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What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

nytimes.com

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Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#11

Post by _delirium »

There used to be a dual-track system, where you could study law by either attending a law school, or apprenticing with an existing practicing lawyer for some set amount of time; and either way you could then take the bar exam to be licensed. Typically people would go the apprentice route to become trial lawyers, and the law-school route to become appellate lawyers or specialists. Seems the apprentice route has either been abolished or fallen into disuse, though.

This article's proposals for reform don't really seem on the mark, though. As this post points out, his suggestion for expanding law-school practical clinics, and staffing them with tenured faculty rather than instructors, is pretty directly contrary to his complaints about the expense of law school, since that would only increase it: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/11/david-segal-on-law-school...

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#12

Post by [deleted] »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #5
powertower wrote: post #3

This isn't just law school related. This applies to every type of college and education system, with few exceptions. The college system does not teach practicality by design . To do that would remove a great deal of profit... Instead of raking in 4-5 years worth of tuition, they would only get 1-2 years. Instead of hiring teachers that can't-do, they would need to find teachers that can-do. Instead of keeping people…

Colleges have never advertised themselves as employee factories. The value-add for college should be in giving people the ability to think for themselves; to figure things out.

[deleted]

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#13

Post by powertower »

marquis wrote: post #10
powertower wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Colleges have never advertised themselves as employee factories. That's exactly how colleges sell themselves. > The value-add for college should be in giving people the ability to think for themselves; to figure things out. And yet they fail.

I had an extraordinary experience at university, though I did not follow the same path professionally. It gave me a grounding in self-responsibility and access to a million kinds of wonders, and while I wish I had taken some CS and mathematics classes as my degree is heavily arts-based, I could pick these things up later auto-didactically (though it's a life long dream to return to get a CS degree). I don't think my…

Then you and your circle of friends are the exception, not the rule.

> it ultimately came down to personal passion to make the most of where you are.

Then you agree with me!

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#14

Post by rdp »

There are many opportunities for practical learning at law schools. Yes, you can go through 3 years of school without learning out to draft a contract. You can also sign up for a clinic or internship or a drafting course.

For better or worse, law school forces students to take responsibility for their learning. Many professors just aren't good at teaching so students often end up teaching themselves a subject. Thus, the gigantic market in study aids. This all hits home when you have to absorb tons and tons of material to take the bar exam.

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#15

Post by _delirium »

DanBC wrote: post #7
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colleges have never advertised themselves as employee factories. The value-add for college should be in giving people the ability to think for themselves; to figure things out.

Why does that have to cost $150,000? Why can't "thinking for yourself" and "figuring things out" be combined with examples from relevant legal systems rather than examples from post-feudal England?

I haven't attended law school, but I've self-studied a few of the casebooks and readers they use, and most examples are contemporary. In fact many profs and book-writers go out of their way to use examples their students will find relevant/entertaining. Sometimes that even gets them into trouble; in a recent case, a law prof was suspended for posing a "colorful" hypothetical about shooting his dean in various combinations of circumstances: http://volokh.com/2011/02/16/criminal-law-professor-suspende...

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#16

Post by marquis »

powertower wrote: post #13
marquis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an extraordinary experience at university, though I did not follow the same path professionally. It gave me a grounding in self-responsibility and access to a million kinds of wonders, and while I wish I had taken some CS and mathematics classes as my degree is heavily arts-based, I could pick these things up later auto-didactically (though it's a life long dream to return to get a CS degree). I don't think my…

Then you and your circle of friends are the exception, not the rule. > it ultimately came down to personal passion to make the most of where you are. Then you agree with me!

I don't downvote comments that spur conversion, please don't assume this. I also don't think I'm the exception: I would say most of my friends thoroughly enjoyed their higher education experience and got a lot out of it more than just learning practical knowledge that furthered their career. What's important about studying after high-school is that you find out that you love learning for the sake of it, with a group of people who are there by choice (unlike high school) and your horizons can be broadened immensely. Am I biased because I took a creative arts degree? Possibly, but I also took science classes and found the energy to learn there to be of the same calibre. On that note also: I didn't study in the U.S. and certainly not at a for-profit school. I concede that the experience may be completely different in other countries (though I've found Europe to be fairly homogenous in regards to their approach to learning: academic over career-oriented).

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#17

Post by yariang »

Few thoughts.

"Another problem he encountered: there are few incentives for law professors to excel at teaching."

As a college student I can attest that this is not just law professors. This is the case in any research-centric university.

The rest of the article reminds me of the debate surrounding Computer Science and Software Engineering. Many people feel that CS degrees do not prepare you to actually code, and that a lot of CS graduates do so without knowing how to write any good code.

If looked at in that light, is it really a problem? The specifics of how law is done might change, the deep insights and theoretical knowledge will always be useful at some level.

To frame it in the computer-science context, which I am more familiar with, if a schools pends four years teaching practical applications of Java and the specifics of the Hadoop framework, the graduates will surely have a lot more practical knowledge right as soon as they begin working. But in ten years if Java is no longer used and Hadoop was superseded by something else, all that knowledge is now useless. In contrast, knowledge of Turing Machines and automata will still be useful, if not for its practical application, for its cultural value and the ability it has to change your thinking about problems.

I think the best way to deal with the lack of practical knowledge is to combine it with actual practice. At Northeastern University, a large percentage of the students do six-month coops where you work full time for those months. It's a way to deliver the best of both worlds. Deep theoretical lecturing mixed with actual real-world work. I have yet to find a downside to it for the average student.

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#18

Post by a3camero »

_delirium wrote: post #11

There used to be a dual-track system, where you could study law by either attending a law school, or apprenticing with an existing practicing lawyer for some set amount of time; and either way you could then take the bar exam to be licensed. Typically people would go the apprentice route to become trial lawyers, and the law-school route to become appellate lawyers or specialists. Seems the apprentice route has either…

This is still technically possible in a few places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law#Modern_practice

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#19

Post by a3camero »

_delirium wrote: post #15
DanBC wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does that have to cost $150,000? Why can't "thinking for yourself" and "figuring things out" be combined with examples from relevant legal systems rather than examples from post-feudal England?

I haven't attended law school, but I've self-studied a few of the casebooks and readers they use, and most examples are contemporary. In fact many profs and book-writers go out of their way to use examples their students will find relevant/entertaining. Sometimes that even gets them into trouble; in a recent case, a law prof was suspended for posing a "colorful" hypothetical about shooting his dean in various combina…

I have never had a law exam question that tested something on outdated law. I'm a third year Cdn. law student but it's probably quite similar.

The old cases are taught because they're still relevant to some principle. A 1600s case about a music hall burning down sounds ridiculous until you realize that "buildings burning down" is still a problem that exists today and that's the origin of the doctrine of frustration.

Re: What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

#20

Post by astral303 »

yariang wrote: post #17

Few thoughts. "Another problem he encountered: there are few incentives for law professors to excel at teaching." As a college student I can attest that this is not just law professors. This is the case in any research-centric university. The rest of the article reminds me of the debate surrounding Computer Science and Software Engineering. Many people feel that CS degrees do not prepare you to actually code, and tha…

Yes, it is really a problem. Unless your career path as a CS graduate is to research more computer science or somehow spend your career only working on the theoretical, it really is a problem that you graduate not knowing how to code.

Learning Hadoop and Java is not the same as "learning software engineering", just the same way that learning quicksort is not the same as "learning computer science."

You're conflating learning a specific language or a tool with learning how to engineer anything more complicated than a one-file program. Software engineering is about understanding why you should care about object orientation--and when you shouldn't. It's about learning how to deliver most value for a given expenditure of time--and how to make sure that value lasts longer (i.e. maintainable code).

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