Changing the Format of Law School

One of my first posts here was to ask why law school was more than one year. Today I read this post on TaxProf Blog (quoting The American Lawyer) about ways to revamp law school.

As we learn from reading this, law school is designed the way it is in order to keep law professors gainfully employed. Preparing students to become lawyers… not so much.

The medical route is four years of med school with a couple years of internship. This makes sense as there is a lot to learn so that new doctors don’t kill their patients. Why is the the legal route three years of law school with five years of photocopying briefs?

 

How Law School Changes Your Thinking

Often you hear, “Law school changes the way you think.” This is actually true. Here is an example.

One of my favorite books as a child was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remember reading it over and over again. Every time I read it, I would savor the justice that each child received for being so rotten: turning into a blueberry, getting dumped in trash, etc. When reading it, these punishments sounded so perfect.

Yesterday I watched a little bit of the Johnny Depp movie version of the book. After five semesters of law school, I could only think about the legal liabilities involved in each child’s “punishment.” Permanent physical disability, emotional trauma, etc, etc.

I would also think that OSHA would like a look at that factory.* And then the Oompa-Loompas: looks to me like immigration and labor law violations.

*Yes, I know that it is set in England. Roll with it.

 

Socratic Method

The most popular law school teaching method – and the most feared – is the Socratic method. Most people imagine a Kingsfield drilling students ruthlessly. In reality, it is far different. (At least where I attend school.)

Yes, professors endlessly ask questions. And when you are on the spot, suddenly the questions that otherwise appear so obvious have now started to twist your head.

Now I read this article from a prof about why he doesn’t teach Socratic. It makes me wonder, if there is no fear of the classroom, is anyone going to do the class reading?

I have to recognize that my profs (but one) used this “soft Socratic” method. And I think it works fairly well. I think the question-answer process is good for even the students who are not on the spot. Nearly every class I have I hear an answer to a question that I would not have thought of. And the answer is as good as what I thought, and often better.

 

Are law students lazy?

That is the question asked by Professor of Law Rick Hill of NYU in this post. Law students complain about being assigned 50 pages of reading a week whereas grad students in other disciplines read four or five times that amount. I think the comments cover it all. Here is my summary of the responses.

1. Going to law school is an economic decision, not an academic decision. Therefore, law students in general seek to balance pain (reading) and reward (knowledge).
2. Reading cases takes a lot more effort than the reading in history. Personally, I don’t know about this as I’ve not been a history grad student. In fact, I can’t compare but I will agree that the difficulty of a reading assignment highly depends upon how many cases are involved.
3. Professors forget that students have other classes. 50 pages for four classes is 200 pages a week. It is especially tough when the class meets twice a week and you have a day to do half of the reading (since it was assigned during the previous class) while preparing for other classes. And in my case, working during the day.
4. Academics have difficulty understanding students. Fellow undergrads way back in the day would talk about their math professors. The common thread: the math professors are so smart and what they are teaching in college is so basic (to them!) that they cannot understand why a student does not “get it.” Imagine talking to a high school kid who doesn’t understand why 2+2=4. How do you explain something so basic to him? How does an academic know how to explain why res judicata applies in such an “obvious” situation. This is the distinction between an academic and a teacher.

 

And the game begins anew

With school starting back up, I will have less time to give advice to the both of you reading this blog. I have a few drafts in the works that I will try to finish up. But as you will soon find out, time is hard to come by once the fun begins.

UPDATE – Two posts that I will definitely get done are (1) rudimentary flow charts and (2) outlining an exam.

 

2/3 Law School

Northwestern is going to offer a two year law degree. I’ve complained before about the length of law school so two years, on the face of it, sounds better. However, in reality the program is five semesters so that is only one semester shorter than three years. On top of that, they would do an extra class per semester.

It isn’t clear whether Northwestern is going to make this cheaper than the three year program either, so it would not appear (yet) that the students would save on a year of law school debt.

Since so many people complain about how useless the third year of law school is, why not just get rid of it? Save us all the money and get us into practice sooner. I suppose that the third year justifies the D in J.D. instead of a Masters. Still, if students are just taking easy A classes and work-for-school-credit, is that D really justified in the first place?

The other question is whether employers will look kindly upon these two year J.D.s. That will be the key to the future of this and other two year programs. The article above does claim that Northwestern did their homework and employers were “excited” about the prospect. Time will tell. I do know graduates of accelerated business programs and they’ve had no problems with employment.

As a side note, since I found this article from Volokh, I note this comment:

I’d suspect that graduates of this program will be viewed with suspicion for quite a while, not unlike how students of evening law programs are sometime considered second tier.

Uh-oh. Being a part-timer at a non-first tier school, I wonder: Am I second-tier squared? Or third tier twice removed?

As a second side note, what are these students going to call themselves? 1L++?

 

Go teach yourself

In my previous post, I complained about how law school professors do not teach how to write for their exams. I want to clarify that a bit.

I understand that there are lots of skills that law students need to teach themselves. After all, there will be no one holding your hand out in practice.

Where I think that schools fail is in teaching how to prepare for a particular professor’s final. Since it is all about the final grade, I think professors should be required to give writing assignments and provide feedback. At least in the first year.

 

Why is law school more than one year?

I have just finished my second year of law school. For most law students, that would mean one year left. As a part-time student, that means I have two more years.

The question I have: why on earth is law school more than one year? In the first year, students have to learn quite quickly “how to think like a lawyer.” This involves reading cases, briefing cases, dealing with hypothetical questions (“hypos”) posed by professors and struggling through outline creation. (Actually, it involves reading, reading, reading, reading . . . . Struggling through cases and learning how to determine what the law is in the case is the whole point of the exercise. Until you realize that most people deal with statutes and regulatory agency rules.)

After the first year, everybody can “think like a lawyer,” more or less. Therefore the second and third (and fourth) years are, essentially, practicing what was learned in the first year.

Having a musical background, I understand completely the need for “getting to Carnegie Hall.” What I balk at is the cost: a year of law school costs a gazillion dollars. Practicing “thinking like a lawyer” during years two and three (and four) is wasting money. Practicing a musical instrument in my apartment is free (until evicted).

The other problem is that law school does not prepare you for real world practice. If you’ve never taken a law school exam before, consider this analogy: Suppose that you take a music appreciation class. During the class, you listen to hours and hours of “classical” music forms, read the history and the theory. During class you listen to excerpts and talk about what you’ve heard and read. You might have come up with a little ditty in class when the professor asks. Then the final: write a symphony.

Given what you have done for the class, absolutely nothing has prepared you for writing that symphony.

To bring this back to law school: finals are 100% of your grade and are completely written. But no actual writing was done during the class! Professors do not give out writing assignments and then provide feedback. Reality: students must find old exams and model answers and then use those to teach themselves how to write for a final.

But wait! Why am I paying a gazillion dollars when I have to teach myself? Why can’t a professor bother to give mid-course feedback on my writing? I’m at law school to learn and make my mistakes when it doesn’t cost anybody anything besides my gazillion dollars. Give me some feedback before the final so I don’t completely hurt my future career by getting that C.

This is where law school does a disservice. Students only learn because law schools refuse to teach.