Linda L. Ammons to become one of only two black female law school deans
By Les Powell
Archived Article FEBRUARY 2006....

Linda L. Ammons said her goal as the Widener University School of Law's dean is "to make Widener even better-known among the bar, bench and communities where both campuses are located."
Linda L. Ammons, who has been selected to be the new dean of the Widener University School of Law, has followed an unusual career path.
Ammons once worked as a news reporter for an Alabama television station. In Ohio, she worked to change state law to improve the legal defense of battered women who are accused of striking back at their abusers.
When Ammons takes over as dean on July 1, she will be the first woman and the first black to lead Widener's law school, which has campuses in Susquehanna Twp. and Wilmington, Del.
She will become one of only two black women in the nation serving as law school deans.
"I'm very pleased and very honored to be able to contribute to history in this way," Ammons said.
She comes from Cleveland, where she was an associate dean for two years at Cleveland-Marshall School of Law.
Ammons will be Widener's seventh dean since its founding in 1971.
'Exceptional leader'
While Widener "is a very young law school," she said, "it has made some remarkable progress. Its Law and Public Policy program is something it can be very proud of. You'll be seeing more in years to come."
Ammons said her goal is "to make Widener even better-known among the bar, bench and communities where both campuses are located."
About 500 law students attend the Susquehanna Twp. campus, and more than 1,300 study at Widener's main campus in Wilmington.
"We believe Linda Ammons has the vision and drive to lead our law school to new levels of academic excellence," said Widener University President James T. Harris III. "She is an exceptional leader with a national reputation who has demonstrated a commitment to public service that coincides closely with Widener's mission."
Former Cleveland-Marshall dean Steve Steinglass, who hired Ammons as an associate dean, called her "smart, enthusiastic, poised ... the whole package."
"She's very result-oriented -- comes up with a plan, can get from A to Z, gets things done," he said. "She will be very much engaged in getting Widener engaged with the community."
Worked for battered women
Before joining the Cleveland-Marshall faculty in 1991, Ammons was an executive assistant to former Ohio Gov. Richard F. Celeste, advising him on legal and policy matters.
In that position, Ammons probed the cases of women who were incarcerated for killing their abusers.
She found that the courts would not have dealt so harshly with those women had the law allowed evidence of battering at trial.
In 1990, the Supreme Court of Ohio recognized the validity of battered-woman syndrome and ruled it could be admitted as evidence in the defense of battered women.
Ammons initiated a project that resulted in clemencies for 28 battered women.
"The project had national implications," she said. "Ohio was the first state to do a systematic review" of such cases.
She subsequently initiated and co-chaired the American Bar Association's National Institute on Defending Battered Women in Criminal Cases.
"The ABA became interested in training defense lawyers to do a better job of defending battered women in criminal cases," she said.
Encountered racism
Ammons witnessed the impact of the law while growing up in Cleveland during the civil rights movement.
"I remember the speeches of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy," she said, noting that Kennedy spoke in Cleveland "a day or two after King was assassinated."
"I grew up in a household where discussion of civil rights was as common as sitting down to dinner," she said.
Ammons said that she saw the legacy of racism when she became a television news reporter in the South, working for an NBC station in Huntsville, Ala.
"I was the first woman and the first African-American woman to be on the news" in that area, she said.
In the South at that time, "there were still vestiges of segregation, of the apartheid mentality," Ammons said. "I personally received calls from the [Ku Klux] Klan. David Duke wanted to be on my talk show. I still have a sign I took down from a telephone pole saying 'Klan meeting tonight.'"
Her transition from the news to the law "wasn't a direct move," she said.
"When I entered graduate school, I was interested in the FCC and regulatory issues," said Ammons, who earned a master's degree in communication in 1981.
She earned her law degree in 1987 at Ohio State's Moritz College of Law.
"I've been blessed with many successes," Ammons said. "I'm engaged in whatever I'm doing."
From Rominger Legal.

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In The Wall Street Journal, Kathleen Sullivan's boss, William Urquhart, states: "She is a rock star . . . The problem is not with Kathleen Sullivan, it is with the person who drafted the exam or the person who graded it."
The arrogance and inherent ignorance (about the California bar exam) in Mr. Urquhart's comments are alarming.
First, the California bar exam is the most difficult bar exam in the nation, mainly because of the written portion. (Not, contrary to popular belief, the multiple-choice portion. More on that misperception, born from questionable marketing practices, in next month's Publisher's Article.)
In California, the essays and performance exams are cleverly crafted. In fact, after reading the essays from the July 2005 exam before results had been published, I said to my wife, "Most dullards will think those essays were easy, but they were cleverly crafted. I predict a low pass rate overall, and the out-of-state attorneys and repeaters don't stand a chance." I was correct: the overall pass rate was low, especially for out-of-state attorneys, 28%, and repeaters, 12%. Maybe you're right Mr. Urquhart - maybe, next time, a less difficult bar exam should be drafted. (Yeah, right.)
Second, one person does not the grade a particular candidate's exam. Each piece of writing is graded by a different grader. Maybe you're right, Mr. Urquhart -- maybe there was a problem with all of the bar graders. (Yeah, right.)
Mr. Urquhart went on to say Ms. Sullivan spent little time preparing. (Yeah, right.) Most candidates who plan on sitting for such an important exam spend very little time studying, right? Especially the candidates whose legal careers, in one way or another, hinge on passing. (Tongue in cheek.) If that were truly the case, why take the California bar exam? After all, the exam is a little bit more taxing than a surprise quiz, isn't it? But, hey, everybody who fails the California bar exam didn't study enough, right?
"She'll prepare more next time," Mr. Urquhart said. "My advice to her is that she should look at 15 bar questions and 15 sample, perfect answers. That is all she'll need to pass." If that is all she needed to pass the bar exam last time, then, Mr. Urquhart, she should have had ample time to employ your brilliant advice (i.e., study 15 "perfect" answers), which, incidentally, if she follows, she'll undoubtedly fail again. First, published bar model answers are not "perfect" answers - the scores such answers received are, at best, a clear 75. Second, such answers sometimes contain bad law, bad analysis and, much of the time, are missing issues. Third, model answers from most bar review courses are poor teaching tools, simply because such answers were not written under exam conditions. Brilliant advice, study 15 model answers! (Yeah, right.)

If Ms. Sullivan didn't study for such an important exam, which her law firm was relying on her to pass, I question the intelligence of such a decision. Probably, she underestimated the test because of her status in the legal field, but knowing legal procedure and esoteric minutiae has nothing to do with passing the California bar exam, where the emphasis is placed on legal analysis and reasoning ability. In any event, a law school Dean should know better than to take the California bar exam lightly. After all, not everyone from Stanford Law School passes - not even ex-deans. (Time to regress. There is a mass-produced course out there that prides itself on having Hornbook authors on their "esteemed" staff of professors. To which I respond, "So what!" Hornbook knowledge has little, if anything, to do with passing the California bar exam, which is a problem-solving speed exam with an emphasis on analytical writing. Yes, kids, having the right head notes isn't enough.)
So, what happened? Without having looked at Ms. Sullivan's bar books, I can only guess about their contents. A noted legal scholar, her bar books were probably, what I call, "Law rich and analysis poor." Not that Mr. Sullivan doesn't have an analytical mind - that she has such a mind is obvious. But most failing candidates mistake the bar
exam for a test of legal knowledge. It isn't such a test. Yes, you have to know law, but you must be able to convey legal knowledge within the context of an analytical framework. Writing down all of the law you know is a certain way to fail the essay portion of the exam. (Incidentally, citing case holdings without comparing the facts in your file to facts of the cases in the library is a certain way to fail performance exam portion of the test.)
My advice to Ms. Sullivan: When writing an essay, forget about mechanical IRAC - eliminate pure statements of law from your essay responses; instead, convey your legal knowledge within the context of an analytical framework. (I passed the California bar exam on my fist attempt, without any rule statements in any of my essay responses. Not one!) When writing a performance exam, engage in case analysis. You cannot simply cite holdings without any factual comparison.
Ms. Sullivan, if you avoid the advice of your boss, you will pass this time. Good luck!
In addition to publishing this journal, Steve Liosi, a former Faculty Tutor at Chapman Law, is the Program Director of Barperfect

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"I do understand the desire of the Democrats to have a Democratic majority in the Senate, but I don't think that's a goal that should come at the cost of core Democratic values," Gandy said, adding that she was "very concerned" about Clinton's contribution to Casey.
Clinton also addressed comments made Sunday by Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who told an interviewer that the senator "seems to have a lot of anger."
Mehlman noted remarks Clinton made on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when she said the Republican-led House was run like a plantation and called the Bush administration one of the worst in history.
"I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates," Mehlman told ABC's
"This Week."
Clinton responded with a suggestion that Washington Republicans "worry about these devastating budget cuts, the confusion and bureaucratic nightmare in the prescription drug benefit.
"That's where they should be spending their time and energy," she said, "instead of trying to divert attention away from their many failures and shortcomings."

By Beth Fouhy

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