Thomas R. Kline School of Law Professor Wesley Oliver and Professor Kate Norton recently attended CaliCon at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington. Oliver and Norton presented at the conference, sharing the technological innovations offered at Duquesne Kline School of Law, including the Law and Computing Concentration. Duquesne Kline School of Law is part of an elite group of only a handful of American law schools to teach courses on computer programming for lawyers and appears to be the only one to offer a Law and Computing Concentration.
In their joint presentation, Oliver and Norton presented about teaching programming in doctrinal and clinical courses at Duquesne Kline School of Law. That included the “unique approach to teach the students how to code and then apply it within practical settings,” said Norton.
The programming and coding courses taught at Duquesne Kline School of Law are taught by lawyers who learned to code after they were admitted to the bar – people who are therefore sympathetic to the joys and frustration of acquiring a new skill. The introductory Coding for Lawyers course is expressly designed for students with no background in computer science with advanced classes preparing students for traditional law jobs in a tech-driven world as well as for careers in the rapidly emerging field of legal tech design.
CaliCon, a national conference that celebrated its 34th year, was about integrating technology into law teaching. “We talked about what Duquesne Kline School of Law is doing, including the three computer programming classes that we offer as part of the regular law school curriculum,” said Oliver.
Oliver and Norton also spoke about the ways Duquesne Kline School of Law is integrating computer programming into its Tribone Center for Clinical Education, which Norton directs.
“This includes the creation of a legal tech externship, through which we will design a scheduling app for litigants in family court. At present, everyone who has a case on the docket must be there at 9:00 am and will be there until his or her case is heard; that takes up the entire day of litigants and lawyers and makes the day of probation officers scattered. The app will enable litigants and lawyers to have a time window during which you must be there, and it won't consume the entire day,” Oliver said.
Duquesne Kline School of Law professors have earned university-wide honors for their innovations in law coding and programming. Oliver and Morgan Gray, instructors of the Coding for Lawyers class, were recognized with one of two Creative Teaching Awards given across the entire university in 2023. That same year, integration of coding into the work of legal clinics led to Norton receiving the University’s inaugural Creator-Innovator Award and funding from the American Bar Foundation.
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