Comment 1:
from the same NYTimes
article: "'Where do these students go?' says Michael Roster, a former
chairman of the Association of Corporate Counsel and a lecturer at the
University of Southern California Gould School of Law. 'There are
virtually no openings. They can’t hang a shingle and start on their own.
Many of them are now asking their schools, "Why didn’t you teach me how
to practice law?"'"
Comment 2:
... but I am a fervent
believer in interdisciplinary scholarship ... I believe in a triad: (1)
Theory 1 (legal theory); (2) Theory 2 (other theory -- e.g.,
probability, neuroscience, physics, information theory); and (3) Practice (private law practice; drafting
legislation; etc.) ... cf. the statement on my personal web site: "The
Golden Triad: Theory, Law & Technology," http://tillers.net ...
Comment 3:
the same NYTimes article:
"Still others crossbreed law and some other discipline, a variety of
scholarship that seems to especially irk John G. Roberts Jr., chief
justice of the United States. 'Pick up a copy of any law review that you
see,' he said at a conference this summer, 'and the first article is
likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary
approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria, or something, which I’m sure was of
great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn’t of much help to
the bar.'"
This sort of anti-intellectualism is most
unfortunate (and, in the case of Roberts, surprising). The fact is that
_good_ theory is not incompatible with practice. And learning to be a
bit reflective wouldn't be bad for lawyers.
Comment 4:
This is the NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/
www.nytimes.com
Law schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful, leaving law fi...rms fairly resigned to training their hires how to actually practice law.
Comment 5:
Oh, by the way, Mr. Justice
Roberts: Thinking hard about Immanuel Kant's seemingly-odd dictum that
it is better for the world to perish than for one innocent person to
suffer punishment might be a fruitful way to attack the riddle of "proof
beyond a reasonable doubt." It might even be useful to know what befell
a country (Bulgaria? really?) that tried to put Kant's dictum into
practice. (A long-ago conversation with some South American legal
scholars leads me to believe that Chile or Argentina might be a more apt
case study.)
Comment 6:
I am thinking about Roberts
(Justice) and the NYTimes article once again: Why is the debate over
teaching Theory or Practice so simple-minded? Have Justice Roberts and
the NYTimes ever heard of "necessary but not sufficient" or of the
fallacy of the excluded middle? Is it not possible to say (as I
suggest), not only that (some) "theory" is is part of effective training
for law practice, but also that law schools can teach BOTH practice and
"useless" theory, that they can prepare students sufficiently for law
practice even if they devote some energy to teaching stuff that does not
demonstrably improve "practice skills" as commonly understood? If so,
is there not a case for teaching stuff that, e.g., gives law students a
general vision or sense of the nature of the rule of law or the
function(s) of law in society? (Yes, there is.) But I don't want to be a
Pollyanna: It is probably true that there is a tradeoff between teaching
students "useless" theory and teaching them how to be effective members
of the "bar" (in Justice Roberts's sense). But perhaps some tradeoffs
are acceptable for the sake of training "broad-minded" lawyers: perhaps
it's OK to give students a pinch of "useless" theory at the price of a
mote of preparation for law practice, yes? (That being said, law schools
perhaps should not ignore the needs of law practice to the extent that
some of them perhaps do.)
The dynamic evidence page
Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan
It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.
1 comment:
Cf. http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2011/07/sherrilyn-ifill-on-what-the-chief-justice-should-read-on-summer-vacation.html
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