Lindsey P. Gustafson, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Arkansas Bar Association Professor of Law at the UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, has been named to the editorial board of The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning.
This new journal, which will focus on legal teaching methods and practice, has been launched by The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, of which Gustafson is a co-director and Bowen is a co-sponsor. The Institute plans to release one volume per year, beginning in fall 2023.
The Institute was established in 1991 to help law schools provide a learning environment that helps students achieve the highest academic standards and prepares them to assume their responsibilities as effective and moral attorneys. It is the oldest and preeminent law school-based initiative aimed at improving law teaching and learning. The Institute hosts national teaching conferences and conducts private trainings for law schools across the country and throughout the world.
“We are excited to start a peer-reviewed journal on legal pedagogy. Not many legal journals are peer reviewed, and we have assembled an all-star group of editors,” Gustafson said. “We hope authors really notice and appreciate the care we will give to articles, and that we can help build this critical area of scholarship.”
The journal is dedicated to high-quality, full-length law review articles on law teaching. The vision for the journal is to publish science-based articles focused on theoretical or empirical studies of effective teaching and learning. Article topics will range from pedagogy specific to particular fields, like constitutional law, to assessment best practices applicable across all law school courses. An important goal of the new journal will be to publish articles that are driven by evidence rather than articles that report anecdotal experiences of law teachers. By promoting excellence in law teaching via the journal, the Institute hopes that law schools will better prepare students to succeed in practice and pass the bar exam.
The Institute will send The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning by email to every law professor in the country, and is now accepting submissions on Scholastica. Scholars may also submit articles directly to the editor of the inaugural issue, Professor Michael Colatrella, by email at mcolatrella@pacific.edu.
