A Pre-First-Class Memo to Those Currently Signed Up
Introduction: Notice and a Request
This is a request for some response from you before our first class this coming Wednesday, January 15 (6:30 p.m., Room 125).
As those of you who know me realize, I really do welcome student participation in course design while recognizing and retaining my responsibility to make the ultimate decisions.
So I want to share with you my present thinking and plans for the seminar, and request your response whether positive, negative or neutral. You can respond in writing (under my door (445), or via Rita Jansen (421)), as a phone message (337-5555), or as e-mail (1035393@mcimail.com).
If a majority think what follows is an interesting approach, compatible with its needs and anticipation, we will go with it. If there is majority resistance and alternative desires I'll probably take these proposals back to the drawing board.
So it's premature for you to make judgments about whether to "hold 'em or fold 'em" (i.e., prepare to drop) at this point. Wait to see how it comes out.
But I wanted to get you this tentative preview as early on as possible.
The Idea
As I think about what you need to know, and what you will likely be doing during your professional lifetime (roughly the first half of the 21st Century), two things stand out:
(1) telecommunications, media, electronics Information Economy hardware, software and services, and the legal and public policy issues they raise, and
(2) global business in general, and Asia in particular.
Information Age-related activities now contribute over one-half of the U.S. gross domestic product. Asia will soon provide nearly half of our potential overseas market. What I've tried to design is a seminar that responds to these two developments.
The Seminar Hypothetical
Like a final exam essay question, there is a proposed semester-long hypothetical as follows:
The seminar participants and instructor are members of a law firm. One of the firm's clients is Global Telecom, Media and Electronics, Inc. (GTME). As its name suggests, it is currently involved in every aspect of the Global Information Economy. GTME does not, however, presently have a presence in Asia. It realizes its future profitability (if not, indeed, its very existence) turns on its ability to do business there. But where? And what business?
The seminar involves addressing the sub-sets of those two questions. Some will take only a few minutes. The last will be the focus of most of your time and effort. Some we will undertake as a group.
What are the countries in Asia we wish to survey? What basic demographic and business information can we gather about each? (If you go to the right source, that's a 20-minute assignment for an individual country.)
What industries, companies, technologies, hardware, software and services can we identify as components of the Information Economy (in any country)? What opportunities are there for a new "billion-dollar bonanza" (a concept we'll explain and discuss early on)?
Of the (say, dozen) largest global telecom and media firms today, what industries are they in, what subsidiaries do they own all or part of, in what joint projects have they invested with others? (Properly done, that's another 20-minute assignment for a student researching one company.)
What firms are now operating within "your country"? (This could turn into a 40-minute assignment.)
What Information Economy markets in your country are actually or potentially open to additional competition? If there has been government ownership of one sector or another, are there plans to "privatize"?
Of the potential business opportunities for an outside firm, which do you think is the most promising and why?
Finally and what will constitute on the order of 75% of the work you will be doing (1) what are the potential legal and public policy issues raised by the use of that technology or service, both (a) in your country, and (b) if it were a business operating in the U.S., and, (2) picking the issue you think most significant, how do you believe it has been, will be, and should be, resolved?
The seminar participants will work together as a group on Wednesday evenings, occasionally in teams, and also, of course, on their individual projects.
Design, Purpose and Scope
The concept is shaped with the awareness that law students in general, and L-3's in particular, are looking for "real world" experience. Well, no academic exercise could be more "practical" for you than this. Do it right, and the odds are good your work in this seminar will influence your future career choices (and may even contribute to your making the contacts that produce that first job interview).
As with any seminar, the centerpiece of your contribution will be the legal and public policy analysis in your paper another opportunity for legal research, analysis, writing and editing.
But there are a number of other purposes as well. (1) The seminar is designed to provide an opportunity for you to draw upon, and attempt to integrate, the full range of your prior legal knowledge and skills. (2) But there will also be the challenge of doing real world, other-than-legal research (mentioned above) of a kind that is likely to require some innovative creativity on your part. (3) Each student will get credit for her or his individual research suggestions and contributions, written out and handed in before the group discussion. The subsequent sharing is designed both to provide some experience working in a team (as your practice will likely require) as well as minimizing research frustration. There is no reason not to share the time-saving research sources and techniques we discover. But it also makes sense to minimize the problem of a rare individual "freeloading" on the work of others during group discussions and projects.
(4) Of course, we will also want to use some of the technology and services we will be studying. (a) E-mail is a convenient way for us to communicate, and one of the first things I'd appreciate from you is your preferred e-mail address for messages. (b) Moreover, if the class is interested, your work will be posted, and evolve, on an Internet Web page. The seminar can involve the participation of lawyers, business people, academics and journalists from the countries involved. (I've already obtained a pledge of cooperation from a couple, prior to hearing from you.) We can at least make an effort to make this a global seminar.
Assignments and Expectations
I am mindful of the demands on students' time, and have tried to take into account that this is not your only academic obligation.
What's a reasonable expectation? If you're going to school "full time," and carrying 15 hours, two hours out for every hour in would mean 45 hours a week (eight hours a day Monday-Friday and five hours spread over a weekend). That leaves 123 hours a week free for things other than law school. Fair enough?
That allocation would mean six hours a week for this two-credit-hour seminar (counting the two hours in class). (Of course, if you are doing additional writing for additional academic credit that requires more time.)
As designed, however, the seminar will require a conscientious level of contribution from you on a regular basis: (a) for the seminar to work at all, (b) in fairness to your colleagues, and (c) in order to get your fair share of fun as well as benefit from it.
Thus, if you are looking for a course you can dip in and out of, with perhaps greatest effort on a paper toward the end of the semester, this may not be the two-credit-hours you are looking for.
A part of the purpose of legal education in general, and seminars in particular, is to provide opportunities for writing with feedback. But law practice does not consist of an unending production of nothing but lengthy appellate court briefs. It also requires a lot of short memos, letters and e-mail messages. It requires factual as well as legal research. Thus, in addition to your producing a substantive legal paper, there will also be from time to time what I refer to above as "20-minute assignments."
As that characterization suggests, these should not be burdensome. But they do require regular participation. To illustrate: to help us get to know each other, one of the very first assignments is for each seminar participant to prepare a brief (one-page maximum) bio. These are then reproduced in booklet form and distributed to the participants. This is easy and quick to do, but if anyone is late it holds up the whole project.
Grading
I am becoming increasingly impressed, or perhaps depressed would be a better word, with the self-defeating impact of "grades" on the law school learning and growing process especially in the context of legal writing. (This is not students' fault. It is the faculty's fault. Students are simply rationally responding to the incentive structure and emphases created by the faculty.)
The following is certainly open to such revision as is necessitated by your preferences, but my preference would be that seminar students be provided lots of "feedback," but no "grades" as such, during the course of the semester. A file folder for each student would contain a "portfolio" of that student's work. I want to provide the maximum possible emphasis on learning, exploration, accomplishment and, yes, plain old fun.
If we do this, when the semester is over a grade would then be provided, based on "the body of the work" contained in each participant's portfolio.
Conclusion and Request
So let me know what you think about all of this. Sound interesting? Not at all what you had in mind? Give me your feedback.
Nicholas Johnson
January 8, 1997