University of Arkansas School of Law Dean of the School of Law Law School Admissions, 575-3102 National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information, 575-7640 |
Dean: Leonard P. Strickman, A.B., J.D., Dean and Professor Associate Dean: Morton Gitelman, J.D., LL.M., Associate Dean and Distinguished Professor Associate Dean for Students: James K. Miller, B.S.B.A., J.D. |
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSORS GITELMAN, LOONEY; PROFESSORS BEARD, BRILL, COPELAND, FLACCUS, GOFORTH, GUZMAN, JUDGES, KILLENBECK, LAURENCE, LEFLAR, MATTHEWS, NORVELL, PEDERSEN, RICHARDS, SCHWARTZ, STEINKAMP, STRICKMAN, WATKINS; PROFESSORS EMERITUS CARNES, WITTE; ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS ATKINSON, BAILEY, BRUMMER, KILPATRICK; RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR McIVOR; ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND LIBRARIAN AHLERS; ASSISTANT PROFESSORS NANCE, PILCHER, SELIGMANN; RESEARCH ASSISTANT PROFESSORS BOZZO, COATS, SAMPSON, SCHNEE, TARVIN
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The primary goal of the University of Arkansas School of Law is to prepare lawyers who will render high-quality professional service to their clients, who are interested in and capable of advancing legal progress and reform, and who are prepared to fill the vital role of the lawyer as a community leader.
The School of Law has certain widely shared objectives for its educational program. There are a number of important skills and qualities every lawyer should possess. The major objectives of legal study are to see that graduates possess these skills and qualities upon completion of their legal studies.
These objectives can best be realized by a competent and dedicated full-time faculty working in partnership with an interested and involved bench and bar. The faculty and administrative staff at the Law School strive to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with judges and practicing lawyers. Appellate courts regularly schedule cases at the Law School. The judges meet with students informally after the arguments.
While only full-time faculty members teach first-year courses and other required substantive law courses, practice skill courses such as Legal Clinic and Trial Advocacy and activities such as Client Counseling depend on the assistance of the practicing bar.
The Law School's educational program is directed to lawyers and judges as well as to law students. The study of law cannot end with the receipt of a diploma. Significant and rapidly changing developments in substantive and procedural law and in the way that law is practiced has created the need for a quality program of continuing legal education. Recognizing this need, the University of Arkansas School of Law, in cooperation with the organized Bar, provides lawyers and judges with the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills through seminars, summer workshops, short courses, audio and video cassette programs, and publications. These programs attempt to blend practical considerations in the solution of legal problems with policy, theoretical, and ethical considerations.
The University of Arkansas School of Law also has a strong sense of responsibility to the people of Arkansas. Thus, members of the faculty and student body are active in numerous public service activities. Legal counsel to the indigent is provided through the Law School's clinical education program and by special court appointments from time to time. Students and faculty also serve on bar, civic, and legislative committees and task forces. A number of faculty and students contribute time and expertise to state agencies and law reform groups. All of these activities offer to students a laboratory of legal work that is eminently real, while at the same time enabling the University of Arkansas School of Law to be of service to the people of Arkansas.
FACILITIES
The Law School is housed in Waterman Hall in the Robert A. Leflar Law Center, a modern, attractive, well-appointed, air-conditioned building. An addition completed in 1975 greatly increased the library, classroom, and office space for the School of Law. The building was again expanded and renovated in 1986 to create additional library space, courtrooms, seminar rooms, office space for the faculty and staff, and a more comfortable student lounge area. The Law Programs Center, a three-story building across the street from Waterman Hall, provides space for the Legal Clinic, the Arkansas Law Review and student organizations.
ROBERT A. AND VIVIAN YOUNG LAW LIBRARY
The Young Law Library, named for its benefactors, contains more than 200,000 volumes. The collection is expanding at a rate of more than 10,000 volumes a year. The case reports and statutes in the library cover every American jurisdiction, and there is an up-to-date and complete collection of legal encyclopedia, digests, tests, treatises, law reviews, reports of administrative agencies, and other government publications.
The Young Law Library is a depository for federal documents. Court records and documents are also available through the library. Included in the library is a growing collection of agricultural law materials developed through the National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information.
Students researching legal problems may use not only the above described "traditional" legal materials but also computer-assisted legal research. Both LEXIS and WESTLAW computer legal research terminals are available to students. A special computer lab is available for student use.
While primarily designed for the use of Arkansas students, the Young Law Library also serves the research needs of the bench, the bar, and the University faculty. The Young Law Library provides an attractive and comfortable atmosphere for study and research. Included within the law library is the Barrett Hamilton Law Library Mezzanine, a particularly attractive study and shelf space area. In addition, the other University libraries are located near the Law School and are available to law students.
TEACHING METHODS
Legal training involves the learning of principles through discussion and of skills by practice. The student must be, by definition, an active participant in that process.
Socratic or Inductive Teaching
The "case method" is the basic tool of traditional American legal education. This method involves the study and discussion of litigated cases.
The teacher calls upon the student to respond in a stimulating question-and-answer dialogue, frequently involving several class members and often including more questions than answers. The learning experience occurs not only in the interchange between teacher and student, but also among the students themselves. The perceptive student will soon learn that a key to the realization of maximum benefit from these interchanges is the ability to listen with discrimination.
This process, applied skillfully by expert teachers and by students possessing a sense of awareness and curiosity, hones the minds of students, develops their respect for facts, and creates a sensitivity to essential differences among issues, policies, reasons, and arguments.
Intensive and consistent daily preparation is necessary for students to participate effectively in this process.
Problem Solving
In a portion of the first-year course, and in later courses, students are given practical legal problems. These problems may involve the drafting of legal documents or the formulation of a course of action for a hypothetical client.
Seminars
By the time students reach their third year, and sometimes earlier, they will be prepared to engage in significant legal research in selected areas of specialization. A primary source for such experience will be seminars taught informally in small groups by professors who are experts in the selected subjects. Frequently, a student will be expected to defend a seminar paper before classmates under circumstances that provide lively and constructive discussion.
Each student is required to complete an upper-level research and writing project. Seminar papers may be used to satisfy this requirement.
Clinical Experience
Of increasing importance in legal education is the role of practical, on-the-job training involving the legal problems of actual clients. Legal Clinic courses provide valuable client counseling experience, as well as participation in actual trials and appeals under the supervision of a member of the faculty and a licensed attorney.
The Clinic has offices in the Law Programs Center near the School of Law; representation is provided for indigent local residents and students. Both civil and certain referred criminal cases are accepted by the Clinic.
Individual Research
During the second and third years, students will be permitted
to engage in research and writing projects for credit under the supervision
of, and in consultation with, a selected faculty member, in an area of particular
interest to the student. Research papers may be used to satisfy the upper-level
research and writing requirement.