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AbstractWithout significant and meaningful citizen participation, political parties will continue to decline in electoral influence. This prospect might be welcomed by many who question the ability of the current two‐party system to generate either viable candidates or effective policies. Adopt a multi‐party, parliamentary‐like system? The cure may be worse than the disease. A moderate and workable approach would be to build mechanisms for citizen involvement into the two‐party system.

Law-related education is experiencing a growing emphasis in school curriculum throughout the American school system. Educators see the need for it though most are not trained specifically in the law. Therefore, they need as much guidance as possible to help them create a curriculum that is relevant for their students.An excellent way to provide this help is through the development of a well-designed curriculum guide. There have been a few guides developed in law-related education in the last few years such as the one produced by the James Madison Institute on Law-Related Education at James Madison University (Curriculum Guide for Law-Related Education in the Secondary Schools of Virginia, copyright Virginia State Bar).

It is a paradox that the level of government which is closest to us is the level that we know the least about. Local government is overseen and managed often literally by neighbors, but what the neighbors do and how they do it remain unknown quantities to most people. It might well be the responsibility of the school system to place more emphasis on local government in its curriculum. The tasks of local government, while affecting us severely (where we live?), are often not excessively complicated.One such important task that can be studied in the classroom is zoning. Zoning is the dividing of the local jurisdiction into areas designated for particular uses; other uses are prohibited. For instance, some parts of the city or county may be designated for residential use, other parts for business, and still other zones for manufacturing.

The subject of limited publication of judicial opinions has generated controversy among students and practitioners of the law. Originally this tool was perceived as a viable method for providing some relief to judges from the burden of increasing caseloads. Because of the lack of uniformity and subjectivity of the publication, distribution and citation rules in the federal appellate circuits, the limited publication scheme can have a detrimental effect on the perception of equity in the law, judicial accountability and responsibility and overall judicial fairness. The authors explore these problems by examining recent data on the federal courts of appeals and offer proposed modifications to the use of this popular judicial tool.