Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week I'm taking a look at how the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law is bringing improv to campus in a bid to help students hone their listening skills and learn to think on their feet. Next up, I'm checking in with Jeff Baker, clinical director at Pepperdine University School of Law, on the school's efforts to help those affected by wildfires in California. Read on. 

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter:@KarenSloanNLJ

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Improvise This

Constitutional Law? Check. Torts? Check. Improv for lawyers? Why not?

A handful of law schools offer improv classes or workshops for students designed to help them become lawyers who are creative and able to think on their feet. The latest school to get on board (on stage?) with the trend is Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, which held its first improv workshop earlier this month. I called up professor Yvonne Dutton, who spearheads the program, to find out how improv translates to the law and how buttoned-down law students deal with a medium known for its goofiness.

The first intriguing aspect of this story is Dutton's background. She was a singer and dancer on Broadway before heading to Columbia Law School and a career as a prosecutor and legal academic, she told me. So when she started talking about the potential application of improv at the law school with colleague Margaret Ryznar, it wasn't altogether foreign territory. Dutton and Ryznar ended up taking classes this summer with Second City—the famed improv collective that helped launch the careers of Tina Fey, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy and other stars.

With that experience under their belts, the professors developed an improv workshop for law students. But let me back up a little bit, because improv in law school isn't as out-in-left field as it may sound. Many business schools incorporate improv into their curriculum in the belief that it fosters team-building skills and creativity, Dutton told me. And a few CLE courses for lawyers center on improv. Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law offers an actual course on improv for lawyers, and a quick Google search reveals that both the University of Chicago Law School and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law have utilized improv in the classroom. (Did I mention that Second City is based in Chicago? I sense a connection.) And UC Berkeley Law has a student-run improv club. So what's the aim with all of this? Dutton broke it down for me.

“I see a lot of similarities. There's an acting and improv aspect to being a lawyer. Of course you have to know the law. But you also have to be able to think quickly on your feet, you have to be creative, and you have to listen and talk at the same time. You have to do a lot of things that are improv-like skills.”

Dutton targeted moot court participants for her pilot workshop with the idea that they would be most interested. But she wasn't quite sure whether the students would be willing to jump in with the gusto and commitment needed for improv success. Their performance was a pleasant surprise, however. She eased in with word play games where the students had to finish each others' sentences. But they particularly enjoyed a sillier game in which two participants talk gibberish to each other while a third student translates the nonsense.

“What you're trying to do is not just communicate with words, but you're trying to get a lot out of their facial expression, their body language and their tone of voice,” Dutton said. “Those are things we often overlook because we rely so much on language. The students loved it.”

The takeaway: Improv in law school is one of those things that seems really strange until you take the time to think it through. Of course it has applications within the legal context. Will it help students pass the bar? No. But I can see how these skills might actually help them ace a job interview. And we already discussed the potential courtroom benefits. There's one other huge pro in my book: Improv is fun. Law school can be such a pressure cooker and a grind of casebooks and outlines. Stepping away for a little while to do some improv is a stress reliever and a chance to interact with classmates in a way that's not competitive. Dutton told me she plans to hold additional improv workshops, and I hope other law schools follow suit.

Rising from the Ashes

Last year, Pepperdine University School of Law developed a one-semester disaster relief clinic to help people impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas to file appeals with the Federal Emergency Management Agency when their applications for financial assistance were denied.

Clinic director Jeff Baker joked at the time that the clinic framework would come in handy when an inevitable earthquake rocked Southern California and people needed FEMA help locally. But it turns out wildfires were the first major natural disaster to strike the area, with the Woolsey fire ravaging Ventura County. And Pepperdine is once again diving into disaster relief. This time, its client base is in the school's Malibu backyard.

Baker and the Pepperdine are mustering volunteer attorneys from around the country to help wildfire victims learn about FEMA assistance, to file applications, and to sort out other insurance matters. Come January, Pepperdine will launch a formal clinic with law students assisting clients on those matters throughout the semester and perhaps beyond.

What's especially remarkable about this is that Baker launched the project within four days of the fire's worst devastation. “As we sheltered through the fire, I thought, 'There's no way we can't turn this on again,'” he said of the disaster relief clinic.

And the response from lawyers who want to help has been swift. Ten volunteers stepped up within hours of Baker unveiling the project. “I have been brought to tears today by the outpouring of response to our call for our help, and the resources rolling in from all corners of the country. It's really incredible,” he said.

Extra Credit Reading

➤ So long, Boalt. UC Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has recommended dropping the name Boalt Hall from one of its four buildings in hopes of distancing the school from the racist legacy of John Henry Boalt. Boalt's major claim to fame was his advocacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

➤ Open mouth, insert foot (again). For second time in four months, Emory University School of Law Professor Paul Zwier has run into trouble for using the N-Word with students. The school has placed him on administrative leave.

➤ There's no good spin on this story: The pass rate for the July 2018 California bar exam sunk 9 percent, to a dismal 41 percent overall. Yikes.

➤ The ABA and InfiLaw Corp. are off the hook in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former professor at the now-closed Charlotte School of Law. A federal judge has dismissed the case, which alleged that the school bilked the federal government out of nearly $300 million in student loans by admitting unqualified students.

Thanks for reading Ahead of the Curve and have a very happy Thanksgiving! I'll be back next week with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]