Title: What's Wrong with Langdell's Method, and What to Do about It
Abstract: INTRODUCTION Here we are, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, using a model of legal education that was developed in the latter part of the nineteenth. Since that time, the nature of legal practice has changed, the concept of law has changed, the nature of academic inquiry has changed, and the theory of education has changed. Professional training programs in other fields have been redesigned many times to reflect current practice, theory, and pedagogy, but we legal educators are still doing the same basic thing we were doing one hundred and thirty years ago. Many law professors are conscientious and devoted teachers, and quite a few are inspired ones, but their efforts are constrained and hobbled by an educational model that treats the entire twentieth century as little more than a passing annoyance. There has, of course, been a certain amount of lower-level change in the model of legal education during this period. Law schools have added, although not integrated, clinical programs into the remainder of the curriculum. They have also introduced courses reflecting new developments in law, although they rarely have penetrated the sacrosanct first year. Moreover, the demographics of law schools have kept pace with those of other university departments. Law schools' treat women, minorities, and gays is just as well, and sometimes better than other graduate school programs. Further, discrimination against Jews, which was rampant when the law school program was developed, is barely an institutional memory at present.1 Law school buildings have been regularly refurbished or rebuilt and are often some of the most modern and opulent facilities on campus; they are filled with up-to-date libraries, state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, and sleek internet terminals. But the basic educational approach that law schools use remains essentially unchanged from the one that CC. Langdell introduced at Harvard in the years following the Civil War. Few contemporary legal educators even attempt to offer a rationale for this situation.2 What one sometimes hears is that the current law school curriculum teaches students to think like lawyers.3 Any systematic demonstration that such an outdated approach to legal education develops skills that are central to the very different world of modern legal practice would be interesting to see, but no such demonstration has been offered. More often, the justification for resisting change-if not in print then certainly in faculty meetings and hallway conversations-is this: If it ain't broke, don't fix Apparently, the primary indication that law schools are not broke is that they have managed to place themselves astride the entrance to a highly prestigious, influential, and lucrative profession, and thus can teach whatever they want and maintain their economic viability. However, this fortunate position hardly justifies the retention of an educational approach that has not been re-thought for a century, and that undermines the best efforts of its practitioners, including those who attempt to defend it. The great irony of modern legal education is that it is not only out of date, but that it was out of date one hundred years ago. The 1880s and 1890s were a period of enormous social and intellectual change in the United States and, more generally, Western society. New modes of governance, concepts of law, academic disciplines, and theories of education all made their appearances at this time, each shaping and inspiring the modern era. Langdell's design for legal education, although innovative in its own time and on its own terms, is more closely connected to modes of thought that prevailed in the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and ancient Greece and Rome than to our current ways of thinking. Admittedly, it may be unreasonable to expect people to be entirely au courant. New developments do not always last, and new ideas do not always prevail; events that seem significant when viewed through that marvelous instrument that doctors call a retrospectiscope often seem unreliable or insignificant at the time they first appear. …
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 46
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