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Thursday Schedule
Program
Annual
Meeting
Home
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Thursday, January 2, 2003
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2:00-3:45 p.m.
Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law
Roberto L. Corrada, University of Denver, Chair |
Virginia Suite C
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Lobby Level
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Work Law for the New Millennium:
Retrofitting our Curricula to an Evolving Employment Relation
Moderator:
Ellen J. Dannin, Wayne State University
Speakers: - James B. Atleson, State University of New York at Buffalo
- Marion G. Crain, University of North Carolina
- Cynthia E. Nance, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
- Susan Deller Ross, Georgetown University
- Katherine Van Wezel Stone, Cornell Law School
Commentator:
Fred Feinstein, Visiting Professor and Senior Fellow, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
Labor and employment law have long been staples of the American law school curriculum. Indeed, many labor and employment law professors pursued careers in law teaching because they viewed the traditional labor and employment law curriculum as a vehicle to move idealistic law students toward greater social awareness of the workplace. Although the overall decline in the number of unionized workplaces has meant a lessening emphasis on labor law in the curriculum, employment and anti-discrimination law courses have risen in popularity over the last decade. While employment law still enjoys substantial attention, U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence circumscribing anti-discrimination laws may well mean that interest in employment law has crested. Many law schools no longer offer the traditional labor law course. Meanwhile, employment law seems increasingly to be taught by adjuncts as many law schools have eschewed going into the law faculty hiring market for expertise in the area.
This program will examine the rapidly changing nature of the law of the workplace and the challenges presented for the law school curriculum. To what extent is teaching and scholarship about labor and employment law commanding law school institutional attention? Have the traditional labor and employment law courses become anachronisms in the curriculum? If so, why? Is it possible that changes in the American workplace make them less relevant to future lawyers? If so, should law school curricula change to more accurately reflect the legal demands of the contemporary workplace? If so, how can/should that change occur? The program will commence with the results of a survey conducted by the Labor Law Group canvassing U.S. law schools regarding the scope and depth of labor and employment curricula and emphasis. Program speakers will then talk about how they are responding to the phenomenon of declining societal, institutional and/or student interest in labor and employment law courses.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion
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