Who Said Law School Cannot be Taught this Way?

Unlike how it is done in most other disciplines where the professor lectures in class and students take notes, learning the law in a Law School classroom is very different. In fact, to the uninitiated soul the process can be extremely intimidating or outright terrifying.

In Law School, the law is taught by employing a teaching method called the “Socratic Method.” This technique was invented by the great Greek philosopher, Socrates. Socrates taught his students by asking them a series of targeted questions and allowed them to recognize flaws in their arguments based on their given answers. For many of his students, like Mino, this was very difficult to endure.

The “Socratic Method” is challenging for many because it requires the student to think on his/her feet, while responding to a barrage of questions from the professor. Depending on the professor and the subject matter the questions can go on for one minute, or even for the entire duration of the class.

This semester, however, I was able to escape the inherent tribulation of the “Socratic Method,” in at least one of my classes. I am enrolled in a class called “Lessons of Litigation,” which is taught by Judge Bruce Selya, a senior judge on the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The judge does not employ the Socratic Method in his class. Instead, he lectures, and we take notes. We ask questions, and he answers our questions. At the end of the day we are supposed to learn two things:

1. How to avoid mistakes commonly made by practicing attorneys (hence, “Lessons of Litigation"), and
2. How to be more effective in the art of litigation upon graduation.

We learn about the subject matter only by reading his written opinions each week and listening to the in-class lectures. For example, we have worked on justiciability doctrines, pleading, motions, jurisdiction, venue, and the process of selecting juries for trial. Although these subjects are tradditionally covered in a course on Federal Civil Procedure, they are heavily re-enforced by the judge by having us read his opinions and assisting us to recognize the deficiencies in the cases that caused him to decide one way or another.

We also learned how to interact with judges in court, how to follow judges directions, and overall, how to avoid being sued by clients for malpractice!

In other words, the emphasis is placed on the practical aspect of litigation rather than on the theoretical aspect of the study of law which is achieved by using the Socratic Method. As a future litigator, this class has been my favorite in Law School thus far.

So, let me ask for a second time: Who said Law School cannot be taught this way?