What's Law School About?

Warning: This isn't very coherent.

I've been teaching full time for 5 years, and previously taught as an adjunct probably for a total of five years, at schools ranging from the the top -- U Texas to the middle, U Houston and Mercer -- and each time I've wondered what it is that I'm supposed to be doing.

This semester, I've taught PR at UH summer school. PR seems to me to be the strangest course to teach (I also teach some of the *other* poorly evaluated courses, overall, in law school, including Property and Civ Pro). I always feel twisted teaching the PR course - students want law and rules, and I do think the skill set of reading rules (statutes, too) is under-taught in most schools, so that has a purpose, but I also use some heavy problem methods, so that the students learn that the rules get you about half way there in real life.

But I never feel satisfied with either approach. The books (there are more PR books than civ pro books, which to me is a profound statement by itself, but I digress) often also exhibit this tension or twistedness, with some ignoring the real world and focusing on policy, with others focusing almost solely on real world issues.

Anyway, just a rant and not a very coherent one at that. I've had the same conversation with myself each time I teach anything -- and whether evaluated well by the students, or not, I hope in a way that I always will, but I also do hope that someday there is a clearer answer....

Comments

[John Steele]

David,

I faced a similar quandary early on, and resolved it by letting "the market" decide. I figured that if the students were going to go $90K in debt for their JD, they might have some ideas about what they'd like out of the class. So I used (and still use) lots of student voting on topics and specific materials.

Not surprisingly, they've tended to favor a "career choice" approach to legal ethics. I still cover all the topics you'd expect. But the over arching theme is "your fundamental ethical decision is your career path." And when we cover a particular concept (e.g., "who decides, the lawyer or the client?") we use examples for varying practice areas that the students say they're heading toward.

Why not develop a short questionnaire for the first day of class, meet the students half way, and ask them to be partially responsible for the semester's content?

Btw, I was glad to see that Andy Perlman has written an article on career choice as ethical decision.

[David Hricik]

That's an interesting suggestion. The book I use would lend itself to that, as it is organized in the latter portion about ethical issues in specific practice areas. On the first day of class each year, I talk about my own early dilemma - I won an MSJ for a client who had, I believed, sexually harassed a woman, but I still won on what was a technicality. Felt awful about it. That's when I went into patent litigation! :-)

But the broader issues just elude me. I feel as if law school is too long and too detached from practice. PR maybe it's as close as you can get and the students want to focus on the MPRE. Sigh.

[anonymous]

Prof. Hricik noted that one approach allows "the students [to] learn that the rules get you about half way there in real life."

Isn't that true with all areas of the law? The rules get you half there: you litigate the other half.

I believe that law school is geared towards helping with both halves. First, it helps you learn to recognize that some facts are round pegs that fit neatly into round-peg holes. Second, it helps you recognize that some facts are square pegs that don't neatly fit and forces you creatively advocate.

I don't think you have to sacrifice either half, but my law school examination experience was weighted heavily towards the first half.