Law in Contemporary Society

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LawSchoolasTrainingforHierarchy 27 - 19 Jun 2012 - Main.AlexKonik
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META TOPICPARENT name="Main.RohanGrey"
I found this account of the law school experience by Professor Duncan Kennedy of Harvard Law to be relevant to our discussions in class, thought I’d share.
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 To that end, then, I look skeptically at your argument that better schools train worse practitioners and are only looked upon with favor by firms because they serve as filters. I should hope that the opportunity to learn from creative legal thinkers -- like Eben and the many others we have at CLS -- about more than just the hard tools of lawyering allows us to be better lawyers. Once we learn how to draft contracts and motions, that is.

-- MatthewCollins - 18 Jun 2012

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>		Matthew - fair enough. Perhaps long or medium term, the training makes better lawyers (and it's not due to the people the schools select, but actually to the training). Talking to fellow externs this summer, Columbia seems to focus on theory and more academic pursuits to a much greater degree than other schools; I can only assume we sacrifice depth or breadth of practical law. I keep hearing "teach to the bar" shooting around the office like it isn't a dirty word.

I don't think a theoretical education is bad by any stretch. I think it's great. It's what I prefer. I think it's much more interesting than practice, and you're less likely to learn it on your own time or on the job. It could also makes you better on the job a year or two in (after you learn how to draft a contract). It probably also signals that you are pretty capable of learning practice on the job. Coming out of school, though, I think we may be learning some new material when we study for the bar.

-- AlexKonik - 19 Jun 2012

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Revision 27r27 - 19 Jun 2012 - 06:00:58 - AlexKonik
Revision 26r26 - 18 Jun 2012 - 18:55:38 - MatthewCollins
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