perpetuating myths about U.S. democracy and rule of law, the enduring formalist, liberal legalist cast of law school is increasingly at odds with students’ lived experiences. As liberal democracy and the rule of law falter, no longer is relying on the “hidden curriculum” or the historically nebulous and mythical narratives of the law and our legal system sufficient to prepare tomorrow’s lawyers for the challenges faced by our profession. Instead, with a boost from ABA Standard 303, this article draws on the tradition of democratic lawyering as a well from which to continue to propagate an approach to professional-identity development. This approach—democratic lawyering—makes explicit its orientation: training legal professionals rooted in and committed to multiracial democracy. Only by clearly and intentionally recentering the project of legal education to embrace and spring from this tradition can the legal profession meet the challenges ahead