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W&L Law Prof James Moliterno Honored for Legal Education Reform

James Moliterno, Vincent Bradford Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, has received the 2012 Rebuilding Justice Award from the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS).

Moliterno received the award on Sept. 27 at the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers (ETL) conference hosted by the University of Denver Law School. ETL, a project of IAALS, is a consortium of law schools working on legal education reform and the integration of teaching methods detailed in the influential 2007 Carnegie Report. W&L is one of the original members of the consortium.

In selecting Moliterno for the award, representatives of IAALS cited Moliterno’s leadership in incorporating experiential techniques into his own teaching and in sharing his expertise across the legal academy.

“I am thrilled to be the first legal educator to receive the Rebuilding Justice Award from IAALS,” said Moliterno. “Building or rebuilding justice starts in the law schools—law students represent the future of justice in any society.”

Moliterno has spent his career as a legal educator seeking ways to infuse experiential learning into legal education. He was the architect of William and Mary law school’s award winning ethics, skills, and professionalism program, which in 1991 won the American Bar Association Gambrell Professionalism Award, as the best law school or bar association program for the teaching of ethics and professionalism.

Since joining Washington and Lee in 2009, Moliterno has helped design and implement W&L’s innovative third-year curriculum, which consists entirely of practice-based simulations, real client experiences, and advanced explorations into legal ethics and professionalism. Moliterno’s recent publications include “Cases and Materials on the Law Governing Lawyers” and “The Litigation Department Lawyer,” an outgrowth of his work developing litigation-based practicum courses for the School.

In addition, Moliterno is a series editor for a new style of course-books by West Publishing that incorporate experiential elements into books that will support many of the traditionally required law school courses.  His book titled “Experiencing Civil Procedure” will be the first of the series.

Moliterno is an acknowledged international expert in legal ethics and professionalism, and has traveled throughout the world to help countries develop ethics policies and training programs. He participated in the USAID Rule of Law project in Serbia to establish legal skills training programs, and has worked with lawyers and judges in China, Kosovo, Spain, and the Czech Republic on ethics training.

News Contact:
Peter Jetton
School of Law Director of Communications
pjetton@wlu.edu
(540) 458-8782