AALS Open Source Program

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Social media, television and film, computer gaming, and other visual media pervade the lives of our students as well as contemporary legal practice. Law schools must begin to prepare students to make use of the visual representations as these forms shape social norms and expectations for effective communication. Moreover, visual representations are quite effective as teaching devices because they are so vivid and because our students are intimately familiar with popular culture. Popular culture media are often used in in teaching traditional law school courses, such as evidence or professional responsibility. Increasingly, legal educators teach students how to utilize visual images or pop culture narratives in their future law practice (for example, in arguing to juries). Still other instructors teach courses in law and popular culture itself, exploring the intersection of popular culture with law, lawyers, and legal institutions.  The Journal of Legal Education will publish a symposium of short articles discussing all three of these different uses of visual representations in legal education. This program consists of presentations by six of these authors, followed by a wide-ranging discussion of the uses of visual imagery in legal education.

Papers from this program will be published in Journal of Legal Education.