Teaching

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As law professor, most of my students are Millennials. What does that mean?  Well, Neil Howe and William Strauss, in their book Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, published in 1991, defined Millennials as those born between 1982 and 2004. I’ll go with that.  As one who is firmly part of Generation X (the age group and not the band, though that would be cool), I’m curious. It seems that some people think so.  I don’t think Gen Xers think of themselves as such very often. 

What made me think of this?  A political ad from NextGen Climate, funded by hedge fund billionaire/environmental activist Tom Steyer, apparently seeks to generate more support for Hillary Clinton by targeting Gary Johnson. The ad is below.  The ad begins: “Thinking about voting for Gary Johnson? In case you missed it, climate change will cost millennials over $8 billion if no one does anything about it.”

 That’s just weird to me.  I know it’s trying to motivate that age group of voters, but I am not sure many Millennials would think of themselves as such.  That is — does it resonate at all to have this ad targeted at them…

In January 2015, I wrote about a resolution to take a break from e-mails on Saturdays.

That resolution failed, quickly.

Since then, I have been thinking a lot about my relationship with e-mail.

On one hand, I get a lot of positive feedback from students and colleagues about my responsiveness. On the other hand, constantly checking and responding to e-mails seems to cut against productivity on other (often more important) tasks.

Five or six weeks ago, I started drafting this post, hoping to share it after at least one week of only checking my e-mail two times a day (11am and 4pm). Then I changed the goal to three times a day (11am, 4pm, and 9pm and then 5am, 11am, 4pm). Efforts to limit e-mail in that rigid way failed, even though very little of what I do requires a response in less than 24 hours. On the positive side, I have been relatively good, recently, at not checking my e-mail when I am at home and my children are awake. 

A few days ago, I read Andrew Sullivan’s Piece in the New York Magazine on “Distraction Sickness.” His piece is long, but worth reading. A short excerpt…

As you know, assessment is of critical importance these days, and I am confident that in a few years most, if not all, law school casebooks will come with effective, out-of-the-box, turnkey assessments. If you believe your book is already there, or even close, please send your pitch to me at spadfie@uakron.edu. Assuming no unforeseen problems, I plan to post these pitches here, as I am sure they will be of interest to many of our readers.

Imagine this: Professor walks into Business Associations class Monday morning at 8:00 am having prepared to cover 14 pages of reading when she assigned only three (intending, when creating the syllabus, as she later recalled, to use the time to summarize, contrast, and compare agency law rules that will again come into play in partnership and other entity law–and to catch up, if need be).  OK.  The professor is me.  First lesson (which I thought I had learned many moons ago): always double-check the syllabus on what you’ve assigned.
 
So, what happened in class?  Well, the students didn’t let on that the outline for the class plan that I scripted out on the whiteboard seemed to go beyond the reading.  But they might not have recognized that, since it was only an outline.  However, once I started covering the unassigned material, someone did alert me to my error.  Shocked (!), I told them that I had been too nice (weak response) and that–obviously–I had not checked the syllabus to confirm the day’s reading assignment before scripting out the class plan and preparing for class.
 
I didn’t then let the students go after learning of the mistake (having covered

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During the past few days, I have participated in a lot of meetings.

This has led to some thinking on what makes a good meeting.

To me, a useful meeting is one that accomplishes things that could not be handled appropriately by an e-mail. Some meetings are held, I am convinced, because those calling the meetings are not sure that participants read and pay attention to e-mails. This worry could be best addressed, in my opinion, by making expectations regarding e-mail management clear, perhaps coupled with consequences for those who ignore the contents.

That said, e-mail is not appropriate in all cases and here are four categories where in-person meetings can work better than e-mail:

  1. Inspire. Perhaps some can be inspired over e-mail, but it seems much easier to inspire in person. As such, I think some good meetings can be used to inspire participants to achieve organizational goals. But inspiring others, especially sometimes cynical professors, can be difficult to do.
  2. Build Relationships. Sometimes the only times you see certain colleagues are at faculty meetings, so meetings can be a good way to build relationships, especially if folks hang around before and after meetings or if significant time is

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Belmont University starts classes on Wednesday. Below I share a few tips for new students. Josh posted a good list earlier this week, but my list is a bit different, perhaps because I teach primarily undergraduate and graduate business students. None of these is new or earthshattering, but, like many simple things, they remain difficult to put into action.

  1. Be Professional. As I often tell my students, you start building your reputation in school. I have declined business opportunities from former classmates because I remembered how they conducted themselves in school. Be on time, be prepared, be thoughtful, and be honest. We should recognize that people change over time and be open to giving second chances, but, unfortunately, not everyone will be quick to change an opinion they form of you while you are in school.
  2. Get to Know Your Classmates and Your Professors. Building relationships is an important aspect of personal and professional life. It is tempting to just put your head down in school and not spend time trying to form strong bonds. An incredible number of students never meet with their professors or only meet with them right before a project or an exam. Professors and classmates are

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Whether we’re ready or not (we mostly are), classes start tomorrow for West Virginia University College of Law. Orientation for new students started last week, and I had the chance to teach a group of our new students. I had three sessions with the group where we discussed some cases, how to brief a case, and did some writing exercises.  It’s been a while since I worked with first-year students, and it was a lot of fun.  

In addition to the assigned work, I answered a lot of questions, in and out of the classroom.  Questions focused mostly on how to succeed as a law student. Although there’s plenty of advice on the internet, and whole books dedicated to subject, and even my own blog posts.  Last year, I provided my Ten Promises For New Law Students to Consider.   This year, I had enough similarly themed questions, that I thought I’d add some detail to my basic advice for new law students. 

1) Do the work. 

Some students ask — if I work law school like a job, is that a good idea?  As with everything, it depends.  I don’t know how you work.  If you work regular hours, every day…

Today marked the end of the 2016 conference of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS).  My discussion session on small business finance capped off the Workshop on Business Law, a series of business law programs at the conference, and closed out the conference itself just after Noon.  It was great to share programs, at various points in the conference, with co-bloggers Josh Fershee, Ann Lipton, Haskell Murray, and Marcia Narine.

Here is a list of the three business law programs in the Workshop on Business Law from this year’s conference:

  • Discussion Group: Sustainability & Sustainable Business
  • Discussion Group: Perspectives on the Future of White-Collar Crime
  • Discussion Group: The Legal Aspects of Small Business Finance in the Crowdfunding Era

Other business law programs included several of the new scholar paper panels, the annual “Supreme Court Update” on “Business, Administrative, Securities, Tax, and Employment Issues,” a discussion group focusing on “Big Data: Big Opportunities in Business and Government, and Big Challenges in Law and Ethics,” and a discussion group in the SEALS “Works-in-Progress Series” that featured papers by veteran scholars on topics ranging from international food labeling regulation, to self-interest in financial regulation, to developing a better understanding of informational intermediaries…

I am not the first to notice that law professors, and academics generally, have their own jargon and favorite buzzwords.  Some websites do a nice job of highlighting (or mocking) many of the odds turns of phrase many of us use.  Lawyers in the practicing bar do this, too, of course, and other professionals, especially business people (see, e.g., Dilbert) and public relations professionals.

I try not to be too jargon-y, but I have caught myself more than a few times.  I am big on “incentivize,” for example.   After attending a great SEALS Conference (likely more on that to come), I came away with a bunch of new ideas, a few new friends, and some hope for future collaboration.  I also came away noticing that, sometimes, as a group, “we talk funny.”  On that front, two words keep coming to my mind: “unpack” and “normative.”

So, when did we all “need” to start “unpacking” arguments?

This seemed like a relatively recent phenomenon to me, so I checked.  A Westlaw search of “adv: unpack! /3 argument” reveals 140 uses in Secondary Sources.  The first such reference appears in a 1982 law review article: Michael Moore, Moral Reality, 1982 Wis.

Last week on the blog I featured the smart book Empire of the Fund by sharing excerpts from a conversation with author, Professor William Birdthistle.  In discussing the book, he shared with me some insights on writing a book:  its process, genesis and use in the classroom.  I am fascinated by other’s people writing process in the continual effort to improve my own.

writing a book…

[W]riting a book was more of a challenge than I expected, even though I told myself it was simply a collection of law review articles.  It turns out that the blinking cursor on an empty screen is more taunting when you’re obliged to fill hundreds of pages.  Brief stints of productivity need to be repeated again and again and, until it all exists, nothing really exists.  I developed a convoluted system of drafting notes, then sitting down with a research assistant to record a chat about those notes, then working that recording into an outline.  That process still left me with plenty of writing to do, but I found it much easier to expand, polish, and revise those outlines than to fight the demon blank page.

Talking through your ideas forces you to synthesize the materials. It also…