What the Best Law Teachers Do:
Project Description

Project Goals

The goals of this project are

• to identify the best law teachers in America,
• to synthesize the principles by which they teach, and
• then to share these principles and stories of these wonderful teachers by documenting them in a book.

Project Timeline

We hope to complete our research over the next two and a half years, producing What the Best Law Teachers Do (Harvard University Press) by January 2012.

Project Design

The project consists of four phases:

1. an initial phase during which we circulated a call for nominations for which we are continuing to solicit and receive nominations;
2. an investigation-focused second phase during which we decide which nominees warrant further investigation, gather additional evidence, and decide which nominees should be subjects of the study;
3. a qualitative study phase during which we visit each subject's law school, attend class sessions, and interview students, alumni, peers and the nominees, and
4. an evaluation, reflection and writing phase during which we synthesize the data and write the book.

Each of these phases is described in greater detail below. While this discussion almost makes it sound as if the process will be a linear one, nominations have come in waves spread out throughout the project timeline as more and more law teachers learn about the project.

Phase I

The focus of the first phase is to generate as many credible nominations as possible. The process started when we adapted Ken Bain's definition of "exceptional teaching" to the legal education context and then designed this web site. We then drafted a transmittal e-mail and letter to send to law professors, law deans, students, and law school alumni soliciting nominations. We will be encouraging and collecting nominations until March 31, evaluating the credibility of the nominations we receive, and sharing these nominations with the legal education community. Nominations will not be posted absent consent from the nominee.

Phase II

During the second phase, we will be more closely evaluating the nominations and deciding which warrant further investigation. We will contact each such nominee and the nominator, asking them to provide evidence that the nominee produces "extraordinary learning." While we will consider all submitted evidence, we also do have suggestions as to the evidence we are most interested in. In many instances, we will ask for additional evidence and even interview the nominator, the nominee and a select few others. By the end of this phase, we not only will have decided who will be the subjects of the study, but, also, we will be choosing not to pursue a significant number of nominations, including, unfortunately, nominations of some very good law teachers.

Phase III

In the third phase, having decided who will be the subjects of my study, we will conduct the study. In fact, studies began in Fall 2008; as of January 2010, we had studied seven best law teacher subjects. For each subject, we plan to visit one or more class sessions (we may decide to visit some sessions by video camera), conduct a lengthy interview of the subject, meet with focus groups of students (and alumni if possible), and otherwise collect additional evidence of effectiveness. We will be vigilant for common themes and start developing hypotheses about the common traits of the best law teachers.

Phase IV

In this phase, we will synthesize the results of my study and honor our contract with Harvard University Press to complete What the Best Law Teachers Do in January 2012.

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