Mitchell Hamline School of Law
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Immersive Virtual Reality: Minnesota Legislature’s Opportunity to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation by Enacting a Well-Defined Criminal Statute
Get PDFTeaching and Learning Law and Business: An Open Resource Tool
Get PDFThis dissertation examines the impacts of business law education through a multi-layered review of surveys, data, and literature. The authors examine what law schools across the country offer, explore research conducted in partnership with the Minnesota and American Bar Associations, and provide a systemic review of the relevant literature. The data shows attorneys resoundingly do not believe law school coursework prepared them adequately for the business of law.
Despite the practical changes that have been made to law school education since the 1960s to the present, there is still a disconnect between what law schools say they will provide and what is delivered. By examining this issue of how law schools have offered an unfulfilled promise, we clarify the process by which education can transform lives, open doors, and reorganize structures to address the needs of the communities we serve. The period studied: 2009–20 includes the expansion of online capabilities, distance learning, and the global pandemic of COVID 19. Two major research strategies are used: (1) a quantitative analysis of state and countrywide-level data and (2) a review of literature. Data has been collected from archives, interviews, newspapers, published reports, and studies. This dissertation challenges the proposition that that doctrinal law school course offerings adequately prepare law students to thrive in business for themselves or their clients. Practical skills courses, innovation, collaboration, simulations, and partnerships with lawyers, teachers and businesspeople in the community will be the driving agents for change
Using Dispute Resolution Skills to Heal a Community
Get PDFOn July 6, 2016, Philando Castile, an African-American male, wasshot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. In the aftermath of this shooting, there were several challenging meetings of the City Council where protestors demanded answers. In response,the Mayor of Falcon Heights reached out to dispute resolution professionals to help him design a two-track process which included a Task Force to propose policy changes to the City Council and a Community Conversations series to provide an opportunity for healing.
In this article, I will describe the process design for the community conversations, the challenges and highlights of the conversations, and how the conversations fit within the broader context of systemic change, including thoughts on replication
One Mistake Does Not Define You: Why First-Time Felony Drug Convictions Should Be Automatically Expunged after Five Years
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An Intentional Conversation about ADR Interventions: Eviction, Poverty and Other Collateral Consequences
Get PDFAn Intentional Conversation about ADR Interventions: Eviction, Poverty and Other Collateral Consequences
Get PDFA Literary Lens Into Constitutional Interpretation and a Possible Synthesis of Natural and Positive Law: The Silmarillion
Get PDFThe nature of identity in the United States lies in the Constitution. Perhaps this is due to “veneration” of the document. It has also been argued that the Declaration of Independence holds a seminal role in the American identity.
The rift seems to occur with the concept of a “living constitution,” whereby the concept of an ever-evolving jurisprudence allows for an evolving interpretation of the Constitution as society changes.
This rift can be demonstrated by the world of J.R.R. Tolkien. In The Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion, the various languages of groups of Middle Earth represent and have distinct portrayals of attributes. The elves speaking Sindarin and Quenya seek beautiful things, the orcs are former elves that have been corrupted in their language, the dwarves are logical in their Khuzdul language, etc. However, the natures of the languages are subject to change. This is exemplified when Melkor, one of the original beings, created by Eru Ilúvatar (the original being), turns dark when the original singing—evidently before the creation of language—of the Ainur becomes dissonant with Melkor’s choice to sing differently.
Natural law has been compared to originalism in the sense that the two have overlapping elements. Again, it may be fair to compare natural law to the musical order set by Eru Ilúvatar. If this premise is accepted that natural law is originalism, the order set by Eru Ilúvatar, then the dissonance caused by Melkor can arguably be the concept of a living constitution—or at least that the two have overlapping elements.
This is not a critique of living constitutionalism and similar theories of constitutional interpretation. But, rather, an interpretation of how the two theories could be metaphors of how constitutional interpretation as seen through literary—that is myths existing in an inception of literature, such as, the myth of The Silmarillion set within the works of Tolkien—lenses. Indeed, for purposes of this analysis: living constitutionalism and originalism could be flipped, arguably.
This deviation from Eru Ilúvatar’s original plan does not have to necessarily result negatively. There are others who fall out of line with the original conception of Eru Ilúvatar, such as “men” who are endowed with the gift of a short life and thus are industrious and creative. Arguably, it could also be extended to the world of Hobbits who are evidently related to men—but their origin story is never clearly delineated in any of Tolkien’s writings.
Thus, this shows that the story of the Silmarillion primarily and in part The Lord of the Rings exemplifies rifts of originalism and living constitution doctrines. These perhaps are not just relevant for Constitutional interpretation purposes