Revamp Law School Curriculum? Not So Fast
Should law schools change their curriculum? That was the focus of a New York Times editorial on Friday. The editorial states:
Instead of a curriculum taught largely through professors’ grilling of students about appellate cases, some schools are offering more apprentice-style learning in legal clinics and more courses that train students for their multiple future roles as advocates and counselors, negotiators and deal-shapers, and problem-solvers.
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In American law schools, the choice is not between teaching legal theory or practice; the task is to teach useful legal ideas and skills in more effective ways. The case method has been the foundation of legal education for 140 years. Its premise was that students would learn legal reasoning by studying appellate rulings. That approach treated law as a form of science and as a source of truth.
That vision was dated by the 1920s. It was a relic by the 1960s. Law is now regarded as a means rather than an end, a tool for solving problems. In reforming themselves, law schools have the chance to help reinvigorate the legal profession and rebuild public confidence in what lawyers can provide.
My Take:
I agree that the law school teaching method is dated and wastes a lot of time. I'm all for updating the curriculum to place more emphasis on topics that will actually help students practice law. There is a catch, however, that editorials like this miss.
Although law schools don't do much to train students to practice law, they do a lot to help students pass the bar exam. Depending on their practice area, students may not need courses on property, UCC and bankruptcy. But substantive courses like that come in handy when it's time to study for and take the bar exam. Courses in negotiating, software coding and deal-shaping? Not so much.
So before schools and students jump whole-hog into revamping the curriculum, they need to keep in mind that there is a bar exam to take—and pass—before students can actually start practicing law.
"Instead of a curriculum taught largely through professors’ grilling of students about appellate cases"
A layman could write that, I suppose, but the general public may be unaware that "appellate cases" ARE the law in this country. Law school without "appellate cases" is Hamlet without the prince.
The most important -- and vital -- thing that law schools teach is how to think like a lawyer. You can know all the substantive and procedural law there is, but if you can not analyze your client's situation so as to isolate and recognize the legal issues and come up with a way within the law to address them, you will be of no use to your client. I am all for tweaking the curriculum as long as that core function is preserved.