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READING ASSIGNMENTS AND OUTLINE OF CLASSES
For each class, three columns are listed. All three columns contain required reading, watching, and/or listening materials.
Each item is identified in one of three ways, to indicate how you can access it:
- [WWW] indicates that the item is on the World Wide Web, that is, it’s free for reading and/or downloading on the open Internet. In almost every case, materials designated [WWW] below are also available as pdf documents in the TWEN site for this course.
- [YouTube] indicates the the item is on YouTube. Each YouTube video listed below is approximately 1 hour long.
- [Tw] indicates that the item can be found as a pdf document in the TWEN (“Course Materials” subsection) site for this course. Each reading is numbered to correspond to the appropriate class section and identified by the first author’s last name.
The readings are front-loaded, so that the workload is heavier at the start of the semester and lighter toward the end. The purpose of the front-loading is to give students more time and space to work their research papers into final form.
The biographies of the authors and speakers are provided here. Many of the works assigned below are related to larger works.
Recommended but not required: For continuing looks at the economic and technological challenges facing the legal profession today, I strongly encourage students to take a look at articles on these websites:
- Bill Henderson, Legal Evolution
- Mark Cohen (lawyer and consultant at Legal Mosaic), at Forbes.com
- The Observatory, a comprehensive inventory of innovation and technology developments in contemporary law practice
And, for podcasting fans, these podcasts:
- The Future Law Podcast
- Reimagining Justice
- Law Technology Now
- LawNext
- LegalTechLive
- Zooming Through Law School
Class 1 (the first day of class) (Wednesday, August 25) (read and watch what you can before class and catch up with the rest before Class 2):
Lawyers in history. Read the following:
- [Tw] Robert Gordon, The American Legal Profession, 1870–2000 (2008) [53 pp.]
- [WWW] Jordan Furlong, A changed and changing profession [8 pp.]
- [WWW] Dan Currell, My new Volvo is a Mazda [11 pp.]
Innovation and leadership. Read and watch the following:
- [YouTube] Ed Catmull, Pixar, Creativity, Inc.
- [Tw] Gary Pisano, The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures (2019) [14 pp.]
- [WWW] Beth Noveck, 7 skills you need if you want to solve public problems [5 pp.]
The law and politics of technology. Read and watch the following:
- [YouTube] James Gleick, The Information
- [Tw] Langdon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? (1980) [15 pp.]
- Optional but highly recommended [WWW] Ezra Klein interviews Michael Sacasas, This Conversation Changed the Way I Interact With Technology [a podcast] [transcript here]
Class 2 (Wednesday, September 1):
Legal organizations today. Read the following:
Collaboration. Read and watch the following:
- [WWW] Michael Madison, The Shapes and Letters of the Modern Lawyer, and review the material at the links
- [WWW] Interview with Bjarne P. Tellmann, The “T-shaped” General Counsel [14 pp.]
- [WWW] Caitlin “Cat” Moon, Delta Model Lawyer: Lawyer Competencies for the Computational Age [8 pp.]
- [YouTube] Dave Logan, University of Southern California, Tribal Leadership
- [Tw] Martin Campbell-Kelly, et al., Computer: A History of the Information Machine (2014) [34 pp.]
- [Tw] Laura DeNardis & Andrea M. Hackl, Internet Governance by Social Media Platforms [9 pp.]
Class 3 (Wednesday, September 8):
Law practice today. Read the following:
Teamwork. Read the following:
- [WWW] Angela Karrasch, Alison Levine, and Thomas Kolditz, U.S. Army and United States Military Academy, Leadership When It Matters Most Lessons on Influence from In Extremis Contexts [13 pp.]
- [YouTube] Thomas Kolditz, Leading by Trust in Times of Crisis
- [Tw] Barbara Kellerman, What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers [9 pp.]
Friday, September 10: The short summary of the research paper topic is due.
Class 4 (Wednesday, September 15):
The future of the legal profession. Watch the following:
Values and power in leadership. Watch the following:
The law and politics of technology. Read and watch the following:
- [WWW] Cory Doctorow, Contextual Advertising [a Twitter thread]
- [WWW] Kate Crawford and Jason Schultz, Big Data and Due Process: Toward a Framework to Redress Predictive Privacy Harms [read pp. 93-99 & pp. 121-128] [13 pp.]
- [YouTube] Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
- [YouTube] Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Class 5 (Wednesday, September 22):
New roles for law and lawyers. Read the following:
- [Tw] Gillian Hadfield, Innovating to Improve Access: Changing the Way Courts Regulate Legal Markets [13 pp.]
- [WWW] David F. Levi et al., Reclaiming the Role of Lawyers as Community Connectors [7 pp.]
- [WWW] Innovation Working Group of the Task Force on Justice, Innovating Justice: Needed and Possible [25 pp.]
Ethics, values, and power in leadership. Read the following:
- [Tw] Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, Ten Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders [2 pp.]
- [Tw] Roderick M. Kramer, The Great Intimidators [10 pp.]
- [WWW] J. Scott Armstrong, Social Irresponsibility in Management [28 pp.] (summarized here)
The law and politics of technology. Watch the following:
Class 6 (Wednesday, September 29):
Systems thinking and problem solving in law. Read the following:
- [WWW] William D. Henderson, Solving the Legal Profession’s Diversity Problem [13 pp.]
- [WWW] Bill Henderson, Rule Makers versus Risk Takers [13 pp.]
Leadership tools and skills. Watch the following:
Tools for governance. Read the following:
- [WWW] Elinor Ostrom, Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems [37 pp.]
- [Tw] Lawrence Lessig, The New Chicago School [30 pp.]
Class 7 (Wednesday, October 6):
Innovation in law. Read the following:
Leadership tools and skills. Read the following:
Power. Read any of the following:
- [WWW] Tarleton Gillespie, Platforms are not Intermediaries [19 pp.]
- [WWW] James Grimmelmann, The Platform is the Message [17 pp.]
Friday, October 8: The outline of the research paper is due.
Class 8 (Wednesday, October 13):
Disruption in law. Read the following:
Leadership tools and skills. Watch the following:
Power. Read the following:
- [WWW] Yochai Benkler, Power and Productivity: Institutions, Ideology, and Technology in Political Economy [20 pp.]
Class 9 (Wednesday, October 20):
Legal education. Read the following:
Leadership tools and skills. Watch either of the following:
- [YouTube] David Epstein, Range
- [YouTube] David Epstein, Range
Who made it? Labor and employment in history. Read either of the following:
Class 10 (Wednesday, October 27):
Law as a service industry. Read the following:
- [Tw] Carolyn Lamm and Hugh Verrier, Large law firms: A business model, a service ethic [7 pp.]
- [WWW] Duc Trang, The Role of Technology in the Legal Profession and The Human Side of Lawyering
- [WWW] D. Daryl Wyckoff and David H. Maister, The Laws of Service Businesses [4 pp.]
The hard work of leadership. Read and listen to the following:
Who made it? Labor and employment today. Read the following:
Class 11 (Wednesday, November 3):
What law and lawyers do. Read the following:
Teaching leadership. Read the following:
- [WWW] Susan Sturm, Law Schools, Leadership, and Change [5 pp.]
- [WWW] Michael J. Madison, Leading New Lawyers [21 pp.]
- [WWW] Training Lawyers as Leaders [a blog of bite-sized but useful strategies for lawyer-leaders, from Baylor Law]
What’s at stake. Read the following:
Class 12 (Wednesday, November 10):
Optional: Building a Better Bar: Capturing Minimum Competence, a new (Oct. 29, 2020) report from IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System [114 pp.] (have a taste via this briefer version)
.
Friday, November 12: The first draft of the research paper is due.
Class 13 (Wednesday, November 17) (last class):
Pulling leadership together in a simple, useful, and usable package, the way that clever public intellectuals and management consultants do. Read and listen to the following:
- [Spotify] Brené Brown with Abby Wambach on the New Rules of Leadership
- [WWW] Larry Robertson, A Growth Mindset is Powerful, but Only if You Know How to Use it [5 pp.]
- [WWW] Larry Robertson, Want to Innovate More Powerfully? Learn This Lesson From Surfing Birds [6 pp.]
- [WWW] Larry Robertson, Think You’re a Good Leader? [6 pp.]
- [WWW] Larry Robertson, Success Isn’t a Formula [6 pp.]
.
Thursday, December 9: The final draft of the research paper is due.