Law in the Internet Society

View   r12  >  r11  >  r10  >  r9  >  r8  >  r7  ...
AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 12 - 04 Sep 2012 - Main.IanSullivan
Line: 1 to 1
Changed:
<
<
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
>
>
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper2011"
 ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

Progress is often created by a collaboration of independent minds. With technology evolving as it has, human beings are finally able to easily collaborate on any project with people across the globe. For example, this wiki brings together the knowledge of many independent minds by efficiently allocating resources to all involved and by allowing users access to the collaboration at any time regardless of space. Such collaborative education environments could be the future of our education system and I propose that we experiment with it in the current legal education system. The goals of these collaborative environments will be twofold: to assist in solving world problems and to better prepare law students for both their careers and their personal lives.


AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 11 - 19 Apr 2012 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Added:
>
>
ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
 
Changed:
<
<

ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

>
>
Progress is often created by a collaboration of independent minds. With technology evolving as it has, human beings are finally able to easily collaborate on any project with people across the globe. For example, this wiki brings together the knowledge of many independent minds by efficiently allocating resources to all involved and by allowing users access to the collaboration at any time regardless of space. Such collaborative education environments could be the future of our education system and I propose that we experiment with it in the current legal education system. The goals of these collaborative environments will be twofold: to assist in solving world problems and to better prepare law students for both their careers and their personal lives.
 
Changed:
<
<
"The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess...to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." - Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society.
>
>
The Benefits of Collaboration
 
Changed:
<
<
I believe this statement is true for now but with technology evolving, human beings may finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order (e.g. this wiki brings together some of those dispersed bits of knowledge by efficiently allocating resources to all minds and by maximizing time regardless of space).
>
>
Law schools around the country are not fully taking advantage of these technological possibilities and not sufficiently dealing with the effects of technological change. Our education system seems to be stuck in the past but improving the education system with technology is not a difficult task. By merely incorporating new technology into our current education system we could benefit both students and society. We can start experimenting by creating collaborative classrooms, like this wiki, that put their efforts towards semester-long projects. Rather than asking students to compete on 3-hour final exams, we will work together by expressing our thoughts and ideas on the project and gaining feedback from other bright-minded students. Collaboration will ensure that our projects end up producing realistic proposals and will also ensure that our minds are accurately expressing our thoughts on the subject matter.
 
Deleted:
<
<
Maybe. But scholarship has existed for that purpose for a very long time, while what Hayek is talking about is the difficulty of substituting for the market a system of plans that would be based on a similar information volume presented densely to planners, rather than piecemeal, in a volatile way, which is how the market produces and distributes information. Those are related but very different concerns.

This great technological change will surely bring with it great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the lawyers of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. However, law schools around the country are not yet taking advantage of technological possibilities and not sufficiently dealing with the effects of technological change. Our whole education system is stuck in the past and I propose that together, we should build a better legal education. As the brightest law students in the country, we have the power to succeed with this objective, fixing past mistakes and building on both old and new ideas. It takes only a single glance at our current legal regime to see the disastrous effects caused by our being stuck in the past. When a disaster strikes, one needs to start from scratch while fixing past mistakes. This wiki is convenient for such a collaborative endeavor.

Why does one have to be so grandiose about the purpose? Claiming so much makes failure more likely, for little benefit. Would it not be sufficient to say that we can help one another to learn better and produce examples others may choose to refine?

We should transform the law school experience because we do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. The laws of today do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. Instead, we should learn the law so that we can create appropriate laws to govern the present and adapt to the incredibly different future that is coming our way.

Again, why is it necessary to be so sweeping? The wholesale replacement of a legal order implies a political revolution that does not appear to be imminent. Why is it not sufficient to say that history teaches that legal institutions will almost certainly evolve more slowly than the general pace of social change, but that they will evolve, and we want to make ourselves self-conscious and energetic components of the change?

For the most part, law school courses do not ask us to think. Professors instruct us to read and ask us to spit back the information we read rather than guide our thinking as to how such information shapes and affects law.

Is that really how it is "for the most part"? I've been teaching for twenty-five years, in this and other law schools, and I would say it is, for the most part, true that law school courses either require or reward independent thinking.

We hope the professor will give us a good grade, but those grades are quite limiting because they force us to compete. Even when we get past our grades, we are graded by a paycheck.

I do not have a problem with competition, but I have a problem with competition that does not generate progress, and this is precisely the type of competition that is the basis of our current legal education. Progress comes from building on each other's thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper or a hefty check from a law firm. Those things are restraints on our collaborative abilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless to ourselves and to society.

Furthermore, I do not think that I deserve eighty-three credits for my law school experience. I took some courses and passed some exams. I do not see why that deserves credit.

Even if that were all you had done, "credit" seems to me precisely what it does deserve. Some knowledge was presented, on your account, and you demonstrated to the instructor's satisfaction that you had mastered some or all of what was presented. "Credit" sounds like the appropriate response to payment plus learning, does it not?

Our education system fails to realize that in life, there are no due dates or ends of classes. We should match reality with the legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. In Professor Moglen's course I was asked to think and express my thoughts in a coherent manner. My thoughts were challenged but for once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. This truly educational course could be used as the basis for our future legal education.

Not the basis, in my opinion, but another experiment in improvement. You don't need to enlist me in the scheme of over-estimating the significance of the near.

A course similar to the one proposed below, could have a positive impact on the world. The Internet has given our minds longevity and has allowed everybody access to our thoughts and ideas. It gives us a collaborative tool that can help solve Mr. Hayek's problem. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other and come closer to efficiency.

Let's combine all of our bits of knowledge and experiment with a single credit online course. At the beginning of the semester, each student will be asked to devote one hour per week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, the class would have almost 500 hours of collaboration.

Assuming, for a moment, that it takes nothing more than an occasional hour each week to be an efficient collaborator in "solving" social problems. It puts me in mind of Thoreau's enquiring whether one can mind a steam-boiler betimes. Perhaps we should have a little more respect for the complexities of the policy process, and a little less certainty that changes in modes of communication are all it take to improve our ability to plan for and execute improvements in social outcomes. Many aspects of social process are difficult to abstract away in order to put everything inside a browser frame and an hour a week.

Even a single moment of collaboration would be better than Congress.

This is a conventional claim, but it isn't right. Congress is more than the politicians on television.

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what we could accomplish as energetic and eager law students, especially if other schools joined in on our course?

How are you measuring the value? As learning, to the students, or as solutions for society? If the latter, see above. If the former, hadn't we better ask a little more closely what will be learned and how?

Forget mastery in a field, we could breed progress. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved.

A little more modesty, a little less heat in the advocacy, some more tempered assessment of what you're asking for and can expect, including perhaps the recognition that these are experiments rather than conclusions, and you'd have a fine essay.
 \ No newline at end of file
Added:
>
>
First, we will be combining our knowledge and input in order to assist in solving some of the world's problems, whether it is a small community problem or a large-scale global issue. If our ideas are implementable we could petition the appropriate elected officials or agencies that would consider implementing the project. Second, we will improve the education of students, by practicing the refinement our own thoughts. Refining one's thoughts is not an easy process but collaboration could help, as peer-to-peer editing and constant feedback will force us to defend our words or tailor them so that we learn to write what we mean to write. Students will learn that this skill is not so easy and will improve their ability to speak their minds and understand themselves. The ability to refine one's thoughts will improve their careers and their personal relationships. These skills must be practiced and a collaborative classroom where grades aren't everything is a great place to practice such refinement.

We do not need to transform the law school experience but we have to recognize that we need to be more active in incorporating the changes in the world into our own lives. Rather than turning our thoughts into grades, we should learn the law collaboratively, contributing our ideas to society and learning about ourselves in the process. I do not have a problem with competition, but I have a problem with competition that does not generate progress, and this is precisely the type of competition that is a mainstay in our current legal education. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless to ourselves and to society. Progress often comes from building on each other's thoughts and not necessarily from getting a check+ on a paper or a hefty check from a law firm. Those things often act as restraints on our collaborative abilities.

An Experiment With Collaboration in the Legal Education

The Internet has given our minds longevity and has allowed everybody access to our thoughts and ideas. It gives us a collaborative tool that can help us achieve an improved education system, suitable with the technology of today and flexible enough to adapt to the technology of tomorrow. We could experiment with a single credit course. At the beginning of the semester, each student will be asked to devote at least one hour per week to a specified project (e.g. a community problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students) and one hour per week in an actual classroom to discuss the progress made in the past week and ways to improve on the collaborative experience. The students will give each other feedback, leave comments on their peers' work, and receive feedback on their own work while working together to solve a real problem in the world.

By creating these collaborative classrooms we could achieve both goals stated above. We could assist in finding solutions to problems ranging from personal problems to global problems and teach real critical thinking skills in the process. Students will learn that they can affect the world while still being part of the education system. They will also learn how to apply their education in a real-world setting. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, students will learn to enter the lion's den that is the human mind and at the very least, will realize that you cannot catch the lion without entering the lion's den.


AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 10 - 10 Apr 2012 - Main.EbenMoglen
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Deleted:
<
<
FIRST STEP IS COMPLETE
 
Changed:
<
<
First step, Alan, is that this has to stop being 1,691 words long, and become less than 1,001 words long. You can and do write clearly. Now you have to write shorter, by structuring as clearly as you write. The first requirement is the outline. It is possible to write a 100,000-word book without an outline, but an essay of 1,000 words must be carefully outlined. Each point, usually down to the paragraph and in some places to the sentence level, has to be placed in relation to the others, and the transitions, or white spaces, between points must be carefully filled. Sequence is the most important kind of order: it brings the rest in its train. Here you begin in an orderly fashion and then the sequence breaks down.

Put this inside the limits of the assignment and then we can both go to work on it.

ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

>
>

ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

 "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess...to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." - Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society.

I believe this statement is true for now but with technology evolving, human beings may finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order (e.g. this wiki brings together some of those dispersed bits of knowledge by efficiently allocating resources to all minds and by maximizing time regardless of space).

Added:
>
>
Maybe. But scholarship has existed for that purpose for a very long time, while what Hayek is talking about is the difficulty of substituting for the market a system of plans that would be based on a similar information volume presented densely to planners, rather than piecemeal, in a volatile way, which is how the market produces and distributes information. Those are related but very different concerns.
 This great technological change will surely bring with it great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the lawyers of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. However, law schools around the country are not yet taking advantage of technological possibilities and not sufficiently dealing with the effects of technological change. Our whole education system is stuck in the past and I propose that together, we should build a better legal education. As the brightest law students in the country, we have the power to succeed with this objective, fixing past mistakes and building on both old and new ideas. It takes only a single glance at our current legal regime to see the disastrous effects caused by our being stuck in the past. When a disaster strikes, one needs to start from scratch while fixing past mistakes. This wiki is convenient for such a collaborative endeavor.
Added:
>
>
Why does one have to be so grandiose about the purpose? Claiming so much makes failure more likely, for little benefit. Would it not be sufficient to say that we can help one another to learn better and produce examples others may choose to refine?
 We should transform the law school experience because we do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. The laws of today do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. Instead, we should learn the law so that we can create appropriate laws to govern the present and adapt to the incredibly different future that is coming our way.
Changed:
<
<
For the most part, law school courses do not ask us to think. Professors instruct us to read and ask us to spit back the information we read rather than guide our thinking as to how such information shapes and affects law. We hope the professor will give us a good grade, but those grades are quite limiting because they force us to compete. Even when we get past our grades, we are graded by a paycheck.
>
>
Again, why is it necessary to be so sweeping? The wholesale replacement of a legal order implies a political revolution that does not appear to be imminent. Why is it not sufficient to say that history teaches that legal institutions will almost certainly evolve more slowly than the general pace of social change, but that they will evolve, and we want to make ourselves self-conscious and energetic components of the change?

For the most part, law school courses do not ask us to think. Professors instruct us to read and ask us to spit back the information we read rather than guide our thinking as to how such information shapes and affects law.

Is that really how it is "for the most part"? I've been teaching for twenty-five years, in this and other law schools, and I would say it is, for the most part, true that law school courses either require or reward independent thinking.

We hope the professor will give us a good grade, but those grades are quite limiting because they force us to compete. Even when we get past our grades, we are graded by a paycheck.

 I do not have a problem with competition, but I have a problem with competition that does not generate progress, and this is precisely the type of competition that is the basis of our current legal education. Progress comes from building on each other's thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper or a hefty check from a law firm. Those things are restraints on our collaborative abilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless to ourselves and to society.
Changed:
<
<
Furthermore, I do not think that I deserve eighty-three credits for my law school experience. I took some courses and passed some exams. I do not see why that deserves credit. Our education system fails to realize that in life, there are no due dates or ends of classes. We should match reality with the legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. In Professor Moglen's course I was asked to think and express my thoughts in a coherent manner. My thoughts were challenged but for once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. This truly educational course could be used as the basis for our future legal education.
>
>
Furthermore, I do not think that I deserve eighty-three credits for my law school experience. I took some courses and passed some exams. I do not see why that deserves credit.

Even if that were all you had done, "credit" seems to me precisely what it does deserve. Some knowledge was presented, on your account, and you demonstrated to the instructor's satisfaction that you had mastered some or all of what was presented. "Credit" sounds like the appropriate response to payment plus learning, does it not?

Our education system fails to realize that in life, there are no due dates or ends of classes. We should match reality with the legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. In Professor Moglen's course I was asked to think and express my thoughts in a coherent manner. My thoughts were challenged but for once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. This truly educational course could be used as the basis for our future legal education.

Not the basis, in my opinion, but another experiment in improvement. You don't need to enlist me in the scheme of over-estimating the significance of the near.
 A course similar to the one proposed below, could have a positive impact on the world. The Internet has given our minds longevity and has allowed everybody access to our thoughts and ideas. It gives us a collaborative tool that can help solve Mr. Hayek's problem. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other and come closer to efficiency.
Changed:
<
<
Let's combine all of our bits of knowledge and experiment with a single credit online course. At the beginning of the semester, each student will be asked to devote one hour per week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, the class would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. Even a single moment of collaboration would be better than Congress. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what we could accomplish as energetic and eager law students, especially if other schools joined in on our course?
>
>
Let's combine all of our bits of knowledge and experiment with a single credit online course. At the beginning of the semester, each student will be asked to devote one hour per week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, the class would have almost 500 hours of collaboration.

Assuming, for a moment, that it takes nothing more than an occasional hour each week to be an efficient collaborator in "solving" social problems. It puts me in mind of Thoreau's enquiring whether one can mind a steam-boiler betimes. Perhaps we should have a little more respect for the complexities of the policy process, and a little less certainty that changes in modes of communication are all it take to improve our ability to plan for and execute improvements in social outcomes. Many aspects of social process are difficult to abstract away in order to put everything inside a browser frame and an hour a week.

Even a single moment of collaboration would be better than Congress.

This is a conventional claim, but it isn't right. Congress is more than the politicians on television.

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what we could accomplish as energetic and eager law students, especially if other schools joined in on our course?

How are you measuring the value? As learning, to the students, or as solutions for society? If the latter, see above. If the former, hadn't we better ask a little more closely what will be learned and how?
 Forget mastery in a field, we could breed progress. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved. \ No newline at end of file
Added:
>
>
A little more modesty, a little less heat in the advocacy, some more tempered assessment of what you're asking for and can expect, including perhaps the recognition that these are experiments rather than conclusions, and you'd have a fine essay.
 \ No newline at end of file

AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 9 - 02 Mar 2012 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Changed:
<
<
First step, Alan, is that this has to stop being 1,691 words long, and become less than
>
>
FIRST STEP IS COMPLETE

First step, Alan, is that this has to stop being 1,691 words long, and become less than

  1,001 words long. You can and do write clearly. Now you have to write shorter, by structuring as clearly as you write. The first requirement is the outline. It is possible to write a 100,000-word

AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 8 - 01 Mar 2012 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
First step, Alan, is that this has to stop being 1,691 words long, and become less than
Line: 16 to 16
  Put this inside the limits of the assignment and then we can both go to work on it.
Changed:
<
<
>
>
 ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
Changed:
<
<
In the essay The Use of Knowledge in Society, Friedrich Hayek wrote "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess...to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." I believe this statement is true for now but with technology evolving, human beings may finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order (e.g. this wiki brings together some of those dispersed bits of knowledge by efficiently allocating resources to all minds and by maximizing time regardless of space). This great technological change will surely bring with it great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the lawyers of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. However, law schools around the country are not yet taking advantage of technological possibilities and not sufficiently dealing with the effects of technological change. Our whole education system is stuck in the past and I propose that together, we should build a better legal education.
>
>
"The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess...to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." - Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society.
 
Changed:
<
<
We should transform the law school experience because we do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. We need to learn the law so that we can create appropriate laws to govern the present and adapt to the incredibly different future that is coming our way. It takes only a single glance at our current legal regime to see the disastrous effects caused by our being stuck in the past. When a disaster strikes, one needs to start from scratch while fixing past mistakes. As the brightest law students in the country, we have the power to rebuild the legal education, fixing past mistakes and building on old and new ideas. This wiki is convenient for such a collaborative endeavor.
>
>
I believe this statement is true for now but with technology evolving, human beings may finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order (e.g. this wiki brings together some of those dispersed bits of knowledge by efficiently allocating resources to all minds and by maximizing time regardless of space).
 
Changed:
<
<
For the most part, law school courses do not ask us to think. They instruct us to read and ask us to spit back the information we read rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field. We hope the professor gives us a good grade but those grades are quite limiting, as they force our great minds to compete. When we finally get passed our grades, we are graded by a paycheck. I have no problems with competition per se. I have a problem with competition without progress and that competition is the basis of our current legal education. Progress comes from building on thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our collaborative abilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless to ourselves and to society.
>
>
This great technological change will surely bring with it great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the lawyers of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. However, law schools around the country are not yet taking advantage of technological possibilities and not sufficiently dealing with the effects of technological change. Our whole education system is stuck in the past and I propose that together, we should build a better legal education. As the brightest law students in the country, we have the power to succeed with this objective, fixing past mistakes and building on both old and new ideas. It takes only a single glance at our current legal regime to see the disastrous effects caused by our being stuck in the past. When a disaster strikes, one needs to start from scratch while fixing past mistakes. This wiki is convenient for such a collaborative endeavor.
 
Changed:
<
<
I am interested in the law but not in the laws of today. The laws of today do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. We need laws for today and we need laws for tomorrow. In this course I was asked to think and express my thoughts. Those thoughts were challenged. I was not told that I was wrong but just asked to make them coherent, for my own benefit and in turn, for society's benefit. For once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. This truly educational course could be used as the basis for our future legal education.
>
>
We should transform the law school experience because we do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. The laws of today do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. Instead, we should learn the law so that we can create appropriate laws to govern the present and adapt to the incredibly different future that is coming our way.
 
Changed:
<
<
Let’s combine all of our bits of knowledge and experiment with a single credit online course. At the beginning of the semester, each of the students are asked to devote one hour per week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, the class would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. Even a single moment of collaboration would be better than Congress. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what we could accomplish as energetic and eager law students, especially if other schools joined in on our course? Forget mastery in a field, we could breed progress.
>
>
For the most part, law school courses do not ask us to think. Professors instruct us to read and ask us to spit back the information we read rather than guide our thinking as to how such information shapes and affects law. We hope the professor will give us a good grade, but those grades are quite limiting because they force us to compete. Even when we get past our grades, we are graded by a paycheck.
 
Changed:
<
<
I do not want eighty-three credits for my law school experience. I took some courses and passed some exams. I do not see why that deserves credit. There are no due dates or ends of classes in life and our education system needs to realize this fact. We should combine technology with a legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. A course similar to the one proposed above, could have a positive impact on the world. The Internet has given our minds longevity, allowing everybody access to our thoughts and ideas. It gives us a collaborative tool that can help solve Mr. Hayek’s problem. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other and come closer to efficiency. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved.
>
>
I do not have a problem with competition, but I have a problem with competition that does not generate progress, and this is precisely the type of competition that is the basis of our current legal education. Progress comes from building on each other's thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper or a hefty check from a law firm. Those things are restraints on our collaborative abilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless to ourselves and to society.

Furthermore, I do not think that I deserve eighty-three credits for my law school experience. I took some courses and passed some exams. I do not see why that deserves credit. Our education system fails to realize that in life, there are no due dates or ends of classes. We should match reality with the legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. In Professor Moglen's course I was asked to think and express my thoughts in a coherent manner. My thoughts were challenged but for once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. This truly educational course could be used as the basis for our future legal education.

A course similar to the one proposed below, could have a positive impact on the world. The Internet has given our minds longevity and has allowed everybody access to our thoughts and ideas. It gives us a collaborative tool that can help solve Mr. Hayek's problem. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other and come closer to efficiency.

Let's combine all of our bits of knowledge and experiment with a single credit online course. At the beginning of the semester, each student will be asked to devote one hour per week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, the class would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. Even a single moment of collaboration would be better than Congress. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what we could accomplish as energetic and eager law students, especially if other schools joined in on our course?

Forget mastery in a field, we could breed progress. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved.


AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 7 - 01 Mar 2012 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Deleted:
<
<
 
First step, Alan, is that this has to stop being 1,691 words long, and become less than 1,001 words long. You can and do write clearly. Now you have to
Line: 17 to 16
  Put this inside the limits of the assignment and then we can both go to work on it.
Changed:
<
<

ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

This Wiki entry is an essay with a cause. It was inspired by my experiences and a recent passage I read from the economist Friedrich Hayek. Although I do not wholeheartedly agree with his economic theory, I respect his clarity in thinking and writing. In an essay entitled The Use of Knowledge in Society, Hayek thinks and states "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess...to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." I believe this statement is true but with the exponential evolution of technology and the bringing together of minds on the Internet, human beings finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order. For example, this wiki brings together some of these dispersed bits.

Law schools around the country are not taking advantage of this partial solution. Instead, our law school educations are stuck in the past (Just think about using ExamSoft for our final exams). As it stands, the law school education is inefficient. I recognize that it is not just the law school education but the country's entire public education system that is inefficient but we must start somewhere.

AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR

We live in a period of great technological change that is sure to bring with it, great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the greatest minds of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. Let us start by building a better legal education.

I do not know if we have enough power to turn my idea into something that works but I would like to brainstorm a new system on this wiki. This somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade, it is and should be the future of our country's education system. It is convenient for the collaboration of great, thought-filled minds. It is efficient in allocating our resources by maximizing our time and space. We should use this technology to better the law school education, to better our learning experiences, to expand our thoughts into ideas, and our ideas into tangible creations.

I started this essay as a rant about how crappy of an experience law school has been. At some point in ranting, I caught a glimpse of my angry self in the reflection of my laptop and realized I can take that anger and transform it into useful energy. We do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. We need to learn the law so that we can create laws for the vastly different present and the incredibly different future that is coming our way.

Our intellectual property laws are stuck in the past. Our corporate laws have allowed our corporations to run rampant (see Essay #2). Our constitutional law has allowed our government and our politics to remain, for the most part, stagnant without maximizing our potential to progress, as government officials and politicians battle back and forth just to win and wave their shiny golden ticket in the air, from Justice to Justice, from court to court, from election to election, from sea to shining sea. This is not only a problem, it is a disaster. When there is a problem, you usually know where to start. For example, if your house has a leak, you determine where it is, and go from there but if your house was destroyed by a hurricane (a real one, not that little lady Irene that New York complained about for weeks), your only option is to collect your insurance and start over. We need to start over and we are the brightest law students in the country. We have the power to rebuild the legal education.

For the most part, the problem in the majority of law school courses is that they don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information, hoping that the professor gives us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too. They force our great minds to compete. And when we finally get passed our grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress which happens to be the basis of our legal education.

True progress comes from building on thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless.

By taking this course, I realized that I am interested in the law, just not the laws of today. They do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. We need laws for today and we need laws for tomorrow. This course was not a typical course and I know that because I actually received an education by taking it. I was asked to think and express my thoughts. Those thoughts were challenged, and I was not told I was wrong but asked to build upon them until they were right, for my own benefit and in turn, for society's benefit too. For once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. I appreciate this so much that I want to take this course and use it as a basis for our future legal education.

I want to take advantage of the bits of knowledge each of us have and combine them to form a real idea for what our legal education needs. We could start small. A single course. It doesn't need a grade because our grade will be shown by our progress.

Imagine a law school course that used this wiki. Each of us was asked at the beginning of the semester to devote one hour a week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, we would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. That is a lot of hours for great minds to think about a real problem. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what our minds could accomplish as young law students if other schools joined in on this practice. Forget mastery, we would have progress.

The best part about this idea is that this course would be fun, educational, and would have impact in the real world. It would be all of these things because we would finally be asking students to think by using their minds instead of their memory-recall. It is not fun to memorize, it is fun to learn.

>
>
 
Changed:
<
<
I do not blame our education system and if I did, I would deserve some blame as well. But in my life, I have ruled out the concept of blame - there are only consequences. Our current education system is a two-way street and at a young age, I learned it was possible to walk down that street without thinking too much and so I stopped thinking so much. I have woken up to the fact that the only thing that will satisfy me is to think and to do something with my thoughts. I have learned from my street-walking mistakes and the consequences of my thoughts from now on will hopefully make up for my past decisions.
>
>
ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
 
Changed:
<
<
I do not want 83 credits for my law school experience. What credit do I truly deserve? I took some courses and did well on my final exams. At some point over the past three years, it hit me that there are no due dates or ends of classes in life. Our education system needs to realize this too. A wiki like this, and a course similar to the one I proposed above, could have impact. As technology has shown, the benefits of longevity are exponential. The idea of artificial intelligence is strange because it is not artificial at all. It is our logic and our volition that creates the intelligence to begin with and it is real. It has just given our brains, and thoughts, the ability to live on after our bodies die.
>
>
In the essay The Use of Knowledge in Society, Friedrich Hayek wrote "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess...to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." I believe this statement is true for now but with technology evolving, human beings may finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order (e.g. this wiki brings together some of those dispersed bits of knowledge by efficiently allocating resources to all minds and by maximizing time regardless of space). This great technological change will surely bring with it great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the lawyers of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. However, law schools around the country are not yet taking advantage of technological possibilities and not sufficiently dealing with the effects of technological change. Our whole education system is stuck in the past and I propose that together, we should build a better legal education.
 
Changed:
<
<
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. So let us use technology for that purpose. We can help Mr. Hayek solve his problem. We can become efficient. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other in a more efficient manner. We should combine technology with a legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved.
>
>
We should transform the law school experience because we do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. We need to learn the law so that we can create appropriate laws to govern the present and adapt to the incredibly different future that is coming our way. It takes only a single glance at our current legal regime to see the disastrous effects caused by our being stuck in the past. When a disaster strikes, one needs to start from scratch while fixing past mistakes. As the brightest law students in the country, we have the power to rebuild the legal education, fixing past mistakes and building on old and new ideas. This wiki is convenient for such a collaborative endeavor.
 
Added:
>
>
For the most part, law school courses do not ask us to think. They instruct us to read and ask us to spit back the information we read rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field. We hope the professor gives us a good grade but those grades are quite limiting, as they force our great minds to compete. When we finally get passed our grades, we are graded by a paycheck. I have no problems with competition per se. I have a problem with competition without progress and that competition is the basis of our current legal education. Progress comes from building on thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our collaborative abilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless to ourselves and to society.
 
Changed:
<
<
-- AlanDavidson - 08 Dec 2011
>
>
I am interested in the law but not in the laws of today. The laws of today do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. We need laws for today and we need laws for tomorrow. In this course I was asked to think and express my thoughts. Those thoughts were challenged. I was not told that I was wrong but just asked to make them coherent, for my own benefit and in turn, for society's benefit. For once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. This truly educational course could be used as the basis for our future legal education.
 
Added:
>
>
Let’s combine all of our bits of knowledge and experiment with a single credit online course. At the beginning of the semester, each of the students are asked to devote one hour per week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, the class would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. Even a single moment of collaboration would be better than Congress. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what we could accomplish as energetic and eager law students, especially if other schools joined in on our course? Forget mastery in a field, we could breed progress.
 
Deleted:
<
<
 
<--/commentPlugin-->
 \ No newline at end of file
Added:
>
>
I do not want eighty-three credits for my law school experience. I took some courses and passed some exams. I do not see why that deserves credit. There are no due dates or ends of classes in life and our education system needs to realize this fact. We should combine technology with a legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. A course similar to the one proposed above, could have a positive impact on the world. The Internet has given our minds longevity, allowing everybody access to our thoughts and ideas. It gives us a collaborative tool that can help solve Mr. Hayek’s problem. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other and come closer to efficiency. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved.

AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 6 - 21 Jan 2012 - Main.EbenMoglen
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Changed:
<
<
ROUGH DRAFT
>
>
First step, Alan, is that this has to stop being 1,691 words long, and become less than 1,001 words long. You can and do write clearly. Now you have to write shorter, by structuring as clearly as you write. The first requirement is the outline. It is possible to write a 100,000-word book without an outline, but an essay of 1,000 words must be carefully outlined. Each point, usually down to the paragraph and in some places to the sentence level, has to be placed in relation to the others, and the transitions, or white spaces, between points must be carefully filled. Sequence is the most important kind of order: it brings the rest in its train. Here you begin in an orderly fashion and then the sequence breaks down.

Put this inside the limits of the assignment and then we can both go to work on it.

 ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 5 - 09 Dec 2011 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
ROUGH DRAFT
Line: 10 to 10
 AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR
Changed:
<
<
We live in a period of great technological change that is sure to bring with it, great shifts in power. it will be our jobs as the greatest minds of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. Let us start by building a better legal education.
>
>
We live in a period of great technological change that is sure to bring with it, great shifts in power. It will be our jobs as the greatest minds of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. Let us start by building a better legal education.
 
Changed:
<
<
I do not know if we have enough power to turn my idea into something that works but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system on this wiki. This somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade, it is and should be the future of our country's education system. It is convenient for the collaboration of great, thought-filled minds. It is efficient in allocating our resources by maximizing our time and space. We should use this technology to better the law school education, to better our learning experiences, to expand our thoughts into ideas, and our ideas into tangible creations.
>
>
I do not know if we have enough power to turn my idea into something that works but I would like to brainstorm a new system on this wiki. This somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade, it is and should be the future of our country's education system. It is convenient for the collaboration of great, thought-filled minds. It is efficient in allocating our resources by maximizing our time and space. We should use this technology to better the law school education, to better our learning experiences, to expand our thoughts into ideas, and our ideas into tangible creations.
 I started this essay as a rant about how crappy of an experience law school has been. At some point in ranting, I caught a glimpse of my angry self in the reflection of my laptop and realized I can take that anger and transform it into useful energy. We do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. We need to learn the law so that we can create laws for the vastly different present and the incredibly different future that is coming our way.
Changed:
<
<
Our intellectual property laws are stuck in the past. Our corporate laws have allowed our corporations to run rampant (see Essay #2). Our constitutional law has allowed our government and our politics to remain, for the most part, stagnant without maximizing our potential to progress, as government officials and politicians battle back and forth just to win and wave their shiny golden ticket in the air, from Justice to Justice, from court to court, from election to election, from sea to shining sea. This is not only a problem, it is a disaster. When there is a problem, you usually know where to start. For example, if your house has a leak, you determine where it is, and go from there but if your house was destroyed by a hurricane (a real one, not that little bitch Irene that New York complained about for weeks), your only option is to collect your insurance and start over. We need to start over and we are the brightest law students in the country.
>
>
Our intellectual property laws are stuck in the past. Our corporate laws have allowed our corporations to run rampant (see Essay #2). Our constitutional law has allowed our government and our politics to remain, for the most part, stagnant without maximizing our potential to progress, as government officials and politicians battle back and forth just to win and wave their shiny golden ticket in the air, from Justice to Justice, from court to court, from election to election, from sea to shining sea. This is not only a problem, it is a disaster. When there is a problem, you usually know where to start. For example, if your house has a leak, you determine where it is, and go from there but if your house was destroyed by a hurricane (a real one, not that little lady Irene that New York complained about for weeks), your only option is to collect your insurance and start over. We need to start over and we are the brightest law students in the country. We have the power to rebuild the legal education.
 
Changed:
<
<
For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information, hoping that the professor gives us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too. They force our great minds to compete. And when we finally get passed our grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress which happens to be the basis of our legal education.
>
>
For the most part, the problem in the majority of law school courses is that they don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information, hoping that the professor gives us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too. They force our great minds to compete. And when we finally get passed our grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress which happens to be the basis of our legal education.
 
Changed:
<
<
True progress comes from building on thoughts, not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless.
>
>
True progress comes from building on thoughts, not from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless.
 By taking this course, I realized that I am interested in the law, just not the laws of today. They do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. We need laws for today and we need laws for tomorrow. This course was not a typical course and I know that because I actually received an education by taking it. I was asked to think and express my thoughts. Those thoughts were challenged, and I was not told I was wrong but asked to build upon them until they were right, for my own benefit and in turn, for society's benefit too. For once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. I appreciate this so much that I want to take this course and use it as a basis for our future legal education.

AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 4 - 09 Dec 2011 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Changed:
<
<
VERY ROUGH DRAFT
>
>
ROUGH DRAFT
 
Changed:
<
<
ON A LEGAL EDUCATION
>
>
ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
 
Changed:
<
<
DISCLAIMER TO MY FELLOW CLASSMATES
>
>
This Wiki entry is an essay with a cause. It was inspired by my experiences and a recent passage I read from the economist Friedrich Hayek. Although I do not wholeheartedly agree with his economic theory, I respect his clarity in thinking and writing. In an essay entitled The Use of Knowledge in Society, Hayek thinks and states "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess... to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." I believe this statement is true but with the exponential evolution of technology and the bringing together of minds on the Internet, human beings finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order. For example, this wiki brings together some of these dispersed bits.
 
Changed:
<
<
This Wiki entry is an essay for a cause not for a grade.

As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been a typical law school course. It was actually quite enjoyable. You probably checked your gmail chats and Facebook page less in this class than in most of your others. Sticking with the atypical theme, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope reading this is also truly enjoyable. This wiki, this somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade. This space, or freedom, to think gives us an opportunity to fix problems. I want to fix a problem that we all see and many of us speak about but none of us have ever done anything to solve it. This Wiki has brought at least the thirty-eight of us together in a creative, rather than competitive, atmosphere. I want law school to have the same atmosphere.

>
>
Law schools around the country are not taking advantage of this partial solution. Instead, our law school educations are stuck in the past (Just think about using ExamSoft for our final exams). As it stands, the law school education is inefficient. I recognize that it is not just the law school education but the country's entire public education system that is inefficient but we must start somewhere.
 AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR
Changed:
<
<
I do not know if we have enough power to achieve my goal and turn my idea into something substantive but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system. Ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience and we go to one of the top law schools in the world. We enjoy learning enjoy and enjoy the law. So what is it that some of us hate about the experience? After three years here, I believe that it is the failed education system running rampant through our nation's law schools.

For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too and when we get passed grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress. That happens to be the basis of our legal education. But this course was different. It asked me to think. It created this wiki for me to express my thoughts. Somehow, with all that freedom to think, I was able to learn the law.

This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check signed by a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Both grades and paychecks are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown, competing for a grade is worthless. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. Why limit ourselves to a grade and a paycheck when we have capable enough minds to use our thoughts to create a more useful legal education.

I understand that our law school is caught in a larger education system in which they are forced to compete. In that system, they have to get us high paying jobs in order to keep up with meaningless statistics and rankings. We are not caught in that system. We could create our own legal education system by taking this system's mistakes, learning from them, thinking about them, and creating something better. We can knock this system down and start anew or we can build on this system and show progress. We have an opportunity to think and create for the benefit of others.

>
>
We live in a period of great technological change that is sure to bring with it, great shifts in power. it will be our jobs as the greatest minds of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. Let us start by building a better legal education.
 
Added:
>
>
I do not know if we have enough power to turn my idea into something that works but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system on this wiki. This somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade, it is and should be the future of our country's education system. It is convenient for the collaboration of great, thought-filled minds. It is efficient in allocating our resources by maximizing our time and space. We should use this technology to better the law school education, to better our learning experiences, to expand our thoughts into ideas, and our ideas into tangible creations.
 
Changed:
<
<
Law school should be a tool that could be used to better American society. Interested law students should learn the skills needed not just to understand the current law but to build on the current law in a forward-thinking manner. At one point in time, law schools achieved this purpose - teachers actually taught students to think and to question what they read, rather than asking them to read and repeat. At some point law schools began to fail to achieve this purpose. We can bring back this purpose.
>
>
I started this essay as a rant about how crappy of an experience law school has been. At some point in ranting, I caught a glimpse of my angry self in the reflection of my laptop and realized I can take that anger and transform it into useful energy. We do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. We need to learn the law so that we can create laws for the vastly different present and the incredibly different future that is coming our way.
 
Changed:
<
<
A college recently opened in Providence that gives students credit when they have proven that they deserve credit for actually thinking, doing, and progressing. Students at College Unbound have created useful businesses in Providence and improved their communities by taking what they learned, thinking about it, and applying it to their reality. Some do not get credit but that does not mean that they have failed. I propose a law school that does the same. I do not want a grade to show that I could understand the work that somebody else already did because that is inefficient. I want a grade to show that I have built upon that work by doing something with my own mind. I want a grade to relate to my thoughts, not my recall memory. I want to give and get credit where credit is deserved.
>
>
Our intellectual property laws are stuck in the past. Our corporate laws have allowed our corporations to run rampant (see Essay #2). Our constitutional law has allowed our government and our politics to remain, for the most part, stagnant without maximizing our potential to progress, as government officials and politicians battle back and forth just to win and wave their shiny golden ticket in the air, from Justice to Justice, from court to court, from election to election, from sea to shining sea. This is not only a problem, it is a disaster. When there is a problem, you usually know where to start. For example, if your house has a leak, you determine where it is, and go from there but if your house was destroyed by a hurricane (a real one, not that little bitch Irene that New York complained about for weeks), your only option is to collect your insurance and start over. We need to start over and we are the brightest law students in the country.
 
Changed:
<
<
MY PROPOSAL
>
>
For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information, hoping that the professor gives us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too. They force our great minds to compete. And when we finally get passed our grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress which happens to be the basis of our legal education.
 
Changed:
<
<
Step outside of the current law school mold and you will be grateful for the free air that you breathe. You will realize that there is an open space to think, on your own or collectively. You will realize that you have the ability to create, on your own or collectively. So I ask you to knock down the walls of grades that we have each lived in for over two decades. I ask you to at least put the competition for high-paying jobs on hold. I ask you to just take a few moments and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls hating, balding, and aging because of a grade and a due date.
>
>
True progress comes from building on thoughts, not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless.
 
Changed:
<
<
If we fail with this idea, maybe you will be able to write about this on your restricted 1 page resume (if it fits and if the career counselor says that law firms will like it). If we fail, and you want it enough, I am sure you will find a high-paying job. If we succeed, we can delete the resume file from our computers and attach our names to something that actually matters. Instead of giving money to build a staircase in the JG lobby give an flexible intellectual platform for the next generation of law students to not only learn from but to build upon as well.
>
>
By taking this course, I realized that I am interested in the law, just not the laws of today. They do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. We need laws for today and we need laws for tomorrow. This course was not a typical course and I know that because I actually received an education by taking it. I was asked to think and express my thoughts. Those thoughts were challenged, and I was not told I was wrong but asked to build upon them until they were right, for my own benefit and in turn, for society's benefit too. For once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. I appreciate this so much that I want to take this course and use it as a basis for our future legal education.
 
Changed:
<
<
We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change this system or at least to try and remove some of the bullshit that we are forced to put up with for a few years. Let's make use of our great minds and fix a real problem.
>
>
I want to take advantage of the bits of knowledge each of us have and combine them to form a real idea for what our legal education needs. We could start small. A single course. It doesn't need a grade because our grade will be shown by our progress.
 
Changed:
<
<
A CONCLUSION AND A BEGINNING
>
>
Imagine a law school course that used this wiki. Each of us was asked at the beginning of the semester to devote one hour a week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, we would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. That is a lot of hours for great minds to think about a real problem. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what our minds could accomplish as young law students if other schools joined in on this practice. Forget mastery, we would have progress.
 
Changed:
<
<
Instead of receiving an education, law school tried to I was squeeze me into a mold without caring about my dimensions. This type of mold is only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee." Let us use this wiki to break out of these molds and do something about our failing education system.
>
>
The best part about this idea is that this course would be fun, educational, and would have impact in the real world. It would be all of these things because we would finally be asking students to think by using their minds instead of their memory-recall. It is not fun to memorize, it is fun to learn.
 
Changed:
<
<
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. Let us use it freely and properly. Let us share our minds and let us create.
>
>
I do not blame our education system and if I did, I would deserve some blame as well. But in my life, I have ruled out the concept of blame - there are only consequences. Our current education system is a two-way street and at a young age, I learned it was possible to walk down that street without thinking too much and so I stopped thinking so much. I have woken up to the fact that the only thing that will satisfy me is to think and to do something with my thoughts. I have learned from my street-walking mistakes and the consequences of my thoughts from now on will hopefully make up for my past decisions.
 
Added:
>
>
I do not want 83 credits for my law school experience. What credit do I truly deserve? I took some courses and did well on my final exams. At some point over the past three years, it hit me that there are no due dates or ends of classes in life. Our education system needs to realize this too. A wiki like this, and a course similar to the one I proposed above, could have impact. As technology has shown, the benefits of longevity are exponential. The idea of artificial intelligence is strange because it is not artificial at all. It is our logic and our volition that creates the intelligence to begin with and it is real. It has just given our brains, and thoughts, the ability to live on after our bodies die.
 
Added:
>
>
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. So let us use technology for that purpose. We can help Mr. Hayek solve his problem. We can become efficient. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other in a more efficient manner. We should combine technology with a legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved.
 

-- AlanDavidson - 08 Dec 2011


AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 3 - 08 Dec 2011 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
Changed:
<
<
META TOPICPARENT name="WebPreferences"
>
>
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
 VERY ROUGH DRAFT

ON A LEGAL EDUCATION

Line: 8 to 8
 This Wiki entry is an essay for a cause not for a grade.
Changed:
<
<
As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been a typical law school course. It was actually quite enjoyable. You probably checked your gmail chats and Facebook page less in this class than in most of your others. Sticking with the atypical theme, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope reading this is also truly enjoyable. This may not be an essay that you expected to read during your law school experience but thanks to the advent of open forums like this wiki, I have the freedom to write this essay and share it with my fellow classmates. Likewise, you have the freedom to read it and comment on it as well, building it out into a tangible idea by collaborating with the original author. To me that is amazing and if it is not amazing enough to you then realize that I first started writing this in a downtown Manhattan coffee shop but then I left and signed back onto this Wiki. Everything is still here and I did not have to think twice about it being here. This essay exists. By now, I hope you are amazed.

In this course, I am not worried about my words being right or wrong. I just want them to be true. At this point, you may be able to tell that I am not concerned about my grade in this course (we will get to my thoughts on grades later). This essay is just an idea, or maybe it is just a bunch of thoughts that I needed to express. Either way, I hope it is something we can build upon together in the future. This wiki, this somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade. This space, or freedom, to think gives us an opportunity to fix a problem that we all see and speak about but never do anything to solve by bringing together thirty-eight great minds in a creative, rather than competitive, atmosphere.

>
>
As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been a typical law school course. It was actually quite enjoyable. You probably checked your gmail chats and Facebook page less in this class than in most of your others. Sticking with the atypical theme, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope reading this is also truly enjoyable. This wiki, this somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade. This space, or freedom, to think gives us an opportunity to fix problems. I want to fix a problem that we all see and many of us speak about but none of us have ever done anything to solve it. This Wiki has brought at least the thirty-eight of us together in a creative, rather than competitive, atmosphere. I want law school to have the same atmosphere.
 AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR
Changed:
<
<
To those still reading, let me now say that I do not know if we have enough power to achieve my goal and turn my idea into a tangible object but I want us to collaborate in trying to change the legal education. If you are not interested, do one of two things: stop reading and go back to your email or ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience. We go to one of the top law schools in the world, we enjoy reading and thinking about the law. So what is it that you hate about the experience? After three years here, I believe it is obvious that it is the failed education system that is in place throughout most law schools in the country.
>
>
I do not know if we have enough power to achieve my goal and turn my idea into something substantive but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system. Ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience and we go to one of the top law schools in the world. We enjoy learning enjoy and enjoy the law. So what is it that some of us hate about the experience? After three years here, I believe that it is the failed education system running rampant through our nation's law schools.

For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too and when we get passed grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress. That happens to be the basis of our legal education. But this course was different. It asked me to think. It created this wiki for me to express my thoughts. Somehow, with all that freedom to think, I was able to learn the law.

This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check signed by a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Both grades and paychecks are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown, competing for a grade is worthless. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. Why limit ourselves to a grade and a paycheck when we have capable enough minds to use our thoughts to create a more useful legal education.

 
Changed:
<
<
For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and contribute to the legal field, we spit back a bunch of information that someone else understands better than us in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades limit us as well and it never stops. When it is not a grade any longer, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se, I have problems with competition without progress and that is the basis of our legal education. If you do not agree, you can have my A or B or C or D or F. Whichever one you want, just take it. I will at least think about working on the problem while you just accept it and go along for the ride.
>
>
I understand that our law school is caught in a larger education system in which they are forced to compete. In that system, they have to get us high paying jobs in order to keep up with meaningless statistics and rankings. We are not caught in that system. We could create our own legal education system by taking this system's mistakes, learning from them, thinking about them, and creating something better. We can knock this system down and start anew or we can build on this system and show progress. We have an opportunity to think and create for the benefit of others.
 
Deleted:
<
<
In the past few months I have dug deep into my thoughts to understand my lack of concern for grades and to put these thoughts into coherent words (and yes, I realize that this is not yet coherence). This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check signed by a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Those things are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At this level, competing for grades is worthless for every single one of us. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. I do not want to be in that particular job market. You know, the one with the big checks and pinstriped suits (although I enjoy both of those things). I would rather use my legal education to create something useful with you.
 
Changed:
<
<
When you have proven yourself by grades your entire life, there should come a day when you no longer need to compete for the top grade (just ask a law school in New Haven). But the school has to get us high paying jobs to keep up with the rankings and grades are their vetting us for the job market. It is not a grade that I have a problem with but a grade without meaning. Why can't our grades be derived from having thoughts and contributing to progress? It fails us to compete at this level and it fails society even more. A collaboration of our minds could create so much more and I am banking on that collaboration to build an alternative to the current legal education. This is not just a fleeting idea that will go away when the semester ends. This is a real opportunity to think and create.
>
>
Law school should be a tool that could be used to better American society. Interested law students should learn the skills needed not just to understand the current law but to build on the current law in a forward-thinking manner. At one point in time, law schools achieved this purpose - teachers actually taught students to think and to question what they read, rather than asking them to read and repeat. At some point law schools began to fail to achieve this purpose. We can bring back this purpose.
 
Changed:
<
<
A college recently opened in Providence that gives students credit when they have proven that they deserve credit. I propose a law school that does the same. I do not want a grade to show that I could understand the work that somebody else already did. I want a grade to show that I have taken that work and done work in my own mind. I want a grade to relate to my thoughts, not my recall memory. I want to give credit where credit is deserved.
>
>
A college recently opened in Providence that gives students credit when they have proven that they deserve credit for actually thinking, doing, and progressing. Students at College Unbound have created useful businesses in Providence and improved their communities by taking what they learned, thinking about it, and applying it to their reality. Some do not get credit but that does not mean that they have failed. I propose a law school that does the same. I do not want a grade to show that I could understand the work that somebody else already did because that is inefficient. I want a grade to show that I have built upon that work by doing something with my own mind. I want a grade to relate to my thoughts, not my recall memory. I want to give and get credit where credit is deserved.
 
Changed:
<
<
MY PROPOSAL TO ALL READERS
>
>
MY PROPOSAL
 Step outside of the current law school mold and you will be grateful for the free air that you breathe. You will realize that there is an open space to think, on your own or collectively. You will realize that you have the ability to create, on your own or collectively. So I ask you to knock down the walls of grades that we have each lived in for over two decades. I ask you to at least put the competition for high-paying jobs on hold. I ask you to just take a few moments and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls hating, balding, and aging because of a grade and a due date.
Line: 32 to 33
 We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change this system or at least to try and remove some of the bullshit that we are forced to put up with for a few years. Let's make use of our great minds and fix a real problem.
Changed:
<
<
A CONCLUSION BUT REALLY A BEGINNING

Law school is supposed to be a tool used to better American society by allowing the interested student to build on laws of the past and apply concepts to the future. At one point in time, law school's purpose was to educate interested students in a way that achieved this purpose, teaching students the relevant skills needed to improve upon the world around them. But at some point law schools forgot about this purpose.

Instead of receiving an education, I was forcefully shoved into a nice little mold that law school created for me without even knowing my dimensions. Well, I could not fit into that mold no matter how hard I tried and I did try. At the end of the day, I want a big paycheck more than anyone but that paycheck waved in front of my face after my 1L summer was not big enough to squeeze me into the mold. It is important to realize that molds are not necessarily bad things but the molds we are talking about are only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee" or if you are the "moldee" and you are willing to give up your own purpose for a comfortable ride in the passenger seat.

>
>
A CONCLUSION AND A BEGINNING
 
Changed:
<
<
I am asking you something that I was never asked in law school. I am asking you to take a few minutes and just think if you are doing what you want to do. If not, let us use this wiki to do something about it.
>
>
Instead of receiving an education, law school tried to I was squeeze me into a mold without caring about my dimensions. This type of mold is only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee." Let us use this wiki to break out of these molds and do something about our failing education system.
 
Changed:
<
<
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Although our addiction to oil and complex chemicals has shown that changing the weather is possible (maybe we will discuss this in another essay), the weather remains fairly difficult to change, or at least more difficult to change than this legal education system. Mark Twain did not have the internet to collaborate with thirty eight of the brightest minds in the classroom. We do. It is ours. Let us use it freely and properly. Let us share and let us create.
>
>
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. Let us use it freely and properly. Let us share our minds and let us create.
 


AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 2 - 08 Dec 2011 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="WebPreferences"
Changed:
<
<
ON A LEGAL EDUCATION
>
>
VERY ROUGH DRAFT
 
Changed:
<
<
DISCLAIMER TO MY FELLOW CLASSMATES
>
>
ON A LEGAL EDUCATION

DISCLAIMER TO MY FELLOW CLASSMATES

 This Wiki entry is an essay for a cause not for a grade.
Changed:
<
<
As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been your typical law school course. It was truly enjoyable. Thus, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope this too is truly enjoyable. This may not be an essay that you expected to read during your law school experience but thanks to the advent of open forums like this wiki, I have the freedom to write this essay and share it with my fellow classmates. Likewise, you have the freedom to read it and comment on it as well, building it out in collaboration with the author. That is amazing. Further, I am not worried about it being right or wrong. It is just an idea, or maybe it just some thoughts but hopefully one that we can build upon collaboratively in the future. The worst thing that could happen is that I edit it. You may be able to tell by now that I am not too concerned about my grade in this course (but we will get to that later). This wiki, this uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually think and create, is bigger than your grade. It is an opportunity to fix a problem that we all see but never do anything solve.
>
>
As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been a typical law school course. It was actually quite enjoyable. You probably checked your gmail chats and Facebook page less in this class than in most of your others. Sticking with the atypical theme, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope reading this is also truly enjoyable. This may not be an essay that you expected to read during your law school experience but thanks to the advent of open forums like this wiki, I have the freedom to write this essay and share it with my fellow classmates. Likewise, you have the freedom to read it and comment on it as well, building it out into a tangible idea by collaborating with the original author. To me that is amazing and if it is not amazing enough to you then realize that I first started writing this in a downtown Manhattan coffee shop but then I left and signed back onto this Wiki. Everything is still here and I did not have to think twice about it being here. This essay exists. By now, I hope you are amazed.

In this course, I am not worried about my words being right or wrong. I just want them to be true. At this point, you may be able to tell that I am not concerned about my grade in this course (we will get to my thoughts on grades later). This essay is just an idea, or maybe it is just a bunch of thoughts that I needed to express. Either way, I hope it is something we can build upon together in the future. This wiki, this somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade. This space, or freedom, to think gives us an opportunity to fix a problem that we all see and speak about but never do anything to solve by bringing together thirty-eight great minds in a creative, rather than competitive, atmosphere.

AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR

 
Changed:
<
<
AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR
>
>
To those still reading, let me now say that I do not know if we have enough power to achieve my goal and turn my idea into a tangible object but I want us to collaborate in trying to change the legal education. If you are not interested, do one of two things: stop reading and go back to your email or ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience. We go to one of the top law schools in the world, we enjoy reading and thinking about the law. So what is it that you hate about the experience? After three years here, I believe it is obvious that it is the failed education system that is in place throughout most law schools in the country.
 
Changed:
<
<
To those still reading, let me now say that I do not know if we have enough power to do so but I want us to change the legal education. This wiki entry is a starting point for anyone interested in thinking about this topic. If you are not interested, ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience. We go to one of the top law schools in the world, we enjoy reading and thinking about the law. So what is it that you hate? I believe it is the failed education system that is in place in most law schools in the country.
>
>
For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and contribute to the legal field, we spit back a bunch of information that someone else understands better than us in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades limit us as well and it never stops. When it is not a grade any longer, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se, I have problems with competition without progress and that is the basis of our legal education. If you do not agree, you can have my A or B or C or D or F. Whichever one you want, just take it. I will at least think about working on the problem while you just accept it and go along for the ride.
 
Changed:
<
<
For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read. Then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and contribute to the legal field, we spit back a bunch of information that someone else understands better than us in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades limit us as well. You can have my A or B or C or D or F. Take it.
>
>
In the past few months I have dug deep into my thoughts to understand my lack of concern for grades and to put these thoughts into coherent words (and yes, I realize that this is not yet coherence). This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check signed by a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Those things are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At this level, competing for grades is worthless for every single one of us. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. I do not want to be in that particular job market. You know, the one with the big checks and pinstriped suits (although I enjoy both of those things). I would rather use my legal education to create something useful with you.
 
Changed:
<
<
In the past few months I have dug deep into my thoughts to understand my lack of concern for grades and to put it into words. This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check from a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Those things are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At this level, competing for grades is worthless for every one of us. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. I do not want to be in that particular job market. You know, the one with the big checks and pinstriped suits (although I enjoy both of those things). I want to create something with you.
>
>
When you have proven yourself by grades your entire life, there should come a day when you no longer need to compete for the top grade (just ask a law school in New Haven). But the school has to get us high paying jobs to keep up with the rankings and grades are their vetting us for the job market. It is not a grade that I have a problem with but a grade without meaning. Why can't our grades be derived from having thoughts and contributing to progress? It fails us to compete at this level and it fails society even more. A collaboration of our minds could create so much more and I am banking on that collaboration to build an alternative to the current legal education. This is not just a fleeting idea that will go away when the semester ends. This is a real opportunity to think and create.
 
Changed:
<
<
When you have proven yourself by grades your entire life, there should come a day when you no longer need to compete for the top grade (just ask Yale). But the school has to get us high paying jobs to keep up with the rankings and grades are their way of solving this problem. It fails us to compete at this level and it fails society even more. Collaboration of our minds could create so much more and I am banking on that collaboration to build an alternative to the current legal education. This is not just a fleeting idea that will go away when the semester ends. This is a real opportunity to think and create.
>
>
A college recently opened in Providence that gives students credit when they have proven that they deserve credit. I propose a law school that does the same. I do not want a grade to show that I could understand the work that somebody else already did. I want a grade to show that I have taken that work and done work in my own mind. I want a grade to relate to my thoughts, not my recall memory. I want to give credit where credit is deserved.
 
Changed:
<
<
MY PROPOSAL TO ALL READERS
>
>
MY PROPOSAL TO ALL READERS
 
Changed:
<
<
Once you step outside of the current law school mold, you will be grateful for this open space to think collectively and create collaboratively. So let's get on with it. Knock down the walls of grades, hold off on the competition for high-paying jobs, and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls balding and aging because of their finals schedule.
>
>
Step outside of the current law school mold and you will be grateful for the free air that you breathe. You will realize that there is an open space to think, on your own or collectively. You will realize that you have the ability to create, on your own or collectively. So I ask you to knock down the walls of grades that we have each lived in for over two decades. I ask you to at least put the competition for high-paying jobs on hold. I ask you to just take a few moments and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls hating, balding, and aging because of a grade and a due date.
 
Changed:
<
<
If we fail with this idea, maybe you can even fit this endeavor into your restrictive 1 page resume that is supposed to capture your entire suitability for wearing an expensive suit to work every day. If we fail and you want it enough, I am sure you will find a high-paying job. If we succeed, we can delete the resume file from our computers and attach our names to something that actually matters, not just by giving money to a staircase in the JG lobby.
>
>
If we fail with this idea, maybe you will be able to write about this on your restricted 1 page resume (if it fits and if the career counselor says that law firms will like it). If we fail, and you want it enough, I am sure you will find a high-paying job. If we succeed, we can delete the resume file from our computers and attach our names to something that actually matters. Instead of giving money to build a staircase in the JG lobby give an flexible intellectual platform for the next generation of law students to not only learn from but to build upon as well.
 
Changed:
<
<
We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change the system. Let's make use of our minds and fix a real problem.
>
>
We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change this system or at least to try and remove some of the bullshit that we are forced to put up with for a few years. Let's make use of our great minds and fix a real problem.
 
Changed:
<
<
CONCLUSION
>
>
A CONCLUSION BUT REALLY A BEGINNING
 
Changed:
<
<
Law school is supposed to be a tool used to better American society by allowing the interested student to build on laws of the past and apply concepts to the future. At one point in time, law school’s purpose was to educate interested students in a way that they could accomplish this goal, teaching students that they can improve the world by contributing to our nation’s law-making regime. But at some point law school lost this purpose, leaving this purpose behind in order to pay for a house in Southampton and a Porsche Carrera (two things I also like).
>
>
Law school is supposed to be a tool used to better American society by allowing the interested student to build on laws of the past and apply concepts to the future. At one point in time, law school's purpose was to educate interested students in a way that achieved this purpose, teaching students the relevant skills needed to improve upon the world around them. But at some point law schools forgot about this purpose.
 
Changed:
<
<
Instead of achieving its purpose, law school tried to shove me into a nice little mold without knowing if I would fit in it. I could not fit into that mold no matter how hard I tried and I did try. I want that Porsche too. It is important to realize that molds are not necessarily bad things but the mold we are talking about is only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee" or if you are the "moldee" and you are willing to give up your own purpose for a comfortable ride in the passenger seat.
>
>
Instead of receiving an education, I was forcefully shoved into a nice little mold that law school created for me without even knowing my dimensions. Well, I could not fit into that mold no matter how hard I tried and I did try. At the end of the day, I want a big paycheck more than anyone but that paycheck waved in front of my face after my 1L summer was not big enough to squeeze me into the mold. It is important to realize that molds are not necessarily bad things but the molds we are talking about are only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee" or if you are the "moldee" and you are willing to give up your own purpose for a comfortable ride in the passenger seat.
 
Changed:
<
<
I am asking you something that I was never asked in law school. I am asking you to take a few minutes and just think if you are doing what you want to do. If you are still reading, I am asking you to collaborate with a classmate and create something of substance. I am asking you to take an idea to fix the legal education and build on it. Do not spit back my essay's words back at someone and do not cite me on a test or in your life. My words are not yet worthy of that praise.
>
>
I am asking you something that I was never asked in law school. I am asking you to take a few minutes and just think if you are doing what you want to do. If not, let us use this wiki to do something about it.
 
Changed:
<
<
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Although our addiction to oil and complex chemicals has shown that changing the weather is possible (maybe we will discuss this in another essay), the weather remains fairly difficult to change, or at least more difficult to change than this legal education system.
>
>
Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Although our addiction to oil and complex chemicals has shown that changing the weather is possible (maybe we will discuss this in another essay), the weather remains fairly difficult to change, or at least more difficult to change than this legal education system. Mark Twain did not have the internet to collaborate with thirty eight of the brightest minds in the classroom. We do. It is ours. Let us use it freely and properly. Let us share and let us create.
 


AlanDavidsonFirstPaper 1 - 08 Dec 2011 - Main.AlanDavidson
Line: 1 to 1
Added:
>
>
META TOPICPARENT name="WebPreferences"
ON A LEGAL EDUCATION

DISCLAIMER TO MY FELLOW CLASSMATES

This Wiki entry is an essay for a cause not for a grade.

As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been your typical law school course. It was truly enjoyable. Thus, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope this too is truly enjoyable. This may not be an essay that you expected to read during your law school experience but thanks to the advent of open forums like this wiki, I have the freedom to write this essay and share it with my fellow classmates. Likewise, you have the freedom to read it and comment on it as well, building it out in collaboration with the author. That is amazing. Further, I am not worried about it being right or wrong. It is just an idea, or maybe it just some thoughts but hopefully one that we can build upon collaboratively in the future. The worst thing that could happen is that I edit it. You may be able to tell by now that I am not too concerned about my grade in this course (but we will get to that later). This wiki, this uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually think and create, is bigger than your grade. It is an opportunity to fix a problem that we all see but never do anything solve.

AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR

To those still reading, let me now say that I do not know if we have enough power to do so but I want us to change the legal education. This wiki entry is a starting point for anyone interested in thinking about this topic. If you are not interested, ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience. We go to one of the top law schools in the world, we enjoy reading and thinking about the law. So what is it that you hate? I believe it is the failed education system that is in place in most law schools in the country.

For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read. Then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and contribute to the legal field, we spit back a bunch of information that someone else understands better than us in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades limit us as well. You can have my A or B or C or D or F. Take it.

In the past few months I have dug deep into my thoughts to understand my lack of concern for grades and to put it into words. This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check from a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Those things are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At this level, competing for grades is worthless for every one of us. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. I do not want to be in that particular job market. You know, the one with the big checks and pinstriped suits (although I enjoy both of those things). I want to create something with you.

When you have proven yourself by grades your entire life, there should come a day when you no longer need to compete for the top grade (just ask Yale). But the school has to get us high paying jobs to keep up with the rankings and grades are their way of solving this problem. It fails us to compete at this level and it fails society even more. Collaboration of our minds could create so much more and I am banking on that collaboration to build an alternative to the current legal education. This is not just a fleeting idea that will go away when the semester ends. This is a real opportunity to think and create.

MY PROPOSAL TO ALL READERS

Once you step outside of the current law school mold, you will be grateful for this open space to think collectively and create collaboratively. So let's get on with it. Knock down the walls of grades, hold off on the competition for high-paying jobs, and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls balding and aging because of their finals schedule.

If we fail with this idea, maybe you can even fit this endeavor into your restrictive 1 page resume that is supposed to capture your entire suitability for wearing an expensive suit to work every day. If we fail and you want it enough, I am sure you will find a high-paying job. If we succeed, we can delete the resume file from our computers and attach our names to something that actually matters, not just by giving money to a staircase in the JG lobby.

We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change the system. Let's make use of our minds and fix a real problem.

CONCLUSION

Law school is supposed to be a tool used to better American society by allowing the interested student to build on laws of the past and apply concepts to the future. At one point in time, law school’s purpose was to educate interested students in a way that they could accomplish this goal, teaching students that they can improve the world by contributing to our nation’s law-making regime. But at some point law school lost this purpose, leaving this purpose behind in order to pay for a house in Southampton and a Porsche Carrera (two things I also like).

Instead of achieving its purpose, law school tried to shove me into a nice little mold without knowing if I would fit in it. I could not fit into that mold no matter how hard I tried and I did try. I want that Porsche too. It is important to realize that molds are not necessarily bad things but the mold we are talking about is only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee" or if you are the "moldee" and you are willing to give up your own purpose for a comfortable ride in the passenger seat.

I am asking you something that I was never asked in law school. I am asking you to take a few minutes and just think if you are doing what you want to do. If you are still reading, I am asking you to collaborate with a classmate and create something of substance. I am asking you to take an idea to fix the legal education and build on it. Do not spit back my essay's words back at someone and do not cite me on a test or in your life. My words are not yet worthy of that praise.

Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Although our addiction to oil and complex chemicals has shown that changing the weather is possible (maybe we will discuss this in another essay), the weather remains fairly difficult to change, or at least more difficult to change than this legal education system.

-- AlanDavidson - 08 Dec 2011

 
<--/commentPlugin-->

Revision 12r12 - 04 Sep 2012 - 22:02:12 - IanSullivan
Revision 11r11 - 19 Apr 2012 - 18:54:17 - AlanDavidson
Revision 10r10 - 10 Apr 2012 - 13:28:51 - EbenMoglen
Revision 9r9 - 02 Mar 2012 - 00:04:55 - AlanDavidson
Revision 8r8 - 01 Mar 2012 - 04:26:55 - AlanDavidson
Revision 7r7 - 01 Mar 2012 - 01:27:40 - AlanDavidson
Revision 6r6 - 21 Jan 2012 - 20:22:15 - EbenMoglen
Revision 5r5 - 09 Dec 2011 - 05:32:32 - AlanDavidson
Revision 4r4 - 09 Dec 2011 - 02:47:03 - AlanDavidson
Revision 3r3 - 08 Dec 2011 - 05:03:57 - AlanDavidson
Revision 2r2 - 08 Dec 2011 - 02:41:37 - AlanDavidson
Revision 1r1 - 08 Dec 2011 - 01:40:36 - AlanDavidson
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 RSSATOM