Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 2nd law review another GMU first Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE B;METROPOLITAN \HD 2nd law review another GMU first \BY Lorraine Woellert \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES George Mason University law school, easily one of the nation's most unorthodox institutions, broke new ground again last month. A year after Dean Henry Manne dropped a 120-year-old tradition at law schools by taking over the student-edited GMU Law Review and turning it over to faculty editors, students announced plans to publish their own review - making GMU the nation's first law school with two law reviews. The law review flap is the latest episode in the debate over the experimental direction of the state-funded university. The school has gotten national attention for its unique curriculum, but critics - including some state officials with control over the school's funding - say its iconoclastic bent is shortchanging students who just want to learn to be lawyers. Students running the new "underground" law review say the school's break with tradition puts them at a disadvantage when competing for jobs. The legal community agrees. Law review "is a plus for certain" on a student's resume, said William R. Rakes, president of the Virginia State Bar. "The [way the] market is now . . . a student needs to distinguish himself or herself in some way." "Whether you agree with student-edited law reviews or not, it's the norm," said Art Schmalz, editor of the new student-run law review. "Perhaps legal academics has remained too stodgy and too deeply steeped in tradition, but at the same time I don't think you want to throw away the baby with the bathwater." Unlike traditional law reviews where students select and edit professional legal essays, Mr. Manne's review will be edited by faculty and publish only student writings. Mr. Manne says student-edited reviews, first conceived in the 1870s, are archaic. "Law reviews have been a laughingstock of the university world because they let students edit serious scholarly work," Mr. Manne said. "Nobody until GMU was willing to bite the bullet and change the system." Mr. Manne hasn't been afraid to break new ground at GMU. He's been conducting what one student called "a grand experiment" since his arrival in 1986, when he began instilling the GMU curriculum with a new "law and economics" theory, a controversial approach that uses economics to analyze legal cases. "It's an interesting teaching perspective, but I don't know if it's useful [in] an everyday workable practice. . . . You wonder how much of the traditional doctrine is lost," Mr. Schmalz said. "Is this a proper role for a public school?" The legal community, though curious, hasn't yet reached a verdict on Mr. Manne's unorthodox curriculum and his emphasis on special academic "tracks" in legal specialties. "[The curriculum] is something that we're not totally familiar with," said Grady Carlson, president of the Fairfax Bar Association. But he added that GMU has "a reputation for turning out high-quality students, and I think that's the important thing." Mr. Rakes agreed about the quality of GMU graduates. He called Mr. Manne a leader in educational reform but said it's too early to tell how GMU's programs will fare. "It's somewhat experimental," he said. "Whether the track system or the law review situation ultimately will be successful or not, I don't know." Siding with students and traditionalists are some state legislators who control GMU's purse strings and want to know how the school's $4.76 million budget is spent. "State-supported law schools should never be used to espouse a particular philosophy," said House Speaker Thomas W. Moss, Norfolk Democrat and lawyer. Mr. Moss calls Mr. Manne's legal philosophy "ridiculous" and said he has asked the State Council on Higher Education to look at how money is spent at the school. He wants information on professor salaries and about whether specialized degree programs with low enrollments are getting a disproportionate amount of funding. Some students and former professors say the nontraditional curriculum is denying students a basic legal education. "There is an issue here of what the mission of the school is," said third-year student Darlene Rise Langley, treasurer of the Student Bar Association. "Is it to turn out attorneys who want to practice in the state or is it to have a lot of name recognition?" By many measures, Mr. Manne's experiment has been an overwhelming success. He has boosted admissions, raised standards, placed graduates in good government and private jobs, and made GMU a national name. In the early 1980s, the fledgling law school, housed in an old department store, was known only for its mediocrity and a singular quirk: It was the only law school in the country with an escalator. In a controversial blitz of activity that one former professor labeled "a hostile takeover," Mr. Manne replaced the staff, infused courses with his law and economics doctrine and created "tracks" that encouraged legal specialties. "For 20 years, I carried around a very extensive plan that had been very carefully gone over by educators," Mr. Manne said. "[GMU President George] Johnson convinced me this was the kind of institution where you could do interesting things." His efforts immediately attracted attention. By 1990, U.S. News & World Report called GMU the nation's top up-and-coming law school. "Law and economics was the first really important interdisciplinary scholarly approach to law, and it's been the most successful by far," Mr. Manne said. "It simply offers richer and more useful tools for analyzing the stuff law deals with." But others say they are uncomfortable with the law school's heavy emphasis on a new and untested approach to the law. "There are some legislators that don't feel real comfortable with this ideological direction, particularly the Democratic legislators," said Delegate Marian Van Landingham, Alexandria Democrat. "They've obviously done some exciting things, but there surely should be some balance." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM