Weather Man or Professor?

I believe that a professor should always be on the lookout for innovative and enticing ways to engage students in class. The more a professor finds inspiring and captivating ways to convey a message or introduce new content, in my experience, the more students interact with the information in class and participate in the discussions.

Basically, this is the philosophy that prompted me to contact our law school’s media department and ask to use their fancy green room for my Foreign, Comparative and International Legal Research class. Despite my initial apprehension, the team gave me full liberty and my mind immediately went to a simple idea: how about me standing in front of a world map presenting a few countries to my students?

Usually, in my class, students are assigned countries in their first class in order to complete all the exercises and walk them through the three types of legal research I’m covering: Foreign/Domestic, Comparative and International. Given the limitations of meeting for only seven weeks, assigning them specific countries (almost in a UN model structure) allows them to remain focused, motivated and challenged throughout the class. The countries that I choose for my class are non-English speaking countries, with mixed legal systems and from different parts of the world. I’m trying to expose them to different legal systems and legal styles which have developed, and continue to, in multiple countries and cultures.

Here below is the entire video. I’m happy to share more information with any Legal Research Professors or anyone interested in this type of advanced legal research and how to teach it to our users.