DRussellKraftSecondPaper (5 vs. 6)

Law in Contemporary Society	View r6 > r5 ...
Main AmLegalHist CompPrivConst EngLegalHist LawContempSoc LawNetSoc TWiki

 DRussellKraftSecondPaper 6 - 23 Apr 2010 - Main.AshleySimpson
 Line: 1 to 1
  
   META TOPICPARENT    name="SecondPaper" 



 Added: 
>
> DtRK, I'm currently editing in order to cut down on words so that maybe we can add another skill that I think is crucial to becoming a good lawyer: that is the skill of being able to talk to people who know nothing about the law/the skill to interact with clients. I'm also unsure of whether or not you feel as though CLS teaches that with clinics and externships and whether those methods are sufficient. I'll just add it to the list of legal skills and you can think about your opinion on that and add it wherever you like. I'll write a note on this page when I'm done editing. Also you make reference to the law school a lot. I assume you mean CLS so I'm going to replace that with Columbia.
-Ash

PS I don't know how to change the color of my writing so I used italics...
   Being an Entrepreneur Lawyer 
 Changed: 
<
< I think that we law students need similar skills, whether we want to pawn our licenses or use them productively for ourselves.  I'm not sure that what I've experienced over the past year has given me as much of what I'll need to do that in the coming decades as I had hoped, but there's still time.  I know that I don't want to tell my children I work for anyone but myself.  It's about pride, and it's about clarity: picking my own clients and picking my own projects is the only way I can imagine living my life happily.  To make that happen, I'll need many skills.  Law School seems to be helping with some, but it could learn a lot from the business school.  Thinking like an entrepreneur would do an average lawyer a lot of good.
>
> The education of 1L year has not provided me with all of the skills I'll need to be a productive lawyer. My goal is to have my own practice. It's about pride, and it's about clarity: the ability to pick my clients and my projects is the only way I can imagine living my life happily. To accomplish this goal, I'll need a specific skill set. Though Columbia Law School (“CLS”) has helped me learn a few of the skills necessary for my goal, it could learn a lot from the business school to help me learn the others. Regardless, of whether students want to pawn their licenses or become self-employed, Law School should train students to think like entrepreneurs in order to transform students into productive lawyers.
   Legal Skills 
 Changed: 
<
< These are the useful things I think the law school already emphasizes for our toolkits: 
 Close Reading of Text
  Cognitive Dissonance
  Communication in the Face of Intellectual Assault ("Spin," "Arguing Well" or "Dealing with the Socratic Method")
 
I don't think they need further elucidation here.
>
> The following are skills are already emphasized at CLS:
	Close Reading of Text
	Cognitive Dissonance
	Communication in the Face of Intellectual Assault ("Spin," "Arguing Well" or "Dealing with the Socratic Method")

Formatting got messed up here and I don't know how to fix it :-(
   Entrepreneurial Methods 
 Changed: 
<
< These are the areas in which law school needs a lot of help, but we could find that help nearby:
>
> The following are skills that CLS should start teaching. It would be prudent for CLS to examine the teaching methods of the business school to learn how to effectively imbue these skills on its law students.
   Technological Integration 
 Changed: 
<
< There are distinct gains to be made in legal learning through intelligent use of technology.  A large part of what we pay can be explained in economic terms as what the market will bear (ie waste).  In California, correspondence law schools teach the same subjects as CLS (though quite differently) at a fraction of the cost.  To me, this suggests that we could gain a lot from moving some of our rote learning online (seriously, civ pro is best learned when we all sit in a room together and take notes at warp speed?).  The goal is not to abandon all of our classroom interactions, nor to lose our sense of community, but to strengthen both.  Just because the internet has made it easier for less prestigious and less wealthy institutions to spread knowledge doesn't mean it can't do the same for schools older than our country.  The future of social interaction is bound up in technology, and the better we can adapt our education to that fact, the more equipped our lawyers will be to deal with their clients' problems - both in understanding and in capacity.
>
> There are distinct gains to be made in legal learning through intelligent use of technology.  A large part of what we pay can be explained in economic terms as what the market will bear (ie waste).  In California, correspondence law schools teach the same subjects as CLS (though quite differently) at a fraction of the cost.  To me, this suggests that we could gain a lot from moving some of our rote learning online.  The goal is not to abandon all of our classroom interactions, nor to lose our sense of community, but to strengthen both.  Just because the internet has made it easier for less prestigious and less wealthy institutions to spread knowledge doesn't mean it can't do the same for schools older than our country.  The future of social interaction is bound up in technology, and the better we can adapt our education to that fact, the more equipped our lawyers will be to deal with their clients' problems - both in understanding and in capacity.

It might be cool to bring up Cali's example in class the other day about the atty who only has a web office to demonstrate that the world is changing and we need to understand technology in order to be competitive. 
   Collaboration vs. Competition 
The fixation on grades at this school is a nominally pro-student phenomenon.  The firms want grades, so our students should have some by the time EIP rolls around.  This justification is flimsy, and has been discussed at length in this class over the course of the semester.  Why is doesn't it hold in Uris hall, where many students are also being recruited in a similar fashion?  How is it that Business School is the most touchy-feely, collaborative, judgment-free place on this campus?  It seems that in the raw pursuit of lucre, working together works.  Why is this less true for lawyers?  What solo practitioner ever achieved anything without the ability to convince other people to work with her?  What project ever gets done in a big firm by one single hired brain?  Lawyers don't work in organizations any smaller than businesspeople do, in fact, they are businesspeople.  Whether they litigate, negotiate, advise, or write, lawyers work for and with people.  Strengthening their ability to do that should be a prime goal of law school.
It's arguable that activities such as journals, moot court, and even student organizations foster that kind of collaboration.  That admitted, the core courses do not foster any meaningful collaboration.  Study groups may be fun, but by introducing diverging goals (grades) to compete with the shared goal of learning, collaboration is not really going to get off the ground.  Of course there are always competing goals in life and work, but the blunt pressure not to help each other out makes grades worse than pointless - they're counter-productive.
 Social Relationship Construction ("Networking")
    META TOPICPARENT    name="SecondPaper"
-   META TOPICPARENT
+ name="SecondPaper"
->
>
+DtRK, I'm currently editing in order to cut down on words so that maybe we can add another skill that I think is crucial to becoming a good lawyer: that is the skill of being able to talk to people who know nothing about the law/the skill to interact with clients. I'm also unsure of whether or not you feel as though CLS teaches that with clinics and externships and whether those methods are sufficient. I'll just add it to the list of legal skills and you can think about your opinion on that and add it wherever you like. I'll write a note on this page when I'm done editing. Also you make reference to the law school a lot. I assume you mean CLS so I'm going to replace that with Columbia.
-Ash

PS I don't know how to change the color of my writing so I used italics...
  Being an Entrepreneur Lawyer
-<
<
+I think that we law students need similar skills, whether we want to pawn our licenses or use them productively for ourselves.  I'm not sure that what I've experienced over the past year has given me as much of what I'll need to do that in the coming decades as I had hoped, but there's still time.  I know that I don't want to tell my children I work for anyone but myself.  It's about pride, and it's about clarity: picking my own clients and picking my own projects is the only way I can imagine living my life happily.  To make that happen, I'll need many skills.  Law School seems to be helping with some, but it could learn a lot from the business school.  Thinking like an entrepreneur would do an average lawyer a lot of good.
->
>
+The education of 1L year has not provided me with all of the skills I'll need to be a productive lawyer. My goal is to have my own practice. It's about pride, and it's about clarity: the ability to pick my clients and my projects is the only way I can imagine living my life happily. To accomplish this goal, I'll need a specific skill set. Though Columbia Law School (“CLS”) has helped me learn a few of the skills necessary for my goal, it could learn a lot from the business school to help me learn the others. Regardless, of whether students want to pawn their licenses or become self-employed, Law School should train students to think like entrepreneurs in order to transform students into productive lawyers.
  Legal Skills
-<
<
+These are the useful things I think the law school already emphasizes for our toolkits: 
 Close Reading of Text
  Cognitive Dissonance
  Communication in the Face of Intellectual Assault ("Spin," "Arguing Well" or "Dealing with the Socratic Method")
 
I don't think they need further elucidation here.
->
>
+The following are skills are already emphasized at CLS:
	Close Reading of Text
	Cognitive Dissonance
	Communication in the Face of Intellectual Assault ("Spin," "Arguing Well" or "Dealing with the Socratic Method")

Formatting got messed up here and I don't know how to fix it :-(
  Entrepreneurial Methods
-<
<
+These are the areas in which law school needs a lot of help, but we could find that help nearby:
->
>
+The following are skills that CLS should start teaching. It would be prudent for CLS to examine the teaching methods of the business school to learn how to effectively imbue these skills on its law students.
  Technological Integration
-<
<
+There are distinct gains to be made in legal learning through intelligent use of technology.  A large part of what we pay can be explained in economic terms as what the market will bear (ie waste).  In California, correspondence law schools teach the same subjects as CLS (though quite differently) at a fraction of the cost.  To me, this suggests that we could gain a lot from moving some of our rote learning online (seriously, civ pro is best learned when we all sit in a room together and take notes at warp speed?).  The goal is not to abandon all of our classroom interactions, nor to lose our sense of community, but to strengthen both.  Just because the internet has made it easier for less prestigious and less wealthy institutions to spread knowledge doesn't mean it can't do the same for schools older than our country.  The future of social interaction is bound up in technology, and the better we can adapt our education to that fact, the more equipped our lawyers will be to deal with their clients' problems - both in understanding and in capacity.
->
>
+There are distinct gains to be made in legal learning through intelligent use of technology.  A large part of what we pay can be explained in economic terms as what the market will bear (ie waste).  In California, correspondence law schools teach the same subjects as CLS (though quite differently) at a fraction of the cost.  To me, this suggests that we could gain a lot from moving some of our rote learning online.  The goal is not to abandon all of our classroom interactions, nor to lose our sense of community, but to strengthen both.  Just because the internet has made it easier for less prestigious and less wealthy institutions to spread knowledge doesn't mean it can't do the same for schools older than our country.  The future of social interaction is bound up in technology, and the better we can adapt our education to that fact, the more equipped our lawyers will be to deal with their clients' problems - both in understanding and in capacity.

It might be cool to bring up Cali's example in class the other day about the atty who only has a web office to demonstrate that the world is changing and we need to understand technology in order to be competitive.
  Collaboration vs. Competition 
The fixation on grades at this school is a nominally pro-student phenomenon.  The firms want grades, so our students should have some by the time EIP rolls around.  This justification is flimsy, and has been discussed at length in this class over the course of the semester.  Why is doesn't it hold in Uris hall, where many students are also being recruited in a similar fashion?  How is it that Business School is the most touchy-feely, collaborative, judgment-free place on this campus?  It seems that in the raw pursuit of lucre, working together works.  Why is this less true for lawyers?  What solo practitioner ever achieved anything without the ability to convince other people to work with her?  What project ever gets done in a big firm by one single hired brain?  Lawyers don't work in organizations any smaller than businesspeople do, in fact, they are businesspeople.  Whether they litigate, negotiate, advise, or write, lawyers work for and with people.  Strengthening their ability to do that should be a prime goal of law school.
It's arguable that activities such as journals, moot court, and even student organizations foster that kind of collaboration.  That admitted, the core courses do not foster any meaningful collaboration.  Study groups may be fun, but by introducing diverging goals (grades) to compete with the shared goal of learning, collaboration is not really going to get off the ground.  Of course there are always competing goals in life and work, but the blunt pressure not to help each other out makes grades worse than pointless - they're counter-productive.
 Social Relationship Construction ("Networking")

Revision 6	r6 - 23 Apr 2010 - 13:06:27 - AshleySimpson
Revision 5	r5 - 18 Apr 2010 - 04:44:11 - DRussellKraft

This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.

Syndicate this site RSS ATOM